AT&T raises the price of its streaming service AT&T TV Now, with the basic Plus package up $15 to a $65/month; the move follows a similar increase in March
- TV Now service will rise to $80 a month for 65 channels — Phone giant is under pressure from activist to boost returns
Context & Ripple Effects
AT&T TV Now began life in 2016 as DirecTV Now, a loss-leader priced at $35 a month for 100+ channels to pull cord-cutters into the fold. Two years later the company raised prices by $5 — awkward given that in its Time Warner merger defense AT&T had told a court the deal would enable the merged company to reduce prices.
The new move is steeper and faster: just months after a March increase, the Plus tier jumps another $15 to $65 and the top package hits $80. With an activist investor pressing AT&T to boost returns, the streaming service has flipped from customer-acquisition tool to margin engine.
First-order effects
- Subscribers on the entry Plus package now pay $65 a month — nearly double the 2016 launch price — and the 65-channel tier reaches $80, directly hitting the price-sensitive cord-cutters the service was built to attract.
Second-order effects
- Rivals gain pricing cover: YouTube TV's later move to $65 a month on 'rising content costs' shows the whole virtual-MVPD field converging on the same number, easing the churn risk each individual hike carries.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, streaming TV bundles lose their structural discount to cable and become cable-priced substitutes — pushing cost-driven viewers toward cheaper single-genre services or piracy rather than keeping them inside any bundle.
The trend: Virtual MVPDs are abandoning launch-era discounting and repricing toward traditional cable levels as content costs and shareholder-return pressure outweigh subscriber growth.