AT&T, prepping a new effort to offset declines in its traditional pay-TV biz, plans to test a “thin” streaming set-top box and service in the first half of 2019 aimed at improving the profitability of its TV bundles.
Variety first reported on the set-top box a year ago (pictured above), a wireless device that runs Google’s Android TV platform and was described as supporting 4K video.
An AT&T spokeswoman declined to provide additional information on the set-top or the package of content that will be offered through it.
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The move comes as AT&T’s pay-TV business keeps deteriorating — and the DirecTV Now over-the-top TV package fails to make up for the cord-cutting losses.
For Q3, the telco lost 346,000 DirecTV satellite and AT&T Uverse video customers and added a net 49,000 customers for DirecTV Now (which stood at 1.86 million subscribers at the end of the quarter). In July, DirecTV Now raised the price of its bundles by $5 per month. Donovan told analysts that with the price hike, “We actually expected a far worse outcome than we had.”
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