By Phillip Swann
The TV Answer Man –Follow me on X.
TV Answer Man, we never hear anything about U-verse. Is DIRECTV or AT&T done with it? Are they going to shut it down this year once and for all? — David, Hermosa Beach, California.
David, believe it or not, U-verse, the fiber optic TV service, turns 18 this year. AT&T launched it in June of 2006. But you’re right that you rarely hear about it. AT&T announced in 2020 that it would no longer take new subscribers for U-verse, but it continues to operate, now under DIRECTV. (U-verse became part of the new DIRECTV unit when AT&T sold a minority stake of DIRECTV, DIRECTV Stream and U-verse to a private equity firm.)
We don’t know how many subscribers that U-verse still has since DIRECTV no longer reports subscriber numbers. But my best guess is around one million, which would be about a quarter of what it had five years ago.
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With relatively few subscribers now, you might think that DIRECTV would begin to phase it out and try to convert the remaining U-verse customers to DIRECTV Stream. Well, DIRECTV has tried to persuade the U-verse subs to switch to streaming but the effort has been a huge failure. Both U-verse and DIRECTV Stream have lost subscribers in the last few years.
Over the years, there have been a few news reports saying that AT&T or DIRECTV is ‘shutting down’ U-verse. However, there is no indication that will happen anytime soon. DIRECTV, which has lost 14 million subscribers in the last nine years, doesn’t want to pull the plug on even one million customers. They need every sub they can get.
So for now, U-verse is alive (if not well), and it appears that will continue indefinitely.
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The TV Answer Man is veteran journalist Phillip Swann who has covered the TV technology scene for more than three decades. He will report on the latest news and answer your questions regarding new devices and services that are changing the way you watch television. See the bio for Phillip Swann here.
