AT&T is planning to formally launch DirecTV Now, its new mobile streaming solution, on Monday in a move analysts said could finally help investors make the connection to understand the carrier’s Time Warner merger.
According to Wells Fargo Senior Analyst Jennifer Fritzsche, today’s launch “could lay the foundation of investors getting the planned acquisition of Time Warner that much more.”
Unlike many investors, who have yet to really understand the impetus behind AT&T’s Time Warner move, Fritzsche said the firm’s “feet on the street” sources “very much get the logic.” What they get, Fritzsche wrote, is that the carriers exist in the gap between content creators and content consumers. And as more viewership switches to mobile rather than cable, wireless carriers will be able to fill the need for both wireless service and video.
“With TWX, T can leverage the many content delivery platforms it will now have and drive more eyeballs (and usage) to its wireless network. With its growing scale, T will be able to sell a product which increases the value of its fixed asset network and offers a differentiated product to the customers it currently has (and hopefully give a carrot to other non-customers to come to them),” Fritzsche said. “It is clear to us that linear TV and traditional wireless are flat lining/ declining. It is also clear that media consumption is changing at a fast clip. If rolled out correctly, with TWX, T would have a superb set of assets to take advantage of the ‘new normal’, which seems to be coming down the pike fast and furiously.”
So far, details on the new offering have been scant. AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson has said only the service will be offered at a budget-friendly $35 per month, will include 100 channels, and offer zero-rated data for AT&T customers using the app.
Wireless Week is set to be at the launch event later today, so be sure to stay tuned for more details.