Investor Lawsuit Accuses AT&T Of Downplaying Streaming Video Losses
from the nothing-to-see-here dept
So we’ve noted how AT&T’s latest round of merger mania isn’t providing quite the returns the company expected. After spending $67 billion to buy DirecTV and another $86 billion to acquire Time Warner, AT&T had hoped to become a juggernaut in the internet video and online advertising space. But those efforts haven’t gone quite according to plan. The company has been losing both traditional TV (DirecTV, IPTV) and streaming video (DirecTV Now) customers at an alarming rate, thanks largely due to AT&T price hikes imposed to try and recoup the massive debt load AT&T acquired during its fit of merger mania.
A new lawsuit (pdf) is now complicating AT&T’s ambitions further. The lawsuit, filed last week in US District Court for the Southern District of New York, accuses AT&T executives like CEO Randall Stephenson of violating the US Securities Act by “knowingly or recklessly” making false statements to investors by failing to disclose that the company’s DirecTV Now streaming platform wasn’t doing all that well.
More specifically, the lawsuit accuses AT&T of issuing press releases, filings, and other public statements that actively downplayed or omitted the fact that the company’s streaming customers were headed for the exits (267,000 in Q4 alone), in large part thanks to several rounds of rate hikes on the company’s DirecTV Now streaming platform.
The firm backing the lawsuit focuses specifically on the June 2018 registration statement issued in connection with the stock issuance during the Time Warner Merger, which proclaimed that the losses AT&T was seeing on the traditional TV front (DirecTV) weren’t that big of a deal because they’d be offset by growth at the company’s new streaming service. Omitted was the fact that price hikes were actually driving subscribers away, resulting in the company’s stock taking a notable dive when the collective video losses were formally announced in October of 2018:
“AT&T’s registration statement touted yearly and quarterly growth trends… including quarterly subscriber gains in its DirecTV Now service sufficient to offset any decrease in traditional satellite DirecTV subscribers, such that AT&T was experiencing an ongoing trend of total video subscriber ‘net additions,'” the complaint said.
But in reality, “DirecTV Now subscribers were leaving (i.e., not renewing) as soon as their promotional discount periods expired, while at the same time new potential DirecTV Now customers were unwilling to pay the higher prices and therefore not subscribing at all,” the complaint said. By the time AT&T bought Time Warner, “AT&T’s reported ‘net additions’ growth trend was already reversing into a severe ‘net loss.'”
Like Verizon, AT&T had hoped to pivot from stodgy old telco to sexy new online Millennial advertising juggernaut. But also like Verizon, AT&T executives tend to have a worldview crafted by decades as a government-pampered monopoly, resulting in market behaviors that don’t always make sense in context. Like hiking prices on your new streaming service in the wake of soaring video competition (despite having just received a $20 billion tax cut), for example. Or buying a satellite TV provider on the eve of the cord cutting revolution, as another example.
All told, consumers are pissed at AT&T because of rate hikes and the company’s frontal assault on net neutrality. Competitors are pissed at AT&T because it immediately began using its Time Warner acquisition as a weapon to drive up the cost of “must have” channels like HBO. And investors are pissed because these deals were supposed to revolutionize AT&T’s business, not result in soaring debt and subscriber declines. All in all, not quite the televised revolution AT&T had promised anybody in the chain.
Filed Under: losses, streaming video
Companies: at&t
Comments on “Investor Lawsuit Accuses AT&T Of Downplaying Streaming Video Losses”
5B will solve all the world problems, end war, eradicate debt...
AT&T’s new 5B plan will solve all the problems (not just for AT&T but for the WORLD)…
What is 5B you ask, why it’s the next gen of 4B… I know circular logic is circular, so in the beginning Ma Bell crafted the first Telecom Bullshit bill (TBB or THE B) which somehow convinced politicians (by shoving enough $$ in their pockets) that allowing a MONOPOLY on communication was somehow a good idea (Thus telecom competition was eliminated, and all was well in telecomland for another day).
After Ma Bell was broken up into the baby bells, the next big B (2B or twice the bullshit, for those keeping track) was the lie that the ‘telephone companies’ could somehow ‘own’ the space on PUBLIC poles on public and private property just because they hung a couple wires on them… Thus telecom competition was crippled with monotonous paperwork and effort to connect to every single pole (something the original telecom companies did NOT have to do).
But they had experienced Nirvana (aks Monopoly) and nothing could stop them from trying to re-acquire that holy grail. Thus the next years had rounds of consolidations, buy-outs, mergers, and such, which was the era of 3B, and while 4 "major" companies was closer to a monopoly, they were not quite there yet, so the next round started.
The 4B era was comprised of multiple billion dollar mergers, acquisitions, and take-overs as the telecom industry continues to try and re-establish the monopoly position they had back in the 40’s and 50’s. Through various horizontal and vertical integrations (TV, cable, streaming services, etc) the big 4 continued to push for merger until there were only 3.
And this brings us to where we are today: 5B
To recap and summarize (or the TLDR version):
1.Telecom – Spouts Bullshit and politicians debate
2.Telecom – Spouts Bullshit and politicians listen
3.Telecom – Spouts Bullshit and politicians jump
4.Telecom – Spouts Bullshit and politicians act
5.Telecom – All your base are belong to us… or "we have achieved 5B"
Re: 5B will solve all the world problems, end war, eradicate deb
6B – Profit!
What goes around, comes around
With any luck, AT&T will get their collective asses kicked by the people the consider more holy than their customers. Their investors.
Of course, if the SEC gets involved, we should expect nothing to happen.
AT&T decided in it’s greed to up it’s rates for it’s internet. Not fibre, not cable, but DSL. The speeds are terrible and getting service is even worse. I’ve given up on them since finding a competitor that offers 20 times the speed at the same price.
I got a new ISP and then called to cancel service. Of course the retention personal get the call. Only thing is I want to cancel before their latest gouge of no longer doing pro-rating when you terminate an account. Their latest move is to take the whole month in charges no matter when you cancelled in the month. You cancel the first day of the billing cycle you get charged a whole month you didn’t get.
Screw that, I’m not paying for their mergers. They made the debt, they can pay the debt but increasing my costs with nothing in return doesn’t cut it.
I now have a new ISP for that very reason. I’m tired of the hoops to jump through, necessary to get anything done. That includes last year of a full 2 months of no service when they upgraded the neighborhood. Only they forgot to hook me back up and it took all that time just to get them to come fix their screw up. It took me pulling the modem/router and telling them they can’t test it because I’m there to cancel the account before they could actually send any one to come check.
Yes sir, the very best of service. And after the neighborhood upgrade? Absolutely no difference in speed. So paying more for no better, lack of adequate tech service, and BS has cost them a long time customer who isn’t coming back…ever. Offering a free month or two of service in liu of a lack of internet doesn’t cut it when you are paying for service you aren’t getting. More free means nothing when you have nothing.
I guess transport "tax" is what passes for competition in the… whatever you call this sector now. It isn’t market competition, just cash grabbing. Wonder how long it will be before there is a single internet/telco/entertainment monopoly power, or one of them wins the greater share of transport rent-seeking opportunities and the others finally whine for the FCC or Congress to resurrect and enforce the relevant bit of net neutrality.
SAY after me....
TOLD YA Sooo…
You Say You Want A Revolution
“All in all, not quite the televised revolution AT&T had promised anybody in the chain.”
But, as everybody knows, the revolution will not be televised.
Re: You Say You Want A Revolution
" the revolution will not be televised."
Thats because Television will be Revolutionised!!!
Two executives from AT&T decided that they were going to go shopping and fill up their corporate pickup truck with video and advertising opportunities. They drove all across the globe and found several opportunities. They spent 67 and 86 billion and were quite pleased. They found that the income generated was not adequate to cover the costs of these acquisitions.
No problem for these geniuses came to the resounding conclusion to their problem was just that they needed to generate more income. Adding even more acquisitions should quickly run up the overall income generated.