DirecTV Now helped AT&T turn around its shrinking video business
It's been clear for a while that DirecTV Now is keeping AT&T's TV subscriber numbers in the black , but it's now apparent just how much it's turning around its once-ailing video services. The telecom has posted second quarter earnings revealing that DirecTV Now added 342,000 subscribers in the spring, turning last year's 199,000-subscriber loss for AT&T's Entertainment Group into an 80,000-us er gain. The telecom isn't shy about what that means -- its video customer base was "stable" thanks to internet viewership. The growth helped DirecTV Now reach 1.8 million total customers -- about a million more than it had at the end of summer 2017. AT&T only just launched its low-cost WatchTV service at the very tail end of the quarter, so it didn't have enough time to provide a meaningful result. Internet viewers s...