DirecTV Stream is still a thing. And the reason we know that — despite almost certainly being the least popular of the live services available in the U.S. — is because it just raised its already more-expensive-than-most pricing.
Here’s the way things now break down:
- Entertainment: The least-expensive plan with more than 75 channels goes from $70 to $80 a month.
- Choice: The next-highest plan starts at 105 channels and goes from $90 to $109 a month.
- Ultimate: The 140-channel-plus plan goes from $105 to $120 a month.
- Premier: The top plan has more than $150 channels and throws in Max, Starz, Cinemax, and Showtime, but goes from $150 to $165 a month.
None of that is comparatively inexpensive. YouTube TV, for example, with its more than 5 million subscribers currently costs $73 a month for more than 100 channels. Hulu With Live TV, the next-biggest service at about 4 million subscribers, hits at $70 a month.
We don’t actually know how big (or small) DirecTV is anymore. The service has changed hands a few times over the years and hasn’t given any sort of subscriber numbers since it left the AT&T umbrella. By last count, at the end of 2020, DirecTV Stream (which was still known as AT&T TV) had some 656,000 subscribers, a number that had continuously dwindled since the third quarter of 2018, when it had about 1.84 million subscribers.
Still, it doesn’t appear that DirecTV Stream is going anywhere anytime soon, and that makes sense given that it’s essentially the streaming arm of the legacy satellite TV service.
It is, however, much more expensive than any of the alternatives.
