AT&T’s CEO, Randall Stephenson was talking to CNBC this morning, following the close of the company’s merger with Time Warner last night. Stephenson talked about the “very, very skinny” bundle that has been rumored for many months now, which at one point was called “AT&T Watch”, and stated that it will be launching next week. The bundle will be free to its mobile customers, and cost around $15/month for those on other platforms.
The new service, is going to be called “AT&T Watch TV” and it will be ad-supported. Stephenson noted that the company will be ramping up its advertising platform pretty soon. AT&T will also be making some smaller acquisitions in the coming weeks to bolster its advertising division – similar to what Verizon has done with AOL and Yahoo. This isn’t the first time Stephenson has spoken about this service, he actually mentioned it while he was testifying in AT&T’s case with the Justice Department, which just ended this week. This service is going to be in addition to its DIRECTV NOW streaming service, and also be a bit cheaper so it can add more customers. This is similar to what Verizon has done with Go90, and it’s likely that AT&T will fill it up with some original content as well.
This is all in light of the Judge’s ruling on the Time Warner acquisition earlier this week, where Judge Leon ruled that AT&T could acquire Time Warner and do so without any conditions. Dealing a big blow to the Justice Department in the process. After that, AT&T moved pretty quickly to close the merger and did so last night. AT&T has already been offering up HBO for free to its customers, and now it plans to add AT&T Watch TV to its perks for its customers, which is a nice addition. We’re still waiting on more details on this new service from AT&T however.