It looks like AT&T TV could soon end up being rebranded as “DirecTV Stream.” Although AT&T has yet to confirm whether its live TV streaming service will become DirecTV Stream, some users have already started noticing references to the new name. Furthermore, there are additional DirecTV Stream traces online which do seem to suggest the change is more than likely going to happen.
AT&T’s live TV streaming service has been known by many names over the years. Originally launched as DirecTV Now back in 2016, the service eventually went on to become AT&T TV Now. Some time afterwards, AT&T launched AT&T TV as a sort of streaming replacement for its traditional TV customers. AT&T TV and AT&T TV Now existed alongside each other for a while, before AT&T TV was eventually absorbed by AT&T TV in January of this year.
Now it looks like another name change could be on the horizon. Subscribers have recently noticed a reference to DirecTV Stream on the AT&T website. Posted to Reddit, a screenshot specifically lists a link for “Explore add-ons you can get for DirecTV Stream.” However, the link itself carries through to an add-ons page for AT&T TV. Adding to this, there are other traces online that can be found. Firstly, a USPTO trademark for DirecTV Stream was filed by DirecTV in October of last year. The filing description explains the trademark is in relation to providing “streaming audio and video content to a variety of network devices” including set-top boxes and televisions.
In addition, there are other references to the name that we’ve managed to find online, further suggesting that AT&T TV is set to become DirecTV Stream at some point. For reference, most of the pages are not live, but cached versions remain accessible and, in every case, AT&T TV has been directly swapped out with DirecTV Stream.
The rest of the details on the page remain exactly the same, with the name change the only difference.
Again, there are multiple instances of the difference in name available. For example, here’s another taken from the current AT&T cloud DVR support page.
And here is a cached version of the same page.
Earlier in 2021, AT&T confirmed that it had struck a deal with TPG Capital to spin DirecTV off into its own “New DIRECTV” company. AT&T will own a major part of the standalone company, and New DIRECTV will assume operations for all of AT&T’s U.S. video businesses, including AT&T TV, DirecTV, and U-verse. Since then, AT&T has also removed the option for subscribers to sign up to AT&T TV two-year contracts. In other words, AT&T TV now only offers new customers the option to sign up to the no contract streaming versions of the same plans.
In the February announcement detailing the New DirecTV deal, AT&T spoke about the “seamless customer transition” and went on to explain how all “AT&T video subscribers will become New DIRECTV customers.” With the New DirecTV deal having only been announced this year, the trademark for DirecTV Stream only filed late last year, and the various references to DirecTV Stream that can be found online, it looks increasingly likely that once the deal closes and takes effect, AT&T TV will be rebranded as DirecTV Stream.
Leave a Reply