AT&T Ramps up Marketing for DirecTV Now After Growth Slump

AT&T's initial success with its live TV streaming service DirecTV Now sputtered earlier this year, according to a May report by Bloomberg. Two months after it was unveiled, AT&T's streaming service had surged to about 328,000 subscribers, sources tell the website. But the service actually lost 3,000 customers in February, and subscriber growth was largely flat in March, those same sources claim.

AT&T didn't comment on the report, but there's some indication that at least part of the slowdown was self-inflicted. The company appears to have scaled back promotions for the service after its initial success, concerned that it could cannibalize the company's existing DirecTV Now subscriber base.

At a recent investor conference, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson said DirecTV Now initially "caught fire" at a rate that was "much faster than we were wanting to go." "And so, we’ve kind of pulled back," added the CEO.

That was then, this is now. AT&T this week launched a new DirecTV Now media campaign in the hopes of driving adoption of the streaming service, which users state has definitely improved since some of the early technical glitches and problems that plagued it.

"This marks the first time we’ve dedicated an entire national advertising campaign to DirecTV Now," AT&T says of the ads. "In our previous campaign starring Mark Wahlberg, we had one spot dedicated to DirecTV Now. This campaign is completely dedicated to showing the benefits of the service."