DirecTV Now Vs. Sling TV Vs. Sony Vue: Which Service Has The Most Subscribers?

AT&T’s streaming television service DirecTV Now has only been available for a month, but it has already amassed more than 200,000 subscribers according to a filing sent to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday.

The filing from AT&T doesn’t offer an exact figure as to how many subscribers the service amassed, but does note the report of “more than 200,000” includes only paying subscribers and not those who took advantage of the service’s free trial offer.

It’s likely DirecTV Now has expanded its subscriber base since the filing, as the report includes just the month of December and cuts off before the New Year.

The reported number does include those who took advantage of AT&T discounted package that offered over a package of more than 100 channels for $35 per month—the price charged for a more limited, 60 channel package. The deal, offered at launch, was extended through Jan. 9 by the company before bumping the 100 channel offering back up to $60.

Even as AT&T has amassed subscribers to its service, DirecTV Now has been plagued with problems. Its launch was particularly rough, with users complaining about channels they pay for being blacked out and trial memberships being rejected. Others found themselves unable to stream at all thanks to an error that made it appear they were already streaming in another location.

Users have continued to experience technical issues and unexpected outages with surprising regularity since the service became available.

The quick accumulation of subscribers bodes well for AT&T as it tries to establish itself in the streaming television market.

Its biggest competitor, Sling TV from Dish, launched in February 2015 and reported having 169,000 subscribers after its first month of operations. In October 2016, Sling TV broke the one million subscriber barrier —though it fell short of its expected growth during the year after its number of new subscribers stagnated for a period.

A smaller player in the field, Sony Vue, has about 100,000 subscribers, according to a 2016 report from Bloomberg. That figure may have declined after an announcement in November that the service was dropping Viacom channels such as MTV, Comedy Central and Nickelodeon.

In July 2016, CBS revealed its over-the-top services with live and on-demand content had amassed over two million total subscribers, with about one million subscribed to CBS All Access and another million subscribed to Showtime.