DirecTV will lay off 10% of its management staff on Jan. 20, a spokesperson confirmed to TechGround.
DirecTV is among several pay-TV companies dealing with customers shifting away from linear TV to streaming. Although DirecTV no longer publishes subscriber figures, Fitch Ratings estimated that in Q3 2022 it lost 500K subs, bringing its total to 13.3M—lower than Comcast’s 16.6M video subscribers. In September Bloomberg reported that Comcast plans to reduce $1B in its traditional TV network division too.
“The pay-TV industry is being challenged by declining viewership and rising programming costs,” a DirecTV spokesperson noted. “We’re responding to these changes with cost adjustments while still investing in new entertainment products and service improvements.”
DirecTV offers its traditional satellite TV service as well as DirectTV Stream, the company’s streaming business. CNBC recently reported on DirecTV’s layoffs, noting that fewer than half of the workforce is comprised of management staff.
In July 2022, streaming had a 34.8% share of total TV viewing in the U.S., while cable and broadcast viewership continued to decline (34.4% and 21.6%, respectively). By October 2022, Leichtman Research Group estimated that only two-thirds of households (66%) still had pay-TV service–a drop of 79% since 2017.
DirecTV likely saw a downturn in subscribers after losing the rights to NFL’s “Sunday Ticket.” Fans were left frustrated when the website and app crashed during opening weekend last year, which marked DirecTV’s final year as its exclusive home.
YouTube won the “Sunday Ticket” last month.
