AT&T's New Live 'WatchTV' Service Launches on iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV

Friday June 29, 2018 6:36 AM PDT by Mitchel Broussard
One week after unveiling its new live streaming service "WatchTV," AT&T has now begun rolling out the platform's app on fourth-generation and fifth-generation Apple TV boxes, as well as on iOS [Direct Link] (via BestAppleTV). The service is a free add-on for anyone on AT&T's new "Unlimited &More" and "Unlimited &More Premium" cellular plans, and is also available as a $15/month service for everyone else.


Like a few other live TV platforms, WatchTV includes just over 30 channels that you can stream live, including breaking news and film channels (but not sports). The service has 15,000 titles available to watch on demand, and subscribers to AT&T's new &More Premium phone plan will be able to add one of several premium services for no extra charge: HBO, SHOWTIME, Cinemax, Starz, Amazon Music Unlimited, Pandora Premium, or VRV.

The full list of channels on WatchTV includes:
  • A&E
  • AMC
  • Animal Planet
  • Audience
  • BBC World News
  • BBC America
  • Boomerang
  • Cartoon Network
  • CNN
  • Discovery
  • Food Network
  • FYI
  • Hallmark Channel
  • Hallmark Movies & Mysteries
  • HGTV
  • History
  • HLN
  • IFC
  • Investigation Discovery
  • Lifetime
  • Lifetime Movies
  • OWN
  • Sundance TV
  • TBS
  • TCM
  • TLC
  • TNT
  • TRU TV
  • Velocity
  • Viceland
  • WE TV
Channels coming soon after launch include:
  • BET
  • Comedy Central
  • MTV 2
  • Nicktoons
  • Teennick
  • VH1
Users can stream on up to two devices at the same time, but WatchTV does not have a cloud DVR feature or any local news stations. Other than tvOS and iOS, the app is out now on Android, Amazon Fire TV, and Google Chromecast.


WatchTV is a direct result of AT&T's acquisition of Time Warner, with many of the channels on the service falling under the Time Warner umbrella. This week, the company raised the price of of the "administrative fee" it charges customers, which was speculated as a move to offset the debt incurred by its $85.4 billion purchase of Time Warner, although AT&T denied that by stating the administrative fee price is "standard" across the wireless industry.

Tag: AT&T
42 comments

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rizzo41999
18 months ago
Youtube TV all the way
Rating: 5 Votes
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Saipher
18 months ago
What's up with AT&T's TV service fragmentation? DirectTV Now, U-Verse and now WatchTV. Why can't they have their TV service under one name and call it a day? :rolleyes:
Rating: 3 Votes
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_Refurbished_
18 months ago
“Free add-on”.

Ain’t nothing free.
Rating: 3 Votes
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coachgq
18 months ago
if that’s $15, each channel is about 50 cents? Let me pick my channels at .50 each and add sports channels at $1 each and I’ll be happy to subscribe.
Rating: 2 Votes
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riverfreak
18 months ago
Maybe it’s just me, but it seems bizarre to have to watch a broadcast of prerecorded content at a specific time. It’s even more so to do it on an infrastructure that should easily you to watch whenever you want. I don’t want to WatchTV, I want to stream it.
Rating: 2 Votes
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err404
18 months ago
Live TV? No thanks.
And ironically it does not include sports, which is perhaps the only reason to want to watch live.
Rating: 2 Votes
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oneMadRssn
18 months ago
Hey do you want to pay for the privilege of watching a bunch of low-budget garbage with product placement everywhere, and with about 1/3 of every hour being straight up advertisements?
Rating: 2 Votes
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_Refurbished_
18 months ago

What’s the difference between this and Directv Now?

Cheaper and positioned to be included with wireless plans.

They should have created a lower tier DTVNow that’s $15 and removed the confusion.
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What's up with AT&T's TV service fragmentation? DirectTV Now, U-Verse and now WatchTV. Why can't they have their TV service under one name and call it a day? :rolleyes:

That would make too much sense. Kind of like olives in a supermarket.....not with the canned vegetables and I can never find them. Life. Meh.
Rating: 2 Votes
Avatar
Maze1967
18 months ago

“Free add-on”.

Ain’t nothing free.


Didn't their admin fee just more than double on cell phone bills... Coincidence????
Rating: 1 Votes
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GT500SC
18 months ago

I have the “Unlimited Choice” plan (the cheaper of the two just-expired plans). I get free HBO (that’s gone in the cheaper &More plan) and I can watch all those channels and more with my discounted DTVN account. Plus it’s $5 more for two phones. No thanks.


Same here. $20/month after discount for live local channels and several more we rarely watch. It also enables access to other channels' streaming apps.

Only bad part about it is the DTVN app is about the worst app I've ever used. Way too many clicks to do anything, the guide is horrendous, and audio gets weird at times.

Other than that I've been pretty pleased with my decision to dump DirecTV and save over $100/month.
Rating: 1 Votes
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