This week on TechHive: Cancelling DirecTV Stream just got harder

Jared Newman
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October 15, 2021
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Convenient online cancellation has always been one of cord cutting’s greatest perks. Whether you’re cancelling Netflix, Hulu, YouTube TV, or Philo, you never have to pick up the phone or deal with annoying customer service representatives to get rid of your service.

DirecTV Stream, formerly known as AT&T TV, AT&T Now, and DirecTV Now, has become the exception. In recent weeks, DirecTV quietly changed its policies so that most new customers can only stop service though an online chat, while some existing customers must call a customer service number to cancel. Easy online cancellation only remains available for some legacy subscribers and for customers in New York and California, where state laws require fewer hoops to jump through.

It didn’t used to be this way. Back when the service was called DirecTV Now, any customer could cancel online just by clicking a button, and that practice continued for several years as the service went through numerous name changes. But now that AT&T has spun off DirecTV into a separate company that’s focused on pay TV bundles, it’s fallen back onto sleazy satellite TV tactics to retain subscribers. Read the full column on TechHive.

Weekly rewind

Roku Streaming Stick 4K review: Also over on TechHive this week, I reviewed Roku’s new $50 streaming dongle, the Streaming Stick 4K. This one’s an easy recommendation thanks to its fast and fluid interface along with the way Roku gets a lot of the little details right. I also found that it gets better Wi-Fi reception than Roku’s other budget streamers, and it can play Dolby Vision HDR content on compatible TVs.

Roku could still make discovering and tracking shows a lot easier, and the Streaming Stick 4K’s lack of Dolby Atmos and wired ethernet could make a dealbreaker for some folks. But it’s a great option overall you want to buy a streaming device without thinking too hard about it.

Regional sports streaming drama: Sinclair‘s chances of launching a regional sports streaming service next year are looking dicey in light of comments by MLB commissioner Rob Manfred. Speaking at an industry conference, Manfred claimed that Sinclair doesn’t have enough local streaming rights to make such a service viable, nor does it have rights around gambling, which Sinclair has pitched as the centerpiece of the whole endeavor. He added that for any service that does let people stream in-market baseball games, MLB wants to “own and control the platform.”

Of course, that could all be sabre rattling—or, dare I say, hardball—on Manfred’s part as the two sides try to work out a deal. But the fact that this is all spilling out in public shows how frantic the situation has become. The regional sports business is collapsing, Sinclair’s Diamond Sports Group is reportedly in danger of bankruptcy, and yet the only way cord cutters can watch Sinclair’s channels is through DirecTV Stream, a service so unconfident in itself that it makes cancellation needlessly difficult. This is an untenable situation, but at least there’s some entertainment value in watching it all play out.

More catch-up

Save more money

As The Streamable reports, YouTube TV is currently offering extended discounts for new subscribers, including savings of $10 per month for 12 months in some cases. Sure enough, I was able to open the YouTube TV website in a private browser window and see an offer of $55 per month for a year, with no contract. That may be worth creating a new Google account to get if you’re in the market for a live TV streaming bundle.

On the streaming device front, Walmart’s Onn UHD Streaming Device has dropped to $20, for a $10 discount off the original price. I thought this was a surprisingly great 4K HDR streaming box, with good enough performance and a feature-packed remote, and I’m a fan of Google’s Android TV software, which does a nice job helping you discover shows and add them to your watchlist.

A couple other notable deals:

  • The Tablo Quad 1 TB over-the-air DVR is on sale for $209, down from $240. (Here’s my review of a similar model without built-in storage.)
  • New Peacock Premium subscribers can get six months for $21—down from the usual $30—with the promo code TODAY30.

Thanks for reading!

Special thanks to all the DirecTV Stream subscribers who responded to my call for help in last week’s newsletter; your feedback made this week’s TechHive column possible.

Let me know if you’ve got Roku Streaming Stick 4K questions that weren’t answered in my review. Same goes with Amazon’s Fire TV 4K Max, which is next up in the review queue. And as always, feel free to reply to this email with any other cord cutting questions you might have.

Until next week,

Jared