AT&T Is Launching A $15-A-Month TV Streaming Service

On Thursday, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson was in court giving testimony related to the company's lawsuit against the Justice Department. While a lot of what he said wasn't a surprise, he did reveal that AT&T is preparing to launch a non-sports skinny bundle cable TV package.

The package will apparently cost $15 per month and while there weren't a lot of details, one thing Stephensen did reveal was that it won't include any sports.

AT&T already offers a $35 per month DirecTV Now bundle, which includes some sports in its base tier. But the new service would target viewers who aren't interested in sports and are looking for an entry level service.

While there's no word on what the channel lineup might look like, it's likely to look similar to the non-sports skinny bundle offered by Philo TV. Philo launched its service late last year and it offers 37 entertainment-only channels for $16 and an additional 9 channels for $4 more per month.

The challenge any company has putting together a non-sports skinny bundle is that the media companies who own the major sports networks also own a number of well-known entertainment and news channels. And they won't allow services to carry the entertainment networks without also carrying the more expensive sports channels. So no ESPN means no Disney/Disney XD/Freeform; no NBC Sports means no Bravo/Syfy/USA/Oxygen and no Fox Sports means no FX/FXX/FXM/Nat Geo.

But even with those networks off the table for now, a service like Philo is able to offer networks owned by Viacom, Discovery/Scripps, Crown Media and AMC Networks. That includes a large number of familiar entertainment networks.

The big advantage AT&T has over Philo TV is that at a $15 monthly pricepoint, it can probably offer the entertainment-only service free to mobile customers, which makes for an attractive deal for consumers.