An analysis of DirecTV’s NOW low-cost US pay-TV bundle shows that any gains made last year have all but evaporated in the past few months.

DirecTV NOW reported on April 24th that it had lost 83,000 customers since January. It still has some 1.5 million subscribers on its books, about the same number as a year ago. Officially, its churn shows that some 350,000 clients have walked since October when NOW hit its subscriber peak.

CEO Randall Stephenson told analysts: “Second quarter you’ll see that [loss] moderate, and I actually believe second half of the year base of what we’re seeing in terms of uptake in the market on the new platform and the new product. We should have a decent second half of the year on DirecTV NOW.”

AT&T now owns DirecTV, and the telco also offers its own U-verse pay-TV option.

DirecTV’s marketing seems to have perhaps gone awry given that it has raised prices twice in the past 9 months, the latest by an extra $10 a month which has not helped consumer confidence although AT&T officials now say that profits per subscriber are back in the black.

“Video volumes – both traditional and at DirecTV NOW – were affected by our focus on long-term profitability,” the company said in a statement. “Our goal is to drive strong lifetime values across multiple products, so we’re increasing our focus on higher-quality customers.”

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