Last week, we told you about DirecTV’s silly regional sports fees which were made even sillier when several blogs discovered they varied by zip code. And when called out, DirecTV made it even worse by saying its online tool which stated the fee in your area was broken.
No matter what DirecTV said, it made no sense. Well, after the bad public relations over the fees, DirecTV is doing something about it and unfortunately it doesn’t mean it’s removing them altogether. DirecTV said in a statement to Ars Technica that it will make good for those who noticed the fee:
“We have identified a small percentage of customers who are receiving some inaccurate bills for regional sports network fees,” an AT&T spokesperson told Ars yesterday. “We are working as quickly as possible to notify those customers and issue credits. We apologize for the error.” AT&T bought DirecTV, the nation’s largest satellite TV provider with about 21 million customers, in 2015.
The fees would vary from $0 to $2.47, $4.53, $5.83 or even as high as $7.29 a month. And the difference could mean one person could pay $87 more per year than someone living in the same city.
DirecTV would not say how many customers were affected nor would they say how many would be receiving credits, but at least it’s doing something instead of doubling down.
But the best case scenario would be the outright removal of the regional sports fees and for DirecTV to admit it was wrong to charge it in the first place. The charge is silly to begin with and as Comcast and Charter Communications are being sued over their fees, DirecTV has to realize that it may be next in line for a suit.
