For months now we have been hearing that DIRECTV NOW will soon have a Roku Channel. It was announced when the service came out that it would be coming to the most popular streaming media player in America.
Later at CES in January a vice president of Roku stood up at the TCL press conference and announced that DIRECTV NOW would be coming to Roku players in the next few weeks.
Now when asked, DIRECTV NOW support staff have been saying March 31, 2017, as the date.
What Happened?
Every source we have talked to said DIRECTV NOW is holding off for several reasons. Many have speculated that AT&T is holding off to help limit the impact a Roku channel would have. It would make sense that the struggling DIRECTV NOW service would want to limit the flood of new users likely to come from the Roku channel.
DIRECTV NOW’s Facebook Page says it is still working with its partners. So it is just as likely that during testing something came up. It is also possible that DIRECTV NOW wants to do its best to make sure to have as few bugs as possible.
When Will It Be Out?
We still don’t know, but I do expect it to hit the market before March 31, 2017. (Although it very well could come out that day.) It seems tech support is telling everyone the last possible day so if it comes early it’s a nice surprise. The company seems to suddenly want to under promise and over deliver.
What we do know is DIRECTV NOW still says it will be out before the end of March 2017.
So why did Roku say in the next few weeks in January?
It is likely that when one of the vice presidents of Roku said it would be out in a few weeks they meant that. It is fully possible that a date was set but other issues forced a delay. As with all major services and apps unexpected things happen all the time.
For now we just need to sit tight. We should know for sure in the next few weeks…
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