• AT&T announced CEO Randall Stephenson will retire and President and COO John Stankey will take over the position on July 1.
• The transition comes as the company struggles with a mass loss of TV subscribers and enters the crowded streaming video market.
• In the first quarter of this year, AT&T lost 897,000 premium TV subscribers, which counts mainly DirecTV users.
• The service will launch in a crowded streaming space at a time when some analysts believe newly laid-off workers may reconsider their spending on subscription services.
• Elliott Management, the activist investment firm that pushed for executive changes at AT&T, said it “supports” Stankey as the company’s next CEO.

About AT&T

AT&T Inc. is a communications holding company. The Company, through its subsidiaries and affiliates, provides local and long-distance phone service, wireless and data communications, Internet access and messaging, IP-based and satellite television, security services, telecommunications equipment, and directory advertising and publishing.