DirecTV Goes Dark Tonight As Coronavirus Causes USA To Hunker Down

If you were surprised to suddenly miss the last 20 minutes of Chicago Med, Tucker Carlson Tonight or The Masked Singer just now on the East Coast, join the DirecTV club.

As America hunkers down at home for what looks to be the first full week of coronavirus isolation, the AT&T-owed satellite service tonight went dark for a spell at around 8:45 PM ET across the nation. As partners bickered over who had the clicker last and a night of no-TV anxiety and some real social distancing grew, the screens froze or just went black in millions of homes that haven’t cord cut yet.

Though you may have missed discovering who the celebrity voice under the Swan was on Wednesday’s episode of Masked Singer, hashtag #DirecTVDown never really had time to catch fire on social media as the service seemed to reboot at the top of the hour. Still, for those long 15 minutes or so, things were looking pretty bleak for tonight’s primetime.

The tech site Downdetector began seeing a spike in users reporting problems at 5:40 PM PT, with most saying the signal had been lost.

DirecTV is having issues since 8:48 PM EDT. https://t.co/O0gYpdG4BO RT if it’s down for you as well #DirecTVdown

— Downdetector (@downdetector) March 19, 2020

That saw customers all over the USA take to Twitter and other social media platforms to vent as customer service lines began to back up.

Hey @DIRECTV if I’m going to be stuck in my house can you at least make sure the service you provide actually works? As a paying customer this would be nice. pic.twitter.com/ZtJKpnwIDl

— Samantha Pysher (@SamanthaPysher) March 19, 2020

The apparent outage was concentrated on the West Coast, the eastern half of the Lone Star state and up and down the East Coast.

Representatives for DirecTV did not respond to Deadline’s request for comment or explanation. Oddly in today’s age of social media, the service also did not take to Twitter or Facebook to answer their customer’s WTF outrage.