AT&T announced a distribution agreement today to deliver Scripps Networks' programming as part of the AT&T U-verse TV channel lineup. But while AT&T continues to announce new programming agreements here and there, where's the new market announcements?

AT&T expects to reach nearly 19 million households by the end of 2008 as part of its initial deployment. AT&T thoroughly defended this projection and strategy during AT&T's fourth quarter earnings conference. At the call, AT&T's CEO Ed Whitacre said, "It works and it works well. The network is good. All of the delays and some of the difficulties we've had are due to programming and we think we're just about to get all of them solved. Everything seems to be working well so this is our plan A and plan A we're sticking with. We like this stuff."

However, since late 2006, AT&T hasn't announced any new markets for the U-Verse IPTV service. If only having around 4,000 customers by the end of 2006 wasn't enough for analysts to be skeptical, the lack of announcements is really adding fuel to the fire.