Verizon Loses 18,000 Pay TV Subscribers, Signals Delay For Live TV Streaming Service (hollywoodreporter.com)

Verizon announced on Thursday that its FiOS video service lost 18,000 net pay TV subscribers in the third quarter, compared with the addition of 36,000 subscribers in the year-ago period and 15,000 subscriber drop in the second quarter. Hollywood Reporter reports: The company said the drop in the latest quarter was "reflecting the ongoing shift from traditional linear video to over-the-top offerings." Verizon, led by chairman and CEO Lowell McAdam, ended the third quarter with a total of 4.6 million subscribers to its FiOS video service, which competes with cable and satellite TV companies. Asked about a planned over-the-top (OTT) TV service from Verizon, Ellis said that the company continues to feel that "there's an opportunity for us to play," but signaling a delay, he emphasized that the company "doesn't want to launch a me-too product." He didn't provide any guidance on when the OTT service would launch, saying that was still "TBD" (to be determined), or what content it could offer beyond saying it was likely to be built "around live programming." Verizon also reported Thursday that it added 66,000 net new FiOS broadband connections in the third quarter to end it with 5.8 million.

Comments

normally

[Anonymous Coward]

when a company loses business, they lower the damn prices.... but NOOOOOO not pay television services. they gouge the remaining subscribers to try to "make up" the lost profits instead.

captcha: ignorant

Re:normally

[deviated_prevert]

when a company loses business, they lower the damn prices.... but NOOOOOO not pay television services. they gouge the remaining subscribers to try to "make up" the lost profits instead.

captcha: ignorant

Here in Canada the CRTC tried to force the providers to unbundle the channel package choices. In areas where you cannot possibly get OTA signals the cable companies know that they have you by the shorts to say the least and it made no difference. I have had cable for far too long and been gouged by the assholes it seems forever! If it were not for the fact that my wife would leave I would cut the friggin' cord once and for all and just listen to what little is left of good radio, like the CBC and some American public radio we can still somewhat get where I live.

The greedy cable assholes seem to regularly find a way to increase the costs without providing value for dollar and get away with it because there is no choice. Because they also own and dominate the satellite industry you get hosed even worse if you switch to satellite. They are your ISP, telephone regardless of whether or not you chose them or the TELCO they dominate all incoming and outgoing communications. Their prices are currently greater than the costs for essential services of heating, water, sewer and taxes combined and they manage to get away with it because you have no alternative. The telco(s) even own all the cellular communication towers and gouge the hell out of you if you try to do anything other than make phone calls with cellular.

In the end we are stuck paying to watch mish mash rehashes of the same shows and then paying for their advertising slot time. The truth is the "network TV" supported by advertising is completely dying, cable is killing it and very slowly stealing all of their add revenue streams. What cable has done to replace network tv is to make up garbage rehashes of content put together to create a smoke and mirrors illusion of their advertising ridden ridiculous "1000 channel universe". The reality is that they do this to avoid content production costs and continue to suck on the teats of what little is left of the old networks.

Hardly Surprising

[nwf]

I have FiOS and I can see why they are losing customers. Their prices have been constantly increasing. We crossed $250/mo and I decided to drop equipment and go back to a contract. That's still $177/mo. Their pricing for equipment is aggravating. More so than Comcast. CableCards are $4/mo. That's outrageous. Their most basic cable box (no DVR, no guide) is $5/mo. I tried to drop some channels to save money, but was told my price wouldn't change with fewer channels unless I gave up almost all HD channels. Once I'm done with this contract, I'm leaning toward dropping the TV portion. Plus their DVRs are pathetic. My ReplayTV from the late 1990s remains better than anything they offer. Even so, I'll likely have to jump to Comcast since FiOS won't offer decent rates on internet only for existing customers.