Verizon Crafting Over the Top Media Channels Business Models
Heartened by the recent à la carte move of HBO and CBS, Verizon is now working with its content partners to fashion business models for its own planned OTT ventures.
On the company’s earnings call Tuesday, Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ) EVP & CFO Fran Shammo said Verizon is looking at delivering over-the-top (OTT) video services to consumers in two different ways, over LTE Multicast to wireless subscribers on its LTE network and over the Internet to home broadband users. He said each method offers a distinct way to address the growing demand for untethered video services.
In Shammo’s view, Verizon will rely on LTE Multicast to beam major live TV events to wireless subscribers, including big concerts and sporting events like the Super Bowl. He noted that multicast technology is “so efficient” for delivering that kind of mass-appeal programming to large groups of viewers. Plans now call for Verizon to launch that live mobile TV service sometime late next year, after enough compatible phones, tablets and other mobile devices are in consumers’ hands and enough content providers are on board with the concept. (See Verizon: Multicast Is ‘a Year Away’.)