Verizon Could Launch New Streaming Video This Summer

Verizon’s rumored over-the-top streaming TV service — not to be confused with its nearly universally panned two-year-old Go90 product — could be available as soon as next month, executives for the company reportedly revealed Monday.

Variety reports that Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam dropped a few new hints about the company’s eventual streaming TV product during the J.P. Morgan Global Technology, Media and Telecom Conference in Boston Monday.

Lowell reportedly suggested that the service would become available once Verizon completes its purchase of Yahoo’s internet business.

Once the deal is done — that’s expected in mid-June, according to Lowell — Verizon will move Yahoo and AOL’s media operations under a new media division dubbed Oath. The company would then use Yahoo and AOL’s base of more than one billion users to test the service, Variety reports.

While Lowell didn’t provide additional details on what exactly the service would offer, previous reports — citing people familiar with the matter — suggested the service would be independent of any other service that Verizon offers, referencing the Go90 streaming product.

The unnamed streaming live-TV service would offer dozens of changes and would work on computers, mobile devices, and through connected TV platforms.

While Verizon seems intent on trying to make a go of a streaming video service, Comcast appears to be more skeptical about whether these new services make financial sense.

While details of the company’s rumored “Xfinity Instant TV” over-the-top option have trickled out, Chief Financial Officer Mike Cavanagh made the case during the J.P. Morgan conference that most services aren’t a money maker for programming distributors, Fierce Cable reports.

Cavanagh warned that as more services are added and losses pile up, prices are going to increase, potentially driving away customers.

This is especially true, according to Cavanagh, for a streaming service offered outside a cable company’s existing footprint.

Instead of going after customers outside of its comfort zone, Cavanagh said his company would aim to create a complimentary OTT service for customers.

by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist