T-Mobile’s TVision pay TV service is indeed alive, and might soon roll out based on an Android TV platform, paperwork filed with the FCC reveals. 

The filing to the FCC’s Office of Engineering and Technology reveals a TVision-branded remote, equipped with dedicated “Android home” and “Google Assistant” buttons, as well as button shortcuts to Netflix and YouTube. (9to5Google originally reported on the FCC filing.)

The filing removes some mystery surrounding TVision, which is itself built on the backbone of T-Mobile’s $325 million purchase of pay TV service Layer3 TV back in January 2018. 

Also read: T-Mobile’s TVision Home Cast Into Uncertainty Amid Chief Content Officer’s Departure

Since taking over Layer3 TV and rebranding it TVision, T-Mobile hasn’t expanded it beyond its initial markets—New York, L.A., Chicago, San Francisco, Dallas, Philly and Washington, D.C. 

T-Mobile says the service will be deployed as the bundled video compliment to the so-called Uncarrier’s fixed 5G wireless play, which T-Mobile adds, will reach 90% of the U.S. by 2024. 

Light Reading reported earlier that a recent reengineering of the TVision tech has been completed. And it’s only the pandemic that’s delaying broader national rollout of TVision. Light Reading also reported that T-Mobile was partnering with MobiTV, maker of a proprietary app-based video delivery system, for its revised TVision tech.

However, outside of supporting integration with Google Assistant smart devices, neither the current iteration of TVision, or the reports of its reimagining, have referred to an Android TV play.

Certainly, there are other moves afoot in regard to TVision.

This week, T-Mobile’s Chief Content Officer, Lindsay Gardner, who came over in the Layer3 TV purchase, confirmed to Next TV that he’s leaving the company at the end of this month. It’s rumored that the Denver-based Gardner might be circling back with Layer3 TV’s original investors on a new project. (Light Reading was the first to report this, too.)

Layer3 TV founder and CEO Jeff Binder had been initially put in charge of TVision, but left the company back in May 2019. He’s now running a Denver-area firm called Harvard Venture Partners.

In the limited markets in which TVision is currently available, T-Mobile is offering a $90-a-month base tier of 154 channels, 1 terabyte of DVR storage (about 400 hours of recordings), integration with Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa, and access to streaming services and social media.

What’s going on with TVision Home, the $90-a-month pay TV service that T-Mobile ostensibly plans to widely deploy along with its 5G rollout?

That question has renewed urgency amid the reported departure of yet another top video executive from the wireless company. 

Light Reading first reported that veteran media executive Lindsay Gardner, chief content officer for T-Mobile, is set to leave the company later this month. Gardner confirmed his exit to Next TV. 

A T-Mobile rep also told Next TV that the wireless operator doesn’t comment on departures “outside of our executive leadership team, out of respect for people’s privacy.”

Perhaps the fact that the former Fox Networks and Miramax executive, who is considered T-Mobile’s top video content leader, isn’t considered part of the company’s executive leadership group tells us all we need to know about why he’s leaving?

Also read: T-Mobile: Everything You Need to Know About the Newly Expanded 'Uncarrier's' 5G-fueled Push into Streaming

Gardner joined T-Mobile as part of the so-called Uncarrier’s $325 million purchase of Denver-based pay TV start-up Layer3 TV in early 2018. According to the Light Reading report, he might “re-engage” with Layer3’s original backers, TPG Growth, the Creative Artists Agency (CAA) and Paulson & Co. 

The Denver-based Gardner’s departure comes 14 months after Layer3 TV founder and CEO Jeff Binder, who served as T-Mobile’s top video exec after the purchase, also left the company. (The Harvard graduate now lists himself as CEO of Denver-based “Harvard Venture Partners.”)

Founded in 2013 and launching in Chicago in 2016, Layer3 TV billed itself as a kind of premium cable TV service, targeting customers who didn’t mind large pay TV bills, but who wanted a better technological and service experience. Layer3 TV had expanded to a handful of U.S. cities—New York, Los Angeles, Dallas, San Francisco, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.—, when T-Mobile acquired the company.

Under Binder, T-Mobile rebranded Layer3 TV as TVision, offering a $90-a-month base tier of 154 channels, 1 terabyte of DVR storage (about 400 hours of recordings), integration with Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa, and access to streaming services and social media.

To date, however, TVision hasn’t expanded much—if any—beyond its limited Layer3 TV reach. 

In its product marketing, and in its SEC filings, T-Mobile describes TVision as the pay TV service that it will roll out alongside fixed wireless 5G services. 

“TVision Home is being purpose-built for the 5G future,” T-Mobile says, when you click on the 5G Vision link situated on the main menu tab of the TVision landing page.  “We’re getting ready for a world where 5G replaces home broadband and TVision Home will replace your cable TV – and launching a complete, high-end home TV service is a key part of that strategy.”

Meanwhile, following April closure of its $26 billion Sprint acquisition, T-Mobile last month  , indicating that its “significantly enhanced spectrum position” will enable it to accelerate plans for its 5G fixed-wireless play. 

“The enhanced in-home broadband opportunity, along with the acquisition of certain content rights has created a strategic shift in our TVision Home service offering to developing a video product which will be complementary to the in-home broadband offering and which we believe is necessary to enable higher penetration into the in-home broadband market,” T-Mobile said in the filing. 

So, beyond chewing through the Sprint integration, which is still in its early stages, what’s the holdup with TVision’s national rollout? 

T-Mobile has been aggressive in marketing third-party SVOD services, underwriting a base Netflix subscription for its unlimited data wireless subscribers since 2017. It kicked off a similarly branded “Quibi on Us” promotion involving the struggling $4.99-a-month mobile-first video streaming platform in April. And it’s inheriting Sprint’s promotion that delivers free base Hulu service to unlimited data subscribers. 

Also read: Will T-Mobile Soon Offer ‘Hulu on Us,’ Too?

Light Reading also reported earlier this year that T-Mobile was re-engineering TVision’s technology platform, enlisting pay TV technology vendor MobiTV. The blog said in May that the process was done.  

Notably, in its June 8-K filing, T-Mobile seems to indicate that welding TVision to the developing fixed wireless play may be the cause of the delay. 

“As a result of the change in the stand-alone product offering plans and timing, we are completing an interim goodwill impairment analysis for the stand-alone Layer3 reporting unit,” the wireless company said. "We anticipate the analysis will result in a non-cash impairment in the Layer3 reporting unit goodwill of $218 million (the “Layer3 Goodwill Impairment”) for the quarter ended June 30, 2020.  Any impairment would impact Net Income but would be excluded from Adjusted EBITDA.”

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Lindsay Gardner has been around the block long enough to know what’s what in the programming business.

A veteran of both sides of the negotiating table, Gardner has probably forgotten more about the business than most will ever learn. He was at Fox Networks Group for eight years through 2007, eventually rising to president, affiliate sales and marketing, and spent six years at Cox Communications, including time as executive director, programming. He also served as executive director, planning and new business, at In Demand, the MSO-backed provider of pay-per-view and video-on-demand services.

Now as chief content officer for Layer3 TV, a startup that piggybacks a video service onto incumbent broadband networks, offering a full-freight video service and top-notch customer service it calls “concierge cable,” Gardner is entering a new chapter in a long and illustrious career. But even though the jobs and roles have changed over the years, Gardner has learned a very important lesson about the programming business: You don’t get what you don’t ask for, and you don’t get anything if you don’t ask nicely.

“[It’s] walking into [A+E Networks president of distribution] David Zagin’s office with my palms up and saying, ‘We love A+E, we love Lifetime, we love Viceland, would you work with us?’” Gardner said. “A lot of it is just asking, and everybody comes through.”

For Layer3 TV, that approach is forging unique partnerships with programmers. Gardner said he receives an unprecedented level of support from content providers, ranging from appearances by Nickelodeon characters at launches to billboards touting programming.

“ESPN has turned over its whole website homepage in our markets, promoting us,” Gardner added. “Pac-12 Networks takes out billboards screaming that we’re the exclusive place to find the USCUCLA baseball game in HD. Right down the line, partly because we’re new — and they love that we carry all of their channels in HD, that we have the best picture quality, that our guide seems to have licked and solved the problem of there’s 500 channels and nothing on — and partly because we’ve asked nicely.”

Layer3 TV currently is available in five markets — Chicago; Los Angeles; Washington; Dallas, Texas; and Longmont, Colo. — and is readying a sixth launch in New York. The service offers about 250 channels, including several in 4K with more to come.

The product is unique in that, in a climate where every new entrant is touting lower costs and skinnier packages, Layer3 TV is offering more. Gardner said that’s just what its customers want.

“They love cable,” Gardner said of Layer3 customers. “They’re looking for something better, and we become their new cable company.”

And that means, in an era when most distributors want to break up the programming bundle, Gardner wants everything — and he means everything — a content provider has to offer.

For example, Layer3 is working with The Weather Channel on new leading-edge apps and 4K content for the channel, which it plans to add shortly. With The Tennis Channel, Layer3 is working on providing a value-added package that will show all seven courts at Roland Garros for next year’s French Open. And in a deal with Fox, Layer3 is airing all of 30 sports events the network is producing in 4K this year.

Other programmers are using Layer3 as a test bed for emerging technologies or offerings. Gardner mentioned tests for mini a la carte packages that would take one specific show or genre and offer content tailored only around that specific theme.

“It’s possible to assemble assets in a way that is tailored for individual passions, and there is value in it, and we’re quietly testing those sorts of initiatives,” Gardner said.

Layer3 TV, the “next generation” cable operator based in Denver, said it has added programming vets Lynne Costantini and Sean Riley to its content advisory board, a group that is led by the company’s recently named chief content officer Lindsay Gardner.

Costantini is the president of business development at TheBlaze, which runs a 24/7 linear television network and TheBlazeTV.com, a direct-to-consumer video streaming subscription service. Costantini previously EVP of affiliate sales and marketing for Scripps Networks Interactive, and was with Time Warner Cable for 12 years in roles that included chief business affairs officer and senior vice president of programming.

Riley is the founder and president of his own content distribution and TV sports consulting firm bearing his name, and is a business development executive at 1 Mainstream, a multiscreen video specialist started up by former Roku, Apple, and TiVo execs. Riley previously was SVP of distribution at Fox Networks, where he led a team that negotiated carriage deals for Fox’s portfolio of networks, including its regional sports nets, the Big Ten Network and MundoFox, among others. Riley, who worked with Gardner at Fox, was also part of the original Hulu launch team.

They are joining the content-facing board as Layer3 TV prepares to launch its service later this year, though the startup has been relatively mum about how its coming service will be packaged and priced, whether it will partner with other cable operators or deliver services on a direct-to-consumer basis. But Layer3 TV, which also operates out of Boston, is emerging amid a new class of  "virtual" MVPDs that include Sling TV, Dish Network's slimmed-down OTT service for cord-cutters, and Sony PlayStation Vue, a fuller-freight pay-TV service that has launched in New York, Philadelphia and Chicago. 

“It is in Layer3 TV’s DNA to build collaborative and exciting partnerships with our content providers,” Gardner said, in a statement.  “Sean and Lynne joining Layer3 TV’s family brings decades of insights into the needs of consumers, programmers and cable operators.”

“I’ve worked with and for some of the most innovative cable and satellite providers and am energized by Layer3 TV’s ambition to be a next generation cable operator that delivers a superior consumer experience,” said Costantini.  “I look forward to bringing my knowledge and sensibilities to the table in guiding Layer3 TV’s programming efforts.”

“I welcome the opportunity to work with Lindsay once again and participate in Layer3 TV’s launch and growth,” added Riley. “I’ve worked closely with nearly every mid-sized cable operator in the US and I hope to share my insights and expertise with Layer3 TV based on those interactions."

Brian Brady, president of Northwest Broadcasting president, National Association of Broadcasters board member, and Fox Affiliate Board Chair Emeritus, was named to Layer3 TV’s content advisory board in  February.

Lindsay Gardner, a pay-TV vet late of Fox Networks and Cox Communications, has been named content advisory board chair of Layer3 TV, the Denver-based startup that’s billing itself as a next-generation cable operator.

Layer3 TV said Gardner is on board to help the company recruit core programming talent and strike partnerships with programmers and other content providers. Gardner, who is also a senior advisor to Oaktree Capital Management, reports to Layer3 TV CEO and company co-founder Jeff Binder.

During his cable career, Gardner led distribution at Fox Networks for eight years through 2007, eventually rising to president, affiliate sales and marketing. He also spent six years at Cox, including as executive director, programing; and also served as executive director, planning and new business at In Demand, the MSO-backed provider of pay-per-view and video-on-demand services.

He joins Layer3 TV almost a month after the company opened its new Denver headquarters. Founded in 2013, Layer3 TV has about 50 employees across its Colorado and Boston locations, and has recently hired other industry vets, including former Comcast and Charter Communications engineering exec John Roy, and Bob Scheffler, a former Motorola and Broadbus exec who is the startup’s head of architecture.

Layer3 TV, which has raised about $21 million so far, has said little about its approach and how it might compete with or complement more traditional cable operators and other MVPDs.  The company has previously described itself as a “technology platform” that will deliver “a differentiated video consumer experience while fitting squarely within today’s programming and distribution paradigm.”

Layer3 TV has not revealed a launch date, but it will happen sometime next year, according to Deadline.com.

The company also has not announced any deals with programmers, but this is apparently where Gardner will fit in.

“Lindsay’s 25 years of leadership in the industry provides Layer3 TV with knowledge and experience from a Hollywood veteran who also understands how to innovate without having to disrupt the existing distribution paradigm,” said Binder, in a statement. “He has a fantastic entrepreneurial spirit, which will help to power the next generation cable ecosystem we are bringing to market.”

“Layer3 TV has assembled an extraordinary team and is poised to execute an innovative vision collaborative with the content community,” Gardner added. “I’m thrilled to help this world class team forge the next generation of mutually beneficial programming partnerships.”

Layer3 TV is on a hiring spree. Open jobs in Denver include director of field operations, DRM and content security engineer, senior director of customer care, and VP of finance. In Boston, it’s seeking an iOS engineer, an embedded systems engineer, a speech scientist, a senior director of search/recommendations, and a senior user experience designer, among others.