Convergence Research Group estimated that over-the-top revenue in the U.S. rose 37% in 2021 to $39.4 billion and is expected to nearly double to $69 billion by 2024, as subscriber additions, about 80 million this year, should level off to 50 million by 2024. 

According to its just-released report -- The Battle for the American Couch Potato, which analyzed more than 75  OTT services (and over 50 providers) including Netflix, Disney Plus, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video and Warner Bros. Discovery -- Convergence said it expected U.S. OTT revenue to rise about 30% to $51 billion in 2022. 

At the same time, revenue and subscribers for traditional linear TV will continue their steady decline. Convergence said U.S. cable, satellite and telco TV access revenue fell 4% in 2021 to $91 billion, and should drop another 6% to $85.5 in billion in 2022, with further slippage in 2023 and 2024. Total U.S. TV subscribers dipped by 6.5 million in 2021, about the same as 2020, according to Convergence. That number should pick up to a loss of 7 million subscribers in 2022 and 7.2 million in 2024. 

The percentage of cord cutter/never households also should increase. Convergence estimated that  47% of U.S. households did not have a TV subscription with a cable, satellite or telco TV provider in 2021, rising to 53% in 2022 and 64% by 2024. 

Broadband customer growth is continuing to slow -- Convergence estimated that about 3.7 million high-speed internet subscribers were added in 2021, down  from 5.1 million in 2020, while revenue grew 10% to $79.6 billion. The researcher predicts that total broadband subscriber additions will tick up to 4.3 million (with a 7% revenue boost) as telco and fixed wireless additions improve, offsetting any sluggishness on the cable side.■

Frontier Communications stock soared by more than 39% in early trading Wednesday, a day after it reported improved fourth quarter results.

Frontier reported its Q4 results on Feb, 26, after the market close. Revenue was down 4% to $2.1 billion and cash flow was down 2.6% to $895 million year over year, but up almost 2% sequentially. After 11 straight quarters of poor performance, analysts and the investment community appeared encouraged that the results showed some positive momentum for the troubled telecom company.

Frontier stock, down 65% in 2018, rose as much as 39.4% (99 cents each) to $3.50 per share early on Wednesday. The stock closed at $2.96 per share on Feb. 27, up 45 cents each or 18%.

Net losses improved to $219 million in Q4, a massive change from the $1.2 billion it lost in the prior year. For the full year, Frontier pared its net losses to $750 million from a loss of $2 billion in 2017.

Related: Frontier's Formula

The telco shed 67,000 broadband customers in the quarter, higher than the 63,000 it lost in the prior year but indicative of what the company said is its new “disciplined approach.” Video losses for the period were also up -- to 35,000 from 20,000 in the prior year. Overall, the new approach has had an impact on churn, which was 1.94% in the period an improvement over the 1.98% reported in Q4 2017 and the 2.03% reported in Q3 2018.

“Our view is that focusing on acquiring customers who are less likely to churn will over time result in further churn improvements while reducing the costs associated with adding customers that have higher propensity to churn,” Frontier CEO Daniel McCarthy said on a conference call with analysts to discuss results. “This selectivity is a factor in the stronger fourth quarter EBITDA result and you should expect to see further progress on all of these metrics in coming quarters.”

Frontier said it expects Adjusted EBITDA to be in the $3.45 billion to $3.55 billion in 2019 (in line with 2018), capital expenditures to fall to about $1.15 billion from $1.2 billion in 2017 and operating free cash flow to rise to between $575 million and $675 million. 

Pay TV subscriber rolls fell by 3.7% in 2017 according to industry researcher Kagan, fueled by larger than expected losses at satellite TV providers and accelerated declines at cable operators.

Total pay TV subscribers fell to 94 million in 2017. Including virtual MVPDs like Sling TV and DirecTV Now boosts the total count to 97.3 million, according to Kagan, a unit of S&P Global Intelligence.  Combined Kagan estimated that cable, satellite and telco subscriptions were down by 7.4 million customers from their peak in 2012.

Cable operators lost 986,411 video subscribers in 2017, more than twice their 2016 drop. That, according to  Kagan, broke the sector’s three-year streak of decelerating video subscriber losses.

Telcos slowed their net subscriber losses for a third consecutive quarter. The sector shed 903,262 subscribers overall in 2017 to end the year at 10.6 million.

The satellite TV sector was down nearly 1.7 million subscribers in 2017, its biggest annual loss on record, as DirecTV joined Dish Network in posting traditional subscriber declines.

During the VCR’s heyday, the overused joke was that grandma just could never figure out how to get that blinking “12:00” to turn off. Today, more devices than ever are attached to the TV, including ones aimed specifically at getting people age 65 and older to keep in touch with family and friends while also watching their favorite TV shows.

One such device is becoming available on Amazon as of Sept. 19 – the $149 SentabTV, a device that promotes features including photo sharing, video chats and phone calling and an emphasis on making social media easier for a demographic that usually isn’t inclined to use Facebook and the like.

According to U.S. Census data, by 2040 there will be 82.3 million Americans 65 and older, and it’s a digital market that’s been largely ignored, according to Gordon Schenk, California-based senior VP of business development at Sentab, a European firm.

“The demographic watches live linear programming 78% of the time, and our solution…allows the individual to watch their existing [pay TV], with the social features overlaid on top of that, and also be connected to family, friends and caregivers,” Schenk told Next TV. “One of the neat features of our digital media player, compared to the Rokus and Apple TVs out there, is we have a patented feature set where you don’t have to switch any inputs. Once the box is installed…you never have to switch inputs again, and watch TV as you normally would.”

Existing live, linear cable, satellite and telco services can be connected via HDMI cables to the SentabTV, and a $10 monthly subscription adds services including making audio and video calls directly from the TV; photo and video sharing; a newsfeed; games that specifically target cognitive retention; and an online community and marketplace section.

“We have a perceived gap in social media that relates to the senior community,” Schenk said. “If you look at the numbers for Facebook, 65 or older is almost in the single digits. Being able to get a creative way for them to be social is our focus.”

Sentab said some senior residency groups in the U.S. are testing the set-top and services. Future add-ons could include health and fitness tracking via Bluetooth, Schenk said.

Losses in the telco TV sector drove pay TV subscriber losses to record heights in the second quarter, as 812,000 customers dropped their monthly subscriptions, according to research firm SNL Kagan.

According to Kagan, the losses were higher than the previous record – last year’s Q2 loss of about 625,000 pay TV customers. Cable subscriber losses continued to decline: Kagan estimated about 298,000 cable subscribers cut service in the period, a 13.6% improvement and the fifth consecutive year of diminishing losses for the period ended June 30. Satellite TV service providers shed about 26,000 customers in the quarter, while telco losses mounted. Kagan said the heaviest losses were at AT&T, which has been migrating its U-verse customers to its DirecTV satellite platform. Kagan estimated that U-verse customers are down by nearly 1 million since mid-2015.

RELATED: Nielsen says TV universe rose by 2 million homes.

Factoring in the estimated 764,000 customers for Dish Network’s Sling TV service, which Kagan argues is a multichannel video programming distributor, the trailing 12-month multichannel decline is reduced to 853,000.

Frontier Communications, which has been growing as a pay-TV provider through acquisitions (including former Verizon Fios and AT&T U-verse systems) and by introducing an IPTV-based service called Vantage in other markets, has applied to provide TV service in Middletown, N.Y., where Time Warner Cable operates.

Mid-HudsonNews.com reported that Frontier officials discussed video expansion plans in the city of Middletown at a common council public meeting Tuesday night. Norwalk, Conn.-based Frontier offers the recently rebranded Vantage service throughout much of Connecticut and recently launched the service, based on the Ericsson Mediaroom platform, in Durham, N.C., as well. Officials have said the company hopes to expand video service into 40 more markets over the next three to four years. Frontier has applied for a statewide franchise in Ohio, according to officials.

The news site reported Frontier proposed paying the city a franchise fee based on revenue, as Time Warner Cable (now owned by Charter Communications) does, and would not have to rip up streets to provide TV service. 

After completing a $10.5-billion buyout of former Verizon wireline operations in California, Florida and Texas, Frontier has about 1.5 million video subscribers on its networks, making it the eighth-biggest pay-TV provider in the country, according to MCN estimates. The next biggest company on that list, Mediacom Communications, is headquartered near Middletown, a community about 70 miles north of New York City in Orange County.

UPDATE: Patricia Amendola, communications manager for Frontier's East Region, told Multichannel News: "Frontier has filed a cable franchise application with the City of Middletown and other nearby communities served by Frontier. The City of Middletown held a public hearing as the first step in approval of a cable franchise where Frontier presented its plans to offer competitive cable service and choice in the City of Middletown. We are also currently installing some of the equipment in our central offices so that we are ready once the regulatory process concludes. The equipment upgrades will occur within our existing buildings and facilities without any disturbance to the public." Frontier also will seek New York State Public Service Commission approval to launch Vantage TV in Middletown and the other communitites, she said. 

Cable operators improved their ratings significantly in the latest American Customer Satisfaction Index, with some providers improving their overall scores by 15% or more, but still couldn’t pass stronger showings from telco and satellite TV providers.

Cable stopped its two-year decline in ACSI pay TV ratings, rising 3.25% as a whole, but still finishing last in ACSI’s annual customer satisfaction ratings, a random sample of 12,710 consumers, with scores ranging from 54 to 66 out of 100. Telco TV finished first and satellite TV service providers placed second.

Among cable operators, the biggest gainers were Time Warner Cable, which rose 15.7% from a 51 in 2015 to a 59 in 2016 and Comcast, which increased its ACSI score 14.8% from 54 in 2015 to 66 this year. The highest rated cable companies were Bright House Networks and Cablevision Systems, each with a score of 66. Bright House was purchased by Charter Communications (which scored a 60) in May and Altice N.V. is expected to close its purchase of Cablevision later this month.

“It’s not too hard for cable companies to improve when their starting point is the cellar,” said ACSI Managing Director David VanAmburg in a statement.

Acquisitions could play a role in next year’s ratings as companies that are involved in mergers typically post lower scores once their deals are done. Charter closed on its $78.7 billion purchase of Time Warner Cable on May 18, the same day it closed the Bright House deal.

Again, telcos Verizon and AT&T U-Verse had the best scores in the subscription TV segment – 70 and 69, respectively.  DirecTV received a 68 rating (the same as last year) and Dish Network had a 67, even with 2015.

The tables were turned on the Internet Service Provider front, with cable operators performing best. Verizon secured the top spot again with a 73 rating (the highest ever for the segment), with Cablevision Systems up 13% to a score of 69, Bright House Networks up 7% to 67 and Time Warner Cable up 14% to 66. Charter increased its score 11% to 63 in the period.

“High-speed Internet access is a must-have in the digital age, making ISPs and wireless companies critical providers for the workplace as well as the home,” said ACSI founder and chairman Claes Fornell in a statement. “With relatively few options, consumers have limited means for punishing companies for poor service.”

Ride TV has signed a distribution pact with CenturyLink that will see the equestrian-focused programmer added to the Prism TV Sports Plus package on April 19. The network, which launched in 2014, also is carried nationwide by satellite-TV provider Dish Network and by wireline distributors Armstrong Cable, Jefferson County Cable, Shentel and Windstream. 

“We are extremely pleased to have reached this agreement with CenturyLink. Being able to tell the stories and show the unique lifestyles of real horsemen and women (to an audience who would not ordinarily see it) has been a life-long goal,” Ride TV president Craig Morris said in a release. “I want to personally thank the leadership at CenturyLink for recognizing the important role that horses have played in shaping the world we live in. There would be no cowboy if it were not for the horse.”

“Prism TV has experienced exponential growth over the past few years and their markets line up perfectly with our core demographic,” network SVP of global distribution Michael Trujillo said in the release. “As they continue their expansion across the United States, we’ll be right there with them providing their subscribers with unique programming that embraces the equestrian lifestyle.”

Pay television providers lost a collective 1.1 million subscribers in 2015 according to SNL Kagan, despite gains by some cable companies, which the research firm interpreted as a share shift rather than a retreat from cord cutting.

According to Kagan, the losses were more than four times those in 2014 and it was the third consecutive overall annual drop for the industry.  Kagan added that the sectors showed some signs of stabilization during the latter part of the year, losing a collective 15,000 total customers in the fourth quarter of 2015, matching the losses of the same period in 2014. 

In its monthly subscriber report, SNL Kagan noted that cable operators lost 599,000 total video customers in 2015, its best performance since 2007 when the industry lost 458,000 customers. It was also the platform’s first sub-1 million drop in 7 years. The satellite sector shed 478,000 subscribers during the year to end at 33.1 million customers, compared to a loss of 39,000 in 2014. The telco segment ended 2015 essentially flat, with downward pressure from AT&T's shift away from U-verse to the lower cost video platform of DirecTV weighing on the overall platform’s performance.

The sledding for Arris was a bit tough in Q4 as sales declined due in part to weak telco TV subscriber gains and slower sales of set-tops and other consumer premises equipment (CPE) to its wider range of service provider customers, including cable operators.

Arris also announced softer-than-expected Q1 2016 guidance, which caused shares to drop more than 10% in after-hours trading Wednesday.

Arris, which wrapped its acquisition of Pace plc on January 4, posted Q4 2015 sales of $1.1 billion, down 12.8% year-over-year, hitting the lower end of its guidance.  Arris earned 62 cents per share, down from 78 cents per share a year earlier.

International sales represented 32.4% of total sales. Comcast and Time Warner Cable were Arris’s 10% or greater customers in the period, representing $379 million, or 34% of total sales.

“Sales to U.S. telcos continued down due to the very weak video subscriber additions and AT&T's move away from U-verse video delivery,” Arris chairman and CEO Bob Stanzione said on Wednesday’s earnings call.

As AT&T shifts from U-verse TV deliver and toward DirecTV-based video delivery, “our sales of U-verse video equipment have bottomed out,” Stanzione said later.

And though the ramp up to a new video business has gone slower than AT&T expected, “We predict success there, and we think that business will pick up as the year goes on," he said. 

Stanzione also expects Frontier Communications to increase investment in the FiOS footprint it’s buying from Verizon Communications.

On the cable side, “things look fairly good,” Stanzione said, noting that MSOs announced solid revenue forecasts and capital expenditures for 2016.

Among individual product areas, CPE sales dropped 20% year-over-year, though interest in higher-capacity DOCSIS modems and gateways remains strong. Set-tops and other video CPE unit volumes dropped 13% on both a sequential and year-over-year basis.

A bright spot was Arris’s Network and Cloud business, which posted its strongest quarter of the year, led by record shipments of its flagship converged cable access platform (CCAP), the E6000, as investments by MSOs shifted from CPE to the network. Arris set new records for shipments in chassis, downstream channels and software licenses in the CCAP/CMTS category.

Arris said DOCSIS 3.1 field trials got underway in Q4, noting that Comcast expects to start commercial deployments in some markets in the first half of this year.

DOCSIS 3.1, cable’s new multi-gigabit platform for HFC  networks, is a “major priority for the majority of our customers in 2016 and beyond,” Bruce McClelland, president of Network and Cloud at Arris, said.

As for the Pace integration, Arris is now addressing overlaps of product roadmaps and corporate functions, with the goal of having opex reductions “substantially completed” by the first half of 2016, Stanzione said, adding that the supply chain team is working on cost-of-sales synergies.

He also acknowledged that there could be some “revenue dissynergies” in the Pace merger, but didn’t have any specific visibility on that to report.  “We remain enthusiastic about the benefits of the combination and are committed to getting this integration done quickly." 

Arris was also asked about the FCC’s set-top plan and how it might respond if there’s a greater shift toward retail distribution of set-tops and other video devices.

Though Arris sees little consumer benefit to new tech-focused mandates from the government, it believes it already has a strong retail business for cable modems that it could apply to the set-top side.

Arris used to sell “Moxi” boxes at retail (Arris acquired Digeo in 2009). Arris is already looking to expand its retail portfolio to include WiFi routers and other devices that are “adjacent” to its broadband products, Larry Robinson, president of Arris’s CPE unit, said.  Expanding that retail portfolio even further would be a “very easy step,” he added.

Arris said it expects Q1 2016 revenues in the range of $1.56 billion to $1.61 billion, and earnings non-GAAP earnings of 37 cents to 42 cents per share (not counting purchase accounting and restructuring). Those were both below consensus of $1.68 billion and 58 cents.

Arris shares were down 10.93% ($2.65) to $21.59 each in after-hours trading Wednesday.

Rising programing costs again are the culprit for cable rate increases, according to Evercore ISI Group media analysts David Joyce and Vijay Jayant, with the cable charges on average rising 3% to 4% in 2016 while programming costs have risen between 8% and 10% annually over the past four years.

Three of the four top cable operators have announced their 2016 rate increases – Charter Communications is the only holdout so far – with Cablevision Systems the only top operator that has not increased video rates.

According to the analysts, almost all of Comcast’s double play packages increased by $3 –to-$4 per month (2%-5%) and triple play packages rose by $1.50 per month (1%).  Limited basic video packages increased by about $1 per month while  expanded basic video decreased by $1 per month. Some of the increases took the form of installation and service fees. Retransmission consent fees forced the largest cable operator in the country to nearly double the broadcast fee from $3  to $5 per month. Comcast said its average bill will rise by 3.9% in 2016.

At Time Warner Cable, which hopes to complete its merger with Charter by the end of the first quarter, monthly charges for its Starter TV and Standard TV rose by $4 (20%) and $2 (2%), respectively. The second largest cable operator also announced new broadband pricing packages and has increased most of its equipment and service fees, in addition to raising rates for  premium channels Cinemax and Starz.

Cablevision Systems, which is expecting to complete its $17.7 billion merger with Altice in the first half of this year, said it will not incrase pricing for its base products, but is raising set-top box rental charges and DVR fees by $1  per month each for residential and commercial customers. All commercial customers will now be paying $9.99 per month for modem rental fees. Cablevision has said that the average customer bill will increase by 2.9%.

Satellite TV and telco TV operators also have announced increases, with DirecTV (now part of AT&T) announcing price increases for its video packages ranging from $1 to $9 per month, according to the analysts. Dis Network has announced increases between $2 and $8 per month for all its packages effective Jan. 14.

On the telco TV side, AT&T announced increases  of between $2 and $4 per month for  all its video packages, effective Jan.28. The analysts wrote that they haven’t seen any official announcements from Verizon’s FiOS TV but their own channel checks indicate that all premium channels saw a $2 monthly price  increase , while its Showtime Starz Entertainment Package was increased by $4/month.

Arris shares were down more than 10% in after-hours trading Wednesday after the tech giant said Q3 revenues dropped 13.1% due in part to sluggish set-top and gateway sales to Verizon Communications and AT&T, which just combined with  DirecTV.

Arris chairman and CEO Bob Stanzione cited “shifting” strategies at those telcos. AT&T, for example, saw a decline in U-verse TV subs in Q3 as it applied more focus on selling DirecTV service.

That shift in focus “hurt our business pretty dramatically,” Stanzione said.

Arris, which is also dealing with declines outside the U.S., posted Q3 revenues of $1.22 billion, off from the $1.24 billion expected by analysts, and posted earnings of 56 cents per share, down from 81 cents in the prior year- period. Looking ahead, Arris anticipates revenues to decline to $1.1 billion to $1.15 billion, alongside adjusted net income per diluted share of 40 cents to 45 cents, citing lower expected U.S. revenue, near-term M&A uncertainty and international growth tempered by the strong U.S. dollar.

Driven by the aforementioned telco issues, CPE segment sales dropped 14% versus the year-ago quarter, despite improved cable CPE sales and a record sales of broadband gateways and modems via retail channels.

Arris also talked up its role in supplying an advanced DOCSIS gateway to Comcast – the DOCSIS 3.0-powred XB3 will bond up to 24 downstream channels and integrate MoCA 2.0 and 802.11ac WiFi.

On the video CPE end, unit volumes dropped 11% year-on-year. A bright spot was the launch of a next-gen video gateway (the DCX3635) for Canada’s Shaw Communications that supports both Arris’s own Moxi platform and Comcast’s X1 platform. Shaw is trialing X1 after ditching its original IPTV migration strategy. 

On its fiscal Q4 call earlier this month, Shaw CEO Bradley Shaw said the MSO had launched the whole-home DVR platform with the Moxi UI, noting that it’s “forward compatible with the X1 service.” He said Shaw’s anticipates that the commercial launch of X1, which will be powered directly by Comcast infrastructure, will occur during Shaw’s 2016 fiscal year.

On the network side of the business, Arris saw sales of its flagship E6000  CCAP drop from the first half of the year (Shaw is a new customer for it), but remains on track for Q4 customer field trials of DOCSIS 3.1, according to Bruce McClelland, president of the company’s’ network and cloud unit. Arris also expects formal CableLabs D3.1 testing to start during the current quarter.

Regarding Arris’s pending $2.1 billion acquisition of U.K.-based Pace, Stanzione said he’s still enthusiastic about the benefits of the merger, and remains committed to getting the deal done. Amid additional requests from the U.S. Department of Justice and other regulatory entities, Arris now believes it will wrap up the merger by late December or the first quarter of 2016. Arris has also indicated that regulators might apply a condition to the deal that Arris divest part of its optical transmission business.

Arris and Pace shareholders have approved the deal.

A sharp rise in cord-cutters during the second quarter helped drive pay TV customer losses to record highs in the period with the industry losing about 625,000 subscribers in the period, according to SNL Kagan.

According to Kagan, the losses were the heaviest to date, as total pay TV customers dropped to 100.4 million in the period. The losses were mainly driven by sharp declines at satellite TV and telco TV companies, who usually take up the slack for cable losses. Ironically, cable, which has been the focus of much of the cord-cutting hysteria over the past several months, had its best second quarter since 2008 according to Kagan, shedding about 350,000 basic customers. Cable operators lost about 211,000 basic customers in Q2 2008 and on average have shed 609,000 subscribers in the second quarter.

While the second quarter is a traditionally weak one as college students leave school and customers disconnect service as they move to summer residences, Kagan said the slide follows an uncharacteristically weak first quarter, when total subscribers were down by 26,000. That could point toward the possibility of a much larger decline for the full year than during 2010-2014, which was, according to Kagan, “a period of general malaise.”

Kagan’s numbers are slightly higher than previous estimates by MoffettNathanson principal and senior analyst Craig Moffett, who said declines were about 566,000 in the quarter.

Other highlights from the Kagan report include:

•  Telcos increasingly appear to be trading subscriber gains for improved financials. AT&T's U-verse has aligned its strategy with DirecTV’s focus on profitability. As a result of the belt tightening, the combined multichannel video subscribers served by FiOS and U-verse were flat at 11.7 million at the end of the second quarter, behind net adds of just 4,000. 
• The DBS segment lost an estimated 304,000 subscribers, as DirecTV and Dish Network both reported record declines. The DBS segment retreated to just under 34 million subs, according to Kagan.   

In results that will likely add fuel to the cord-cutting debate, AT&T said it lose 22,000 U-verse TV subscribers, versus 190,000 net adds in the year-ago quarter.

However, AT&T, which ended Q2 with 5.97 million U-verse video subs and is closing in on its acquisition of DirecTV, did not chalk up that drop-off to cord-cutting but to typical “seasonality” seen in the period alongside the decision to target promotions to more profitable, higher-value subscribers.

On the U-verse video side, the first point to make is that the second quarter is always seasonally a challenge,” AT&T CFO John Stephens said on Thursday afternoon’s earnings call. “You’ve got a lot of relocations; you’ve got a lot of students returning from college. And with our limited footprint with regard to video capabilities, it’s always a challenge for us.”

The issue, he added, is to decide how much the company wants to pump into promotional activities that aim to stimulate growth. “We chose to be very disciplined and very limited in those promotional activities,” Stephens said.

While U-verse video dropped off, U-verse high-speed Internet remained strong, as AT&T added 241,000 subs in that category, extending its total to 12.9 million subs. AT&T said more than 90% of “IP-eligible subscribers” have its U-verse high-speed Internet product.

With DSL factored in, AT&T lost a total of 136,000 broadband subs, widened from a loss of 55,000 last year.

Stephens said U-verse services now account for more than 70% of consumer revenues, and that adjusted consumer U-verse revenues rose 19.2% year-over-year. More than 97% of AT&T’s video customers now take a bundle, and the ARPU for U-verse triple-play customer remains greater than $170.

Stephens said AT&T remains bullish on GigaPower, the telcos’s fiber-based platform that has been launched in 15 markets so far, most recently in Durham and Greensboro, N.C.

Stephens didn’t provide GigaPower sub numbers during the early stages of the deployment, but said AT&T is encouraged by the results so far.

“We are pleased with it,” he said. “The take rates, the satisfaction rates continue to outperform our expectations with our customers.”

Regarding the pending merger with DirecTV, Stephens reiterated that the company expects the deal to achieve $2.5 billion in cost synergies.

AT&T turned in an overall strong Q2, with revenues rising 1.4% to $33 billion, along net income of $3 billion and 69 cents per share that beat analyst expectations by six cents.

Verizon has completed the rollout of an enhanced version of its Interactive Media Guide for FiOS Quantum TV customers that features a fresh look and a set of new features.

Verizon began to roll out the new IMG on January 26 in Philadelphia, Buffalo and Syracuse, and completed the deployment on Tuesday (February 10).

The enhancements, for FiOS Quantum TV, a new platform that’s anchored by a souped up whole-home HD-DVR made by Arris, feature a fresh color scheme with a black background that’s designed to make the on-screen graphics pop. In a nod to customers who like to binge out on TV series, the new guide also includes an episodic bundling component that lets customers buy a full TV season at once.

Among other additions, Quantum TV subs in New York and New Jersey will start to see the FiOS 1 News Channel as the welcome screen when they flip on the TV, though customers can disable that by altering the guide settings.

Verizon ended 2014 with 5.64 million FiOS TV subs, a figure that will change dramatically once the telco wraps up a proposed deal to sell wireline operations in California, Florida and Texas that include properties that currently provide 1.2 million FiOS video connections, to Frontier Communications.