Cox Media Group said it reached a long-term carriage agreement with Verizon Fios, avoiding a blackout both sides had warned viewers about.

"This deal with Verizon, consistent with our long history of carriage agreements, reflects the value of our market-leading stations and commitment to delivering vital and award-winning news and entertainment programming," CMG said in a statement. "We’re pleased to have reached this renewal before our prior deal expired, exemplifying our commitment to reaching timely and fair-market agreements with partners that negotiate in good faith."

CMG said the deal was reached before Thursday night’s deadline.

"We’re pleased to continue offering Cox stations on Fios channels," Verizon said in a statement.

CMG’s stations remain blacked out in a dispute with satellite-TV Dish Network.

Verizon began warning subscribers earlier this week of a blackout that would affect Cox Media Group stations WFXT Boston, a Fox affiliate, and WPXI Pittsburgh, an NBC affiliate. The Pittsburgh Cable News Channel is also covered by the agreement.

Fios has said the station had "proposed an unacceptable rate increase" to continue to carry the stations.

"We have been negotiating productively with Verizon for several weeks and remain optimistic we will come to terms on a fair market deal to keep our award-winning local news, investigative journalism, and popular sports and entertainment programming on Fios TV," CMG had said in a statement. ■

Verizon Fios is warning viewers that stations owned by Cox Media Group in Boston and Pittsburgh could be blacked out when their retransmission-consent agreement expires on December 15.

The blackout would also affect the Pittsburgh Cable News Channel.

Fios said the station group has “proposed an unacceptable rate increase” to continue to carry the stations.

CMG’s stations are already blacked out in a dispute with Dish.

“We have been negotiating productively with Verizon for several weeks and remain optimistic we will come to terms on a fair market deal to keep our award-winning local news, investigative journalism, and popular sports and entertainment programming on Fios TV,” CMG said in a statement.

Also: Unions Cite Dish-Cox Retrans Flap to Argue Against Tegna Deal

A blackout would affect about 340,000 Fios customers. Fios subscribers suffered a two-week blackout of Nexstar stations that ended in October.

“For nearly two decades, broadcasters like Cox have forced cable and satellite providers — and their customers — to pay unreasonably high fees to access local stations. Broadcasters often remove their channels from consumers until TV providers agree to pay more — even though the same channels are available for free over the air,” Verizon said in a statement. “It’s time for our leaders at the FCC and in Congress to protect consumers by holding them — and other broadcasters who frequently use this tactic — accountable. We will continue to work hard to put our customers first and come to a fair agreement on their behalf.” ■

Nexstar Media Group said it reached a new multi-year retransmission consent agreement with Verizon Fios, ending a two-week blackout.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The dispute impacted more than 3 million subscribers in 10 markets, according to Nexstar.

Also: Nexstar Risks $6.7 Million Per Month in Lost Fees During Fios Blackout

Also being restored to Fios subscribers is Nexstar's cable news network NewsNation.

"We're pleased that our customers' programming will be restored and that we can continue delivering content they enjoy," Verizon Fios said in a statement.

The agreement will ensure that Verizon subscribers won't miss a moment of Major League Baseball's World Series, which begins Friday, or any of this weekend's college and NFL football games, Nexstar noted.

Nexstar's stations also add distribution as midterm election races reach an end. Political advertising is generating millions of dollars for local station groups. ■

Nexstar Media Group stations went dark in homes subscribing to Verizon Fios at midnight on Friday as the two companies’ retransmission-consent agreement expired without the sides being able to agree on an extension.

Nexstar said more than 3 million subscribers and 13 of its TV stations serving 10 markets are impacted. 

In addition to the stations, Verizon Fios subscribers are also losing Nexstar’s NewsNation cable news channel.

Both sides have been warning subscribers that a blackout was possible.

Also: Fox Reaches Agreement With Altice That Averts Blackout

“Verizon Fios is refusing to reach a new distribution agreement allowing the cable company the right to continue airing the highly-rated programming on Nexstar’s local stations,“ Nexstar said in a statement. “As a result, millions of Americans across the country have lost local news, traffic, weather, sports, and entertainment programming as well as critical, up-to-date news regarding the mid-term elections and possible hurricanes in the South and on the East Coast, as well as college and NFL football this weekend. 

“Nexstar has been negotiating tirelessly and in good faith in an attempt to reach a mutually agreeable multiyear contract with Verizon Fios, offering the same fair market rates it offered to other large distribution partners with whom it completed successful negotiations earlier this year,” the broadcaster said. “Nexstar routinely reaches amicable retransmission and carriage agreements with its cable, satellite, and telco partners — in the last three years alone, the company has  successfully completed agreements with more than 500 distribution partners.” 

Nexstar, the nation’s largest broadcaster, said it “remains hopeful” that a resolution can be reached quickly.

Markets affected by the blackout include New York; Philadelphia; Providence, Rhode Island; and Buffalo, New York. 

Tegna stations were blacked out for just under a week in a separate dispute with Verizon Fios in January.

Earlier this week, Verizon claimed that Nexstar was proposing a 64% rate increase and called that “unreasonable.”

Nexstar insisted it was simply seeking “fair-market rates” for the live sports, local news and entertainment programming it provides.

After the blackout, Verizon said that Nexstar declined an extension in order to continue negotiations, resulting in Fios customers losing channels.

“Unfortunately, Nexstar has a reputation for this type of practice with providers, which ultimately results in viewers losing out on their content,” Verizon said.

“We are disappointed that Nexstar was unwilling to enter into a fair agreement, leaving Verizon customers without access to programming that they value. It’s time for our leaders at the FCC and in Congress to protect consumers by holding them — and other broadcasters who frequently use this tactic — accountable. We will continue to work hard to put our customers first and come to a fair agreement with Nexstar on their behalf.”

The Federal Communications Commission requires broadcasters and cable operators to negotiate in good faith, but has been reluctant to step in at the behest of either side of such impasses when they claim the other side is guilty of bad faith.

Verizon said it “will continue to put customers first and is committed to coming to a fair agreement with Nexstar.” ■

Verizon's Fios TV and Nexstar Media Group are warning viewers that a dispute over retransmission-consent and other distribution fees could result in a programming blackout on Friday.

The dispute involves 10 Nexstar TV stations including WPIX New York, Nexstar’s cable channel NewsNation and the Antenna TV digital broadcast network.

On its website, Verizon Communications said it is working hard to negotiate with Nexstar to reach a new agreement.

“However, Nexstar has proposed charging over 64% more for its programming. Verizon remains committed to making these channels available to our customers, but simply cannot agree to such unreasonable increases,” Verizon said.

Gary Weitman, chief communications officer for Nexstar, said the company “is simply seeking fair market rates for the live sports, local news and high-quality entertainment programming we provide to millions of viewers across the country.”

Weitman added that Nexstar has “a long track record of negotiating fairly and avoiding service interruptions in our markets and we hope to reach agreement with Verizon Fios. We don't want the viewers in our local markets to miss any of this weekend’s college or NFL football games, or any of the other valuable programming we provide.”

On its stations’ websites, Nexstar has posted alerts telling viewers the stations could be “forced off your lineup and important programming you pay for could disappear.”

The website said the stations have “presented a proposal for fair value, based on the importance and value our programming brings to viewers. Despite our tireless efforts, Verizon has refused our fair offer and is making negotiations very difficult. Our offer is fair. And now they may hold you the subscriber hostage. It's not right.”

Nexstar stations are also running ads about the disputes and on-screen crawls under programming.

On WPRI, Nexstar’s CBS affiliate in Providence, Rhode Island, the crawl reads:  “Alert: As of midnight Friday, October 14, Verizon Fios may take away WPRI CBS 12 from your channels. If so you could lose next weekend’s Alabama/Tennessee game and the Pats/Browns game on that Sunday, plus our CBS primetime shows, CBS 12 Local news and much more programming you pay for today. Call 833 Luv WRPI and demand Verizon Fios keep WPRI CBS 12.”

The American Television Alliance (ATVA), which represents cable, satellite and phone companies, said it sent emails to policymakers in Washington alerting them to the potential blackout.

The email, from ATVA executive director Mike Chappell, used the subject line “It’s time to stop Nexstar's blackouts.”

Here's the text of the email: 

“Nexstar, the single largest owner of television stations in the country, is about to black out Verizon Fios subscribers. This means that viewers in DC, New York, Philly, Buffalo, and Norfolk could miss major professional football and baseball games - including the World Series, and local news unless Verizon pays Nexstar higher fees. And if Verizon pays Nexstar higher fees, Fios customers will have to pay higher bills.  

“Maybe you think this is just another tussle between big companies and both sides are to blame. But Nexstar has a history here. In 2020, Nexstar engaged in the ‘largest blackout ever’ on DISH, cutting off service from millions of Americans in more than 100 cities. The year before, Nexstar blacked out millions on DirecTV and AT&T platforms.  

“And that’s not all.  

“Last summer, Comcast accused Nexstar of violating commitments they had made to the FCC, as well as the FCC's ownership rules. According to their complaint, Nexstar was operating more stations than permitted by law so that it could raise prices on consumers. Similarly, the Department of Justice sued Nexstar for unlawfully colluding in the advertising market to raise advertising rates.  

“Nexstar, in other words, has a track record.  

“When Nexstar bought Tribune in 2019, it told the FCC — at great length — that it would improve local service and news, thereby serving the public interest. Since then, it has shown nothing but contempt for the viewers it claims to serve.  

“Enough is enough. It is time for Congress and the FCC to step in."

In addition to WPIX, Nexstar stations carried by Verizon Fios TV include WSYR Syracuse, New York; WTEN Albany, New York; WPRI Providence; WIVB Buffalo; WPHL Philadelphia; WDCW Washington, D.C.; WHTM Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; WRIC Richmond, Virginia; and WAVY and WVBT Norfolk, Virginia. ■

The other shoe appears ready to drop for One American News Network (OAN), which lost its biggest pay TV carriage provider, DirecTV, back in April.

The controversial far right cable network, known for its reporting of loony-tunes conspiracy theories and its avid support for former president Donald Trump's "Big Lie" about bogus 2020 election fraud, has a deal with its last major MVPD partner, Verizon Fios, that expires on July 30.

"Our negotiation with OAN has been a typical, business-as-usual carriage negotiation like those that routinely happen between content distributors and content providers. These negotiations were focused on economics, as they always are, but OAN failed to agree to fair terms," Verizon said in a statement emailed to Next TV Thursday.

"Since we were unable to reach an agreement, effective July 31, 2022, we will no longer have the rights to provide our customers with this programming, and it will be removed from the Fios TV lineup," Verizon added. "Our company has long advocated for providing customers with the ability to choose what content they want to watch, and our Fios TV platform offers a wide and diverse choice of programming options, including a la carte options, that strive to meet our millions of customers' various content needs and preferences."

Also read: Trump Calls for Boycotts of AT&T and Comcast, Says They're 'Radical Left Lunatics Who Are Destroying Our Nation'

Beyond Verizon Fios TV, which finished the first quarter with around 3.56 million remaining subscribers, One America News has carriage via Alaskan cable operator GCI and through small virtual MVPD Vidgo. These remaining outlets likely provide less than 200,000 subscribers combined, however. 

OAN does deliver its programming through free live streaming service KlowdTV, and OAN is now selling itself via a live-streaming 24/7 direct-to-consumer app for $4.99 a month, $53.85 a year. Also, OAN has begun distributing itself as a digital sub-channel. 

Last week, OAN announced that it's now available as a sub on WOSC-CD channel 61.8 in the Pittsburgh DMA.

"We have been incredibly encouraged by the momentum that our OAN Plus channel is building in broadcast and we continue to hear that the significance and relevance of the OAN brand is valuable" said Alex Kopacz, executive VP of content distribution and strategy at OAN. "We recognize the growth of broadcast OTA viewership and adding a new top-25 DMA like Pittsburgh will further accelerate our ongoing broadcast strategy."

Can OAN sell enough advertising as a sub channel, and enough $4.99 DTC subscriptions, to make up for the loss of tens of millions of pay TV homes? 

A number of OAN talents have recently bolted the programmer for rival far-right channel Newsmax. And more than a whiff of desperation seems to be permeating Herring's San Diego headquarters. 

This was in full effect in June, when Robert Herring tweeted a rumor about Elon Musk swooping in and buying his channel -- a rumor Musk immediately shot down. 

After DirecTV's majority owner, AT&T, announced in January that it wouldn't renew its deal with OAN, One America News personality Dan Ball urged viewers to dig up dirt on AT&T Chairman Bill Kennard, "whatever it is." 

Trump, meanwhile, called AT&T -- a publicly traded company based in what is a decidedly red state, which contributed to his election campaign and staunchly supported his 2017 corporate tax break -- "left-wing lunatics who are destroying our nation."

AT&T's juxtaposition to OAN, however, is far different than Verizon's, with AT&T having a ground-floor role in launching the channel. ■

Verizon has included a popular promotion for its Fios wireline and 5G Home Internet FWA service to now include the Disney Bundle. 

Starting on February 11, new customers for these home broadband services will get up to12 free months of the Disney Bundle, which includes Disney Plus, Hulu and ESPN Plus. 

Verizon previously supported an "on us" promotion that provided new home broadband users with subsidized Disney Plus. 

Also read: T-Mobile Says Majority of Customers for Its Now 'Mainstream' Fixed Wireless Service Are Coming From Cable

Verizon added 78,000 fixed wireless access customers in the fourth quarter and now has 228,000, second only to T-Mobile. 

For its part, T-Mobile, which provides its unlimited wireless customers Netflix and Apple TV Plus at no cost, was asked about the value of such promotions during its fourth-quarter call on Wednesday. 

"When you look at all of that put together, we love how that's working," said Jon Freier, president of T-Mobile consumer group. ■

It was well understood last week that One America News (OAN), one of the most controversial channels on the American pay TV programming grid, will face a distribution crisis in April, when the far right informational channel is pulled from DirecTV. 

More closely examining OAN's remaining carriage and associated economics reveals the true existential gravity of the channel's situation -- by our estimates, OAN will have less than 5 million remaining U.S. pay TV subscribers left once its current deal with its largest distributor, DirecTV, expires. 

On its website, OAN (also referred to as "OANN") lists remaining carriage on Verizon Fios, which had just over 3.7 million subscribers as of the end of September. OAN is still distributed on CenturyLink's Prism video system, which had less than 300,000 customers when the operator opted to stop growing the enterprise back in 2018.

OAN also has carriage on Alaska's General Communications Inc., which had just under 103,000 video customers when it was purchased by Liberty Interactive in 2017. 

Also read: DirecTV's OAN Decision Costs It a Customer: Rand Paul

In terms of more digitally oriented carriage, OAN is licensed by upstart virtual MVPD Vidgo, which touted 25,000 subscribers as of February of last year. 

Notably, San Diego-based Herring Networks, which operates OAN and A Wealth of Entertainment, has a digital iteration of OAN called "OAN Plus" situated on KlowdTV, a FAST platform for "conservative voices." Most of OAN's key on-air personalities, including Dan Ball, have shows carried by OAN Plus on KlowdTV, which is free to view on most major OTT platforms and the open internet. 

Of course, none of this matches the weight of DirecTV, which had around 15 million subscribers when AT&T last summer spun off the pay TV enterprise into a joint venture with private equity firm TPG. AT&T still owns 70% of that JV. 

Also read: OAN Host Dan Ball Declares War on AT&T and DirecTV

Discounting whatever it makes on KlowdTV, as well as a few far-flung distribution platforms, such as Base TV, which serves Ramstein Air Base in Germany, OAN's remaining U.S. pay TV carriage yields monthly affiliate revenue of only around $550,000 a month, according to licensing fee estimates provided to us by a pay TV distribution executive. 

Last week, DirecTV issued a terse statement, announcing its decision not to renew its distribution deal with Herring for both OAN and A World of Wealth.

The decision came following criticism of AT&T, which as Reuters detailed in October, played a foundational role in the launch of One America News. The channel, in turn, has come under intense scrutiny for its staunch support of former president Donald Trump's "Big Lie" -- the false narrative that Trump's loss to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election was determined by cheating. 

More broadly, media pundits view OAN as being on the vanguard of extreme right voices, one of the most vile and prolific fomenters of misinformation and division in American society. 

“DirecTV made a negligent mistake in 2021 when they renewed their contract with OAN even after OAN spent weeks attacking the election and stoking the embers that helped fuel the January 6 insurrection. They gave OAN a full year to undermine our democracy -- and our country suffered for it," Media Matters said. 

We asked reps for Verizon and Vidgo if their respective pay TV operations had any plans to cut ties with OAN, but neither immediately responded. 

If DirecTV's pullout didn't represent existential threat enough to Herring, the company, along with fellow far right informational networks Fox News and Newsmax, are also being sued by several voting machine companies for libel, tied to the networks' Big Lie coverage. 

A pay TV blackout that has kept four Tegna-owned stations off Verizon Fios, including CBS affiliate WUSA-TV in Washington, D.C., has ended. 

"Good news! We’ve been able to reach an agreement with Tegna to restore their channels on Fios TV," Verizon announced in a short statement on its landing page Saturday. "We appreciate your patience during these talks, and we thank you for your support."

The blackout also involved Tegna stations in Norfolk, Va. (ABC affiliate WVEC); Buffalo, N.Y. (NBC affiliate WGRZ); and Harrisburg, Penn. (Fox affiliate WPMT).

The agreement was reached Saturday morning. 

Of course, it's the righteous indignation of the rhetoric that makes these disputes fun to follow.

On Tuesday last week, Verizon released a statement confirming the stations had been pulled off Fios: "As of January 4 at 8:00 p.m. ET, Tegna failed to agree to fair terms of its contract with Verizon. Unfortunately, Tegna has a reputation for this type of practice with providers, which ultimately results in pulling content from viewers."

Tegna responded: “We have been working for months to reach a fair, market-based agreement with Verizon based on the competitive terms we’ve used to reach deals with other major providers. We even offered Verizon an extension that kept our stations available to viewers through the holiday weekend. We are especially disappointed that Verizon has pulled access at a time when local broadcast stations are a lifeline, connecting people to the news, information, and entertainment they need and want most. We hope that Verizon realizes how important our stations are to their subscribers and works with us to reach a fair agreement.” 

Meanwhile, the American Television Alliance, which represents pay TV operators, used the opportunity to publicly lobby about increasing broadcast retransmission licensing fees.

“American consumers cannot continue to be used as private leverage to extort higher fees for broadcast conglomerates like Tegna," the group said. ■

This article was updated on Jan. 8 to include a response from Tegna.

Tegna stations in four markets were pulled off Verizon Fios Tuesday, with the station group and pay TV operator unable to reach agreement on a new broadcast retransmission consent contract.  

The blackout involves Tegna stations in Washington, D.C. (CBS affiliate WUSA); Norfolk, Va. (ABC affiliate WVEC); Buffalo, N.Y. (NBC affiliate WGRZ); and Harrisburg, Penn. (Fox affiliate WPMT).

"As of January 4 at 8:00 p.m. ET, Tegna failed to agree to fair terms of its contract with Verizon. Unfortunately, Tegna has a reputation for this type of practice with providers, which ultimately results in pulling content from viewers," Verizon said in a statement. 

Added Tegna: “We have been working for months to reach a fair, market-based agreement with Verizon based on the competitive terms we’ve used to reach deals with other major providers. We even offered Verizon an extension that kept our stations available to viewers through the holiday weekend. We are especially disappointed that Verizon has pulled access at a time when local broadcast stations are a lifeline, connecting people to the news, information, and entertainment they need and want most. We hope that Verizon realizes how important our stations are to their subscribers and works with us to reach a fair agreement.” 

On Monday, Tegna and Verizon Communications said they had agreed to extend their retransmission consent negotiations for a handful of stations until 6 p.m. January 4, holding out some hope that a long-term deal can be reached.

Currently more than 60 Tegna stations in 53 markets are also embroiled in a retransmission dispute with Dish Network.

The American Television Alliance, whose members include Verizon and Dish, as well as cable operators, cable networks, and others, said the Verizon impasse was just another example of Tegna's unreasonable demands and called for Congress and the FCC to reform retrans rules, which has been the alliance's principal goal. “American consumers cannot continue to be used as private leverage to extort higher fees for broadcast conglomerates like Tegna," said the group. ■

Verizon Fios subscribers could lose access to programming from TV stations owned by Tegna in a year-end retransmission dispute.

A potential blackout would mainly affect Verizon subscribers in the Washington, D.C. market. 

Tegna’s current agreement with Verizon Fios expires at the end of the year.

“We have been working for some time to come to fair terms with Tegna and will continue to work diligently to reach a fair agreement on behalf of our customers. However, Tegna has proposed an immediate and unacceptable rate increase of almost 50% to carry their stations. We will not stand for this,” Verizon said in a statement. 

“Tegna has a track record here - they are actively in dispute with other providers and have pulled content from their customers as a result. Unfortunately, Fios customers could face the same experience,” Verizon said.

Tegna’s stations have been blacked out on Dish TV since October 5 in a dispute that affects 3 million customers in 53 markets. Dish filed a complaint against Tegna claiming it violated FCC good faith negotiating rules. Tegna fired back with its own cross complaint about Dish, which Dish called “meritless.”

“We will continue to work hard to put our customers first and come to a fair agreement,” Verizon said.

In addition to Tegna’s station in Washington. D.C., some Verizon subscribers also watch Tegna’s NBC affiliate in Buffalo, its Fox affiliate in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and its ABC affiliate in Norfolk, Virginia.

“We are working hard to reach a fair, market-based agreement with Verizon based on the competitive terms we’ve used to reach deals with other major providers,” Tegna said in a statement. ■

Black News Channel will be available to Contour TV subscribers as part of a carriage agreement between the news network and Cox Communications. 

The deal calls for BNC to be in front of millions of Cox Communications' subscribers across 18 states, although specific details were not disclosed. Cox joins Comcast, DirecTV, Charter/Spectrum, Dish and Verizon Fios in carrying the service, which offers programming dedicated to covering the unique perspectives, challenges and successes of Black and Brown communities. 

"We are pleased to reach this important distribution agreement with Cox Communications and continue BNC's expansion," said BNC CEO Princell Hair in a statement. "BNC's culturally-specific news and stories are filling a void in our news landscape that has existed for too long and provides opportunities for our partners to connect with Black and Brown communities that we super serve on a daily basis." ■ 

MSG Networks, embroiled in a blackout with Comcast, reached an agreement on a multi-year distribution agreement with Verizon Fios.

The deal means that some Comcast subscribers in New Jersey can switch to Fios if they want to avoid missing Knicks, Rangers, Devils and Islanders games on MSG and MSG Plus when the National Basketball Association and National Hockey League seasons start.

Also Read; AT&T SportsNet and Root Sports Removed From Dish Network

Financial terms were not disclosed.

“We are thrilled to have reached this multi-year agreement with Verizon Fios, who has been a long-time, valued partner. Live sports remains some of the most valuable programming on air, and all of our teams have passionate fan bases,” Adam Levine, executive VP of business affairs for MSG Networks, said. “We look forward to providing our lineup of sports programming to Fios subscribers for years to come.”

Last week, MSG warned viewers that Comcast subscribers in New Jersey and Connecticut could lose access to basketball and hockey matches if a new distribution deal couldn’t be reached. The agreement expired Thursday night and MSG and MSG Plus are currently blacked out in Comcast homes. 

Regional sports networks have been in the crosshairs of distributors concerned about cord-cutting by cost-conscious consumers. RSNs, which make large rights payments for games, demand high rights fees from distributors. Now some distributors, notably Dish Network, have largely stopped carrying them.

Comcast, which owns a string of NBC Sports-branded regional sports networks, cited high costs as a reason for MSG being blacked out.

“MSG Network was the first RSN when it launched in 1969. Back in those days, watching Knicks games was the main reason for getting cable. Now cable operators are saying the high cost of sports is a reason people are dropping pay TV.

"We don’t believe that our customers should have to pay the millions of dollars in fees that MSG is demanding for some of the most expensive sports content in the country with extremely low viewership in our markets,” Comcast said in a statement.

Verizon said Wednesday that its Fios TV app is now supported by Amazon Fire TV and Apple TV 4K connected TV devices.

The Fios TV service still requires subscribers to lease at least one proprietary set-top, the charge for which is built into the core service offering. Currently, the linear pay TV service includes one voice-remote-enabled Fios TV One box. The Fire TV and Apple TV support, however, expand the app's usage beyond mobile devices--it was previously only available for iOS and Android smart phones and tablets. Notably, it's still not supported in the top OTT device ecosystem, Roku. 

"Now you can Mix & Match how you watch your favorite shows, too. The Fios TV Home App will be available on Apple TV 4K, Apple TV HD and Amazon Fire TV beginning July 22, 2021, creating new ways to watch live television with Verizon Fios," Verizon said in a statement.  

"With the voice-powered Fios TV One, now included in new Fios TV packages, customers get the first Fios TV box included at no additional charge, and can now watch live television on compatible devices throughout their home," Verizon added. 

Verizon reported another 62,000 lost linear Fios TV subscribers in the second quarter, which was actually a deceleration from the 81,000 who cut the Fios TV cord in the second quarter of 2020. 

But with Verizon focused on its "Mix & Match" strategy, which lets Fios Internet customers choose to bundle third-party live-streaming bundles like Google's YouTube TV instead of Verizon's linear TV product, if they so choose, the company's wireline internet business is expanding. 

Verizon reported the addition of 92,000 Fios Internet customers in Q2, a quarter that culminated its best 12-month period for Fios Internet growth since 2015. In the second quarter of last year, Verizon only added around 10,000 Fios Internet customers. 

Verizon reported total Q2 revenue of $7.8 billion, up 3.7% year over year. Fios revenue reached $2.9 billion in the quarter, up 5.4% year over year. 

NBCUniversal said it has built a set-top-box app for 3 million NCTC and Verizon Fios video customers that will deliver a stadium full of content during the Tokyo Summer Olympics.

The app was designed by the NBCU Content Distribution team to make it easier to find new and stored Olympic content in one destination. 

Among the features of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games App are more than a thousand curated Olympic videos on demand, discovery and navigation features, personalization by sport, and up-to-date standings by sport. Some homes will be able to get dynamic tune-in to NBCU networks.

Verizon Fios will carry NBC Universal's coverage of the Olympic Games in 4K Ultra HD, giving customers access to 4K broadcasts on Fios TV One.

NBCU said it plans to create similar apps for upcoming events. After the Olympics, NBCU will have the Super Bowl, the Winter Olympics and the World Cup on its Telemundo Spanish-language network.

Also Read: Telemundo's Ray Warren Sees Soccer as Key to Olympic Goals

"Premium multi-platform experiences drive greater linear ratings and VOD engagement," said Matt Bond, chairman, content distribution, NBCUniversal. "The combination of NBCUniversal's editorial and technological resources with NCTC's and Verizon's footprints around this global event is a win for all involved. We look forward to working with all of our distribution partners on opportunities to scale this work around tentpole events for years to come."

The upcoming games have raised concern because of the COVID situation in Japan. Still the games are forecast to generate a record $2.25 billion in ad revenue in the U.S., according to Kantar.

NBCU's parent Comcast, has set up expansive Olympic features for its cable Xfinity X1 customers as well as its broadband only Flex users.

Xfinity TV customers will be able to get all 7,000 hours of NBCU's live, on demand and streaming Olympic coverage via X1 and the Stream app.

Olympic content can be accessed by saying "Olympics" into the Xfinity remote control. 

Comcast has also developed a bunch of special voice commands and personalizations to let customers find Olympic content quickly.

The Olympic destination can be personalized by sport, and customers can arrange to be notified when events they want to see are about to start or when must-see performances have occurred.

Also Read: U.S. Service Members Can Stream NBCU’s Olympics Via Exchange

Every sport and every top athlete and major nation will have its own voice-enabled X1 destination.

On Xfinity Flex, users will be able to access an integrated experience by saying "Olympics" into the Xfinity voice remote.

The experience includes on-demand programming including six themed channels, four live studio shows, live coverage of gymnastics, track & field, and the U.S. men’s basketball team.

Comcast will be integrating content on Peacock alongside Olympic related video from sources including YouTube, HBO Max and Prime Video.

Flex customers wanting more Olympic coverage can upgrade to Xfinity TV via the stream app so they can access NBC's live coverage, as well as Olympic competition and highlights on Telemundo, the Olympic Channel and Universo.

“For years, X1 has set the bar as the most innovative and technologically-advanced Olympics viewing experience. This year, new features make navigating the Games even easier and more personalized, taking the Olympics experience to a new level,” said Rebecca Heap, senior VP, video and entertainment services, Comcast Cable. “And now with Flex, we have the opportunity to leverage some of the best features of X1, like our voice remote and aggregated guide, to introduce the Olympics and all its passion, exhilaration and glory to even more Xfinity customers.”

NBC will have 17 consecutive nights over primetime coverage and 250 hours of Olympic programming over all. NBC's primetime will be live across all time zones, with coverage spilling into late night following local newscasts. Mike Tirico will host NBC's primetime coverage, which will focus on swimming, gymnastics, track & field, diving and beach volleyball.

Verizon has launched Allen Media Group’s Local Now streaming platform to its upgraded Fios TV customers, the two companies announced Tuesday.

Verizon Fios TV customers with the newest set top-box models can access the service, which offers customized local news, information and entertainment, said Verizon. Local Now features The Weather Channel’s advanced weather reporting technology along with content from Reuters, Associated Press, Lionsgate, Cinedigm, Pattrn, Cheddar, Bloomberg, Kevin Hart’s LOL and People.TV.

Also Read: Byron Allen Wants to Save The World

“Local Now provides Verizon Fios customers free access to a streaming service that delivers super-hyper local news and premium content,” said Byron Allen, Founder/Chairman/CEO of Allen Media Group in a statement. “Local Now uses proprietary software and artificial intelligence in a unique way that sets a new standard for streaming local news and entertainment globally.” 

Verizon reported the loss of another 82,000 Fios TV customers in the first quarter, leaving the pay TV service with just 3.77 million customers. 

That's the lowest total since the first quarter of 2011, when Verizon's then red-hot Fios TV service added 192,000 subscribers. 

Verizon Fios TV once elicited consumer clamoring in cable-dissonant markets like New York. The service peaked in 2017, reaching just over 4.6 million customers before it stopped growing that year. 

In its earnings release Wednesday, Verizon attributed to sustained erosion to its pay TV service to "the ongoing shift from traditional linear video to over-the-top offerings." 

It should be noted that Verizon isn't out of the wireline business--it added 98,000 Fios consumer broadband customers in the first quarter. 

Overall in the first quarter, Verizon reported total revenue of $22.8 billion, an increase of 4.7% year over year.

Also gone are the halcyon days of 2011 when wireline services made up more than 50% of Verizon's revenue. 

The company, now fixated on 5G services, reported total wireless service revenue of $16.7 billion in Q1, a 2.4% increase year over year

Verizon said an unspecified problem with its network, which affected myriad ISPs and a number of key edge services Tuesday, while impacting millions of Northeasterners from Washington, D.C. to Boston, has been fixed. 

A Verizon rep told wire services that network usage patterns “are returning to normal" and the company is investigating what happened. The problems, he said, were not related to an accidental fiber cable slicing in Brooklyn, he said. 

"We have seen reports of internet-related outages on the East Coast, making it difficult for people to work remotely and go to school online," tweeted acting FCC chair Jessica Rosenworcel. "The @FCC Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau is working to get to the bottom of what is going on.”

Down Detector, which tracks these kinds of service interruptions, showed complaints in the Northeast region peaking at around noon East Coast Time Tuesday. The bulk of the reported outages were for Verizon, which has 6.5 million customers in the Northeast region. But Comcast and Charter Communications customers reported issues, too.

Consumers across the U.S. reported either sluggishness, or the inability to use, popular services including Google, YouTube, Amazon's AWS and Zoom.

Hearst Television and Verizon’s Fios said they reached a new retransmission agreement.

Also Read: Verizon Warns Viewers Hearst Signals Could Come Down

The parties had warned that if a deal were not reached, it could have lead to Hearst’s stations being blacked out to Fios subscribers, who might have missed NFL games, local news and other programming.

Also Read: Retrans Season Starts With a Bang

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The deal affects Hearst stations in Baltimore, Boston (including Manchester), Harrisburg-Lancaster and Pittsburgh.

The Law&Crime channel has reached a carriage deal with Blue Ridge Communications, the network said Wednesday.

The Dan Abrams-founded network, which offers live court trial coverage as well as true crime shows and documentaries, adds Blue Ridge to the list of recent carriage deals with Verizon FiOS, Cincinnati Bell, Hawaiian Telcom and Buckeye Broadband to make the network available to more than 23 million customers, according to network officials. 

“Law&Crime continues to diversify channel lineups in a legal and true crime programming genre that remains highly sought-after” said Alex Kopacz, Head of Content Distribution & Licensing at Law&Crime in a statement.. “Our unique content has helped the network stand out and we’re thrilled that Blue Ridge sees this value for their channel packages and subscribers.” 

Verizon Fios said it is adding credits to subscribers bills reflecting games that weren’t played and televised on regional sports networks because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Verizon said it has worked with regional sports networks and secured refunds from them.

Related: AT&T SportsNet Pittsburgh in Deal to Return to Fios

“We at Verizon remain resolute in our plan to pass on the COVID-related refunds that we receive from Regional Sports Networks to impacted Fios TV customers. We are pleased to begin issuing bill credits to these customers next month,” the company said in a statement.

Verizon Fios customers who subscribe to regional sports networks wll get a credit in the December 2020 bills. 

The company added that its expats that there may be additional refunds coming to Verizon in 2021 and that customers will be notified when credits from those refunds are credited to their bills.

Other distributors have also made refunds based on the cancellation of games that would have been televised on RSNs.

In October Comcast customers in the Chicago area saw a $13.17 credit on their bills. Comcast charges customers a $14.45 regional sports fee monthly.

Verizon Fios said it reached a long-term deal that will return AT&T SportsNet Pittsburgh to its customers, effective Tuesday. 

The regional sports network, which carries games of the Pittsburgh Pirates and Pittsburgh Penguins, was dropped by Fios in October.

Regional Sports Networks have been under pressure because of their high prices at a time when subscribers are cutting the cord in search of cheaper streaming options. RSNs were also hurt when games were canceled or postponed because of the pandemic.

“Verizon is pleased to reach an agreement with AT&T SportsNet Pittsburgh that enables us to offer the channel to Fios TV customers. We look forward to carrying AT&T SportsNet Pittsburgh so Fios customers can focus on cheering for the Pirates and Penguins in the weeks and years to come,” the company said in a statement.

Financial terms were not disclosed. 

“We are very pleased that Verizon Fios customers who are fans of the Pittsburgh Pirates and Penguins will again have access to watch their favorite teams’ games,” AT&T SportsNet said.

Once surpassing 5 million customers and capturing the imagination of forlorn cable TV subscribers with splashy Michael Bay commericals, Verizon Fios TV has hit the cord-cutting skids along with the rest of the linear pay TV business.

The platform shed another 81,000 customers in the second quarter. Fios hasn’t lost massive quarterly chunks of users as, say, the satellite TV platforms have. But it has steadily declined to below 4 million users.  

Also read: Verizon’s Video Strategy: Everything You Need to Know About the Wireless Giant’s Tortured TV History

Overall, Verizon posted a strong quarter, beating consensus revenue forecasts from equity analysts with $30.45 billion in sales. Postpaid wireless customers were up. The company’s millimeter wave 5G wireless service is expanding—the fastest, lowest-latency iteration of 5G will reach 60 cities this year, the wireless giant says. 

And wired Fios high-speed internet service is still a growing concern—Verizon added 10,000 customers in the second quarter. 

But to serve the bundling needs of its customers, Verizon is now mostly relying on third-party streaming services. Verizon already had in place promotional deals to offer subscription OTT services Disney Plus and YouTube TV to its wireline broadband customers when they sign up. 

On Thursday, it kicked off a deal with ViacomCBS to natively integrate AVOD platform Pluto TV into devices ranging from smart phons to Fios set-tops. 

Verizon said it is offering some new subscribers to its Fios fiber internet service 12 months of Hulu free.

The offer is in addition to the 12 months of Disney Plus already being offered to subscribers to both Fios and Verizon’s mobile phone service.

Related: Disney Plus helps Boost Verizon Wireless Gains in 4Q

Both Hulu and Disney Plus are from the Walt Disney Co.

Verizon said that subscribers who order a Fios 200Mbps connection get Disney Plus for 12 months. Subscribers who order a 400Mbps connection get Hulu for six months and Disney Plus for 12 months.

New Fios Gigabit subscribers get 12 months of both Hulu and Disney Plus. They also get a free Stream TV from Verizon.

Verizon earlier this year introduced its Mix & Match on Fios program, which lets subscriber pick from different levels of Internet and pay-TV services.

Despite being marginalized by their respective operators, AT&T U-verse and Verizon Fios continue to lead the U.S. pay TV sector in the annual American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) telecommunications service rankings. 

AT&T is no longer marketing U-verse to new customers. And it reported 897,000 lost pay TV subscribers between DirecTV and U-verse in the first quarter (it didn’t break out customer metrics between the two fast deteriorating platforms). AT&T is now throwing its marketing muscle behind its new IP-based linear pay TV platform, AT&T TV, as well as new kitchen-sink SVOD service HBO Max.

Also read: AT&T Stops Selling U-verse TV

Still, on the ASCI’s 0-100 point scale, U-verse actually led major U.S. pay TV providers for a second straight year, ticking up one point to a 70 score. That tied perennial rankings leader Verizon’s Fios, which shed another 84,000 customers in Q1, but saw its ASCI score tick up two points.

Verizon is now marketing third-party OTT video services, including YouTube TV and Disney Plus, to push its Fios wireline internet product. 

Also read: Verizon’s Video Strategy: Everything You Need to Know About the Wireless Giant’s Tortured TV History

Fios (up three points to a 73 score) and U-verse (68) were also the highest scoring wireline broadband services in the latest ASCI telecom report. And they also led in more drilled down rankings including in-home Wi-Fi and VOD services.

Notably, in the pay TV rankings, it’s was the fastest declining services that scored best in customer satisfaction, according to ASCI. Dish Network, which lost another 132,000 customers in the first quarter, ranked third with a 65 score (down two points), followed by the fast falling DirecTV (down two points to 64). 

Also notable: The two satellite TV services were the only pay TV platforms to see their scores decline. Comcast’s Xfinity service saw a six-point, 11% jump to a 63 score, showing the biggest improvement. 

Evaluating specific pay TV metrics, such as picture quality, customer service and mobile app performance, ASCI scores were roughly flat with last year for U.S. pay TV operators. 

In addition to bundled telecom services, the ASCI rankings also include video streaming services. This year’s rankings were led by a new entry, Disney Plus, which scored an 80 out of the gate, edging Netflix, which declined one point to a 78 score.

The ranking’s other new entry, Apple TV Plus, finished in the middle of the pack with a 74 score. (HBO Max is too new to be ranked.)

The biggest decliners were virtual MVPDs Sling TV, which dropped three points to finish near the bottom of the rankings with a 71 score, and AT&T TV Now, which also dropped three points to a 72.

Services were ranking on factors such as mobile app quality, library depth and call center satisfaction. 

Verizon Fios and wireless broadband customers facing the new shelter-in-place and work-from-home reality will get expanded, free, access to educational and entertainment content. 

Verizon said that starting next month, students and teachers can get access to up to 60 days of free access to educational resources including a Quizlet Plus account for language studies, science math and more. Students can access the Chegg Study Pack featuring textbooks, practice tests and quizzes, and parents and children can access a 40,000 digital book library via Epic! 

Also beginning April 1 (and no fooling), Fios TV customers who don't currently get premium channels wil get 30 says of programming free and with no sign-up. That includes Showtime, Epix, and Gaiam TV Fit and Yoga. 

Fios will also provide freeviews of news channels if they are not currently in a subs' package, including CNN, MSNBC, the BBC and Fox News Channel.

The hottest TV distribution platform in the video business just a decade ago, Verizon Fios TV lost another 67,000 customers in the third quarter, the wireless company announced.

The losses aren’t necessarily spiking but they’re steady—Fios TV lost 63,000 users in the third quarter of 2018. The platform’s last quarterly growth came in the fourth quarter of 2016, when it peaked at around 4.7 million users. It’s scale has fallen to less than 4.3 million as of the end of September.

Under the leadership of CEO Hans Vestberg, Verizon has for several years insisted that its main wireline goal is the continued proliferation of Fios Internet. To that end, Verizon has offered its customers promotional deals for virtual pay TV service YouTube TV, and more recently, the upcoming SVOD service Disney+.

Fios Internet added 30,000 customers in the third quarter.

“Our customers see value in our high-quality broadband offering paired with multiple choices for video through linear TV bundles or over-the-top options, such as YouTube TV and the recently announced Disney+,” Verizon CFO Matthew Ellis said during the company’s earning call on Tuesday. 

Verizon reported the loss of 52,000 Fios TV customers in the second quarter, with the No. 1 U.S. wireless company actively looking to offload its video business to YouTube TV.

“We have continued our network-as-a-service concept, where we are now collaborating with YouTube TV to offer up not only our Fios customers, but also the wireless customers, as well.”

Since last year, Verizon has been actively promoting Google’s virtual pay TV service, YouTube TV, to both its Fios wireline and wireless customers, new 5G services included. This is, in many cases, at the expense of the legacy Fios TV linear TV service.

Fios TV’s loss of another 52,000 users compares to a loss of 38,000 in the second quarter of 2018. The service has 4.27 million remaining customers. And, of course, as it loses size and scale, leverage in program licensing further erodes … thus incentivizing Verizon to cede even more of its customers to YouTube TV.

“Again working on the motto where we outlined earlier this year, how we can partner with some of these content players instead of investing ourselves in it and seeing that we can bring your seamless service for our customer, but also making it very efficient for ourselves and for our customers,” Vestberg said.

As for Verizon’s broader wirelines business, Fios Internet added 28,000 subscribers during the second quarter vs. a loss of 10,000 users in the year-ago period.

The company reported 451,000 net additions on the wireless side vs. 199,000 in the second quarter of last year.

Overall, Verizon reported consolidated revenue of $32.1 billion in the second quarter, down 0.4% year-over-year and lower than analyst estimates of $32.4 billion. 

The Weather Channel will be available to Verizon Fios TV customers starting Monday as part of a multi-year carriage deal between the parties, the network announced Wednesday.

The Weather Channel, which was purchased by Byron Allen's Entertainment Studios in 2018, will return to Verizon Fios Lineups June 24 after being dropped by the distributor in 2015. The network will join the Verizon Fios TV app later this fall, according to network officials. 

RELATED: The Weather Channel Comes Off Verizon Fios

“We are happy to bring Fios TV customers another trusted resource for weather information with the addition of The Weather Channel to our Fios lineup,” said Erin McPherson, Verizon’s Head of Content Strategy, Acquisitions and Programming in a statement. “Our customers are increasingly impacted by severe weather, and The Weather Channel will be a welcomed addition for our viewers."

Added Allen, founder and chairman of Entertainment Studios: “I am very proud to extend our partnership with Verizon by adding The Weather Channel, to the Fios TV channel lineup, as well as the renewal of the portfolio of Entertainment Studios Television networks.”

Looking to spark sales of gigabit-speed service, Verizon Fios will be throwing in 12 months of free premium Netflix service for those who commit to two years for its Gigabit Connection Internet packages.

With Netflix recently upping the price of its premium tier to $15.99 a month, that shakes out to a $192 a year value.

Related: Netflix Loses 8% of Consumers with $1 Price Increase: Study

Tiers included in the promotion include the Gigabit Connection Triple Play package, with bundles 940 Mbps up/880 Mbps down internet service, the Custom TV skinny bundle and landline phone for $79.99 a month.

Verizon will also provide the promotion for existing customers who re-up for two years.

Verizon integrated Netflix into its Fios TV user interface last year. 

Verizon added 47,000 Fios Internet customers in the fourth quarter, with total revenue from its wireline business flat year over year. The company did not disclose how many subscribers are using gigabit-speed services at this point. Verizon said the service is currently available to “millions of homes in the Mid-Atlantic, including residences in select areas of New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Virginia, and Washington, D.C.”

The Walt Disney Co. and Verizon said they have reached a new distribution agreement that will stave off a potential blackout of networks including ESPN on Fios systems.

“Verizon and The Walt Disney Company have reached a broad-based distribution agreement. Details will be released in the coming days,” the companies said in a statement released Sunday morning.

The agreement would presumably include retransmission consent for ABC-owned stations in New York and Philadelphia. It would also cover Disney-owned cable networks such as Freeform and Disney Channel.

The agreement would mean Fios subscribers will get to see college bowl games and an NFL wild-card game on ESPN, in addition to news and weather on the ABC stations.

Many distribution agreements expire at the end of the year. Tribune, Nexstar and Tegna stations in some markets have agreements coming up with carriers including Charter (which might lose Tribune stations on Jan. 1), Cox and Mediacom.

After abandoning plans to launch a new advanced IPTV platform, Verizon has rolled out on a limited basis a new CPE upgrade for its existing pay TV system, which it’s calling Fios TV One.

The upgrade, which Verizon said has been deployed to a limited number of Fios subscribers in upstate New York and New York City; Pittsburgh and Harrisburg, Pa.; Massachusetts markets; Richmond, Va., and several other markets, includes a voice remote and secondary receivers that are WiFi connected, meaning they don’t have to be placed near coax.

There’s Netflix integration directly into the user interface. And the platform is 4K/UltraHD-capable.

Verizon said other Fios TV One markets will be announced later in December and January.

New Fios TV One subscribers will receive a 1 Gbps internet connection and landline phone for $79.99 a month. They’ll also receive a year of Amazon Prime service and a second-generation Amazon Echo device. Existing customers can upgrade at no additional uptick to their service charge, although they will be charged for equipment.

The upgrade is sorely needed, with Verizon’s once industry-leading pay TV platform lagging behind such similarly monikered next-gen systems as Comcast’s X1 and Altice One.

Related: McAdam: No Content Buys for Verizon

And the investment is a little surprising, given Verizon’s recent emphasis on 5G and vocalized abandonment of traditional pay TV bundling.

This stance was made clear in by exiting former CEO Lowell McAdam in 2017, when he told the company’s Yahoo Finance media division, “We made our bet several years ago before we bought AOL and Yahoo and combined them together to do Oath that we weren’t going to be investing in the linear TV model I’ve said this a couple of times, I think the linear model is dead, it’s just going to take a long time to die.”

Verizon lost 63,000 Fios TV users in the third quarter, lowering its subscriber base to 4.497 million.

Notably, Verizon just took a $4.5-billion writedown on its Oath assets. 

Oath, the Verizon unit that contains Yahoo and AOL, said it has applied greater focus on delivering addressable, targeted advertising to the Fios TV footprint.

That move follows a decision to shut down ONE TV, a programmatic TV offering that originated with AOL and tied in AOL’s 2013 acquisition of Adap.tv.

AOL Becomes ‘ONE’ With Programmatic Advertising

“The Fios household addressable offering represents what we believe to be the future of television,” Brett Hurwitz, business lead, advanced TV at Oath, said. “Today’s TV’s ecosystem is changing and the pace of that change is only going to accelerate.”

While digital programmatic advertising has added targeting and accountability, bringing that model will have a greater impact, he said.

RELATED: Oath Announces 10 New Video Series at NewFront

He said One TV was a “great product” for the clients that used it (they could essentially self-serve and buy against their targets online), but said it likewise made sense to shift more focus to Fios’s TV footprint of about 4.6 million homes as the future of TV moves from a model of one to many, to one-to-one.

The Fios TV addressable offering was launched in the fall of 2016 and initially ran in parallel with One TV (Oath has retained the intellectual property for One TV and could still use it for future endeavors). 

Hurwitz said the move also makes sense as advertisers use a portion of their linear TV budget to buy household addressable campaigns and use that data for their larger linear TV ad buying spend.

There’s a logical progression with household addressable approaches that allow marketers to use that same targeting data and measurement data for their OTT-connected campaigns and for the results of TV-based campaigns to complement and fuel their “lower funnel” digital activity.

Hurwitz also stressed that this isn’t about selling remnant inventory, but focused on premium properties offered on Fios TV that have been enabled for this level of sophisticated household addressability.

“The exciting thing for us is this change in television is really here,” he said. 

In the midst of a blackout on Altice USA cable systems, Starz announced Friday (Jan. 5) that it signed a new agreement with Verizon’s Fios service.

Financial details of the new Starz-Fios deal were not disclosed. Starz described the pact as a multi-year agreement that extends the Fios TV affiliate agreement.

Starz, owned by Lionsgate, said Verizon will continue to offer the full complement of Starz offerings including premium pay TV channels, on-demand and online services.

“Verizon has done a tremendous job in selling our premium services to FiOS subscribers,” said Jeffrey Hirsch, COO for Starz. ”They are an industry leader in offering the best video content for its FiOS TV customers, and we look forward to working with them to enhance the premium experience for their Starz and Starz Encore subscribers.”

Also on Friday, Starz sent Altice USA a cease and desist letter demanding that the MSO stop making false claims to customers about the two companies' carriage negotiations. Starz has been blacked out on Altice USA systems since New Year’s Day, when their existing agreement expired and negotiations did not result in a new deal.

Read more at broadcastingcable.com.

WideOpenWest is inching closer to a planned initial public offering, setting a price range for the stock that potentially could raise nearly $500 million to help pare down debt.

While the overbuilder has stressed it is focused on organic growth, it also points to a string of successful purchases over the past 15 years and is keeping its deal options open while moving deeper into a strategy that favors broadband over video.

Related: WOW Sporting New Logo

WideOpenWest was formed in 2001 and made its mark that same year when it bought SBC Communications’s Ameritech New Media, a state-of-the-art overbuild in Illinois and Michigan and Ohio that gave the upstart company instant credibility. WOW paid between $200 million and $300 million for the assets, which added about 300,000 subscribers. Using a popular metric from the period, the Ameritech deal was valued at about $1,000 per subscriber, or about one-quarter of SBC’s original asking price for the assets, according to reports.

From there, WOW set off on a string of acquisitions that beefed up subscriber rolls. Buying Sigecom in 2006 gave the company an inroad in the Indiana market, followed by five other deals that added 330,000 customers for a combined $1.6 billion.

New Organic Approach
WOW has focused on organic growth lately. Chairman Jeffrey Marcus, who joined the company after private-equity player Crestview Partners purchased a 35% interest in WOW in 2015, has said it will emphasize broadband rather than video going forward. But it also wants to take advantage of smaller tuck-in acquisitions.

Related: Marcus Helps Set WOW's Winning Strategy [subscription required]

Tuck-ins may be the only deals left to pursue. Altice USA, the domestic cable arm of European telecom company Altice N.V., is expected to unveil its IPO later this year and could be an aggressive buyer in the future. While Altice has said it is focused on integrating its past purchases of Cablevision Systems (2016) and Suddenlink Communications (2015), many expect it to at least kick the tires on midsized operators such as Cox Communications (which says it isn’t for sale) and others once it has a public deal currency.

Related: Testing Cable's Value Proposition

In the meantime, WOW will focus on growing the high-speed data business. That’s a tack many small operators have taken over the years in the wake of rising programming costs, most notably Cable One, the Phoenix-based cable operator that was the top-performing stock in the sector in 2016.

But that approach has pitfalls. While Cable One stock rose more than 40% in 2016, due largely to takeover speculation, its metrics have declined. Video subscribers have plunged from 436,370 to 293,726 between 2014 and March 2017. Broadband revenue increases have largely been the result of steep price hikes for service.

According to MoffettNathanson principal and senior analyst Craig Moffett, Cable One broadband subscribers increased by about 2.9% in the first quarter, above the 2.5% growth of the previous quarter, but still about half the growth rate for its peers. Video customers declined at about a 12.4% clip.

The big difference is that Cable One has little competition in its markets: customers who want high-speed internet either have to pay the increases or opt for inferior digital subscriber line service. According to its prospectus, 53% and 39% of WOW’s footprint is overlapped by Comcast and Charter, respectively.

The competitive dynamic with phone companies is a bit better. AT&T’s U-verse (a mixture of fiber and DSL) is available in about 63% of WOW’s footprint based on homes passed. Verizon Fios is in about 3.5% of the footprint and Frontier Communications operates in about 2.7% of WOW’s territory, according to the prospectus.

Allure of High Margins
The allure of high broadband margins — in excess of 95%, according to the prospectus — is strong, though, and led to a steep rise in net income ($26 million in 2016, a $53.6 million improvement over 2014) while revenue increased about 1% to $1.2 billion.

At the same time, video customers have declined steadily while broadband increases have been relatively minimal. Video revenue-generating units (RGUs) fell from about 635,000 in 2014 to 474,000 by this March, according to the prospectus. High-speed internet customers increased from 728,000 to 729,000 in the same time period. During that time, WOW sold its Lawrence, Kan., system with about 31,000 customers, to Midco.

WOW apparently sees greater upside in broadband, driven by increased data consumption from social media applications, OTT video and cloud-based computing. Customers who crave video are just going to have to pay more.

MSG Networks and Verizon Fios said Fios customers who get MSGN networks as part of their pay-TV package can now use the MSG GO live streaming and video-on-demand platform to watch live events and other programming. MSGN launched the app in late 2014, with Optimum as its first affiliate. Other affiliates are XfinityTV, RCN and Service Electric Broadband Cable. New York Knicks, New York Rangers, New Jersey Devils, New York Islanders, Buffalo Sabres, New York Liberty and New York Red Bulls games are shown on MSG networks.

RELATED: MSG Gets Streaming Rights to NHL Games

“We are pleased to expand our partnership with Verizon to provide Fios subscribers with access to live games of their favorite MSG Networks teams and our other award-winning content wherever they are,” Adam Levine, executive vice president, business affairs and distribution, MSG Networks, said in a release. “With NHL games now part of MSG GO, Fios subscribers receiving our networks will be able to enjoy an exciting end of the regular season, as well as our compelling post-season coverage.”

“With the addition of MSG GO, we will soon carry live streaming of each New York-area regional sports network giving our customers the ability to watch every local team both at home and on-the-go,” Ben Grad, executive director of content strategy and acquisition for Verizon, added in the release. “Partnerships like this fit right into Verizon’s strategy of giving our customers more creative and flexible ways to view all their favorite content including crucial live sports programming.”

RELATED: MSG Networks Stock Soars on Sale Speculation

Subscribers with a supported smartphone or tablet can download the free “MSG GO” app by visiting the App Store or the Google Play store. On computers, customers may visit MSGGo.com.

Adding a key MVPD to its 4K test group, SES S.A. said it has secured an agreement Verizon to trial the delivery of Ultra HD channels to Fios TV subscribers.

Verizon joins a growing mix of MVPDs that are on board for UHD trials with SES, which is using its satellite-based platform to deliver several linear channels in the format.

Under the program, Verizon will receive and test content from SES’s pre-packaged UHD platform.  

Other SES UHD trial participants include Frontier Communications, include Marquette-Adams, Buckeye Broadband, Service Electric Cable TV, enTouch Systems, Cable America, Golden West Telecommunications, MTC Cable, Aureon, GVTC Communications, Highlands Cable Group, KPU Telecommunications, Service Electric, Shrewsbury Community Cable, and Sjoberg’s Cable TV.

RELATED: Frontier Joins SES 4K Trials

SES introduced its UHD solution for cable systems in April 2015, and kicked off its first trial in June 2016.

“Verizon’s network is uniquely positioned to bring its customers the most innovative content solutions, including 4K/UHD.” Erin McPherson, VP of programming & content strategy at Verizon, said in a statement.

“With more than 4.5 million video subscribers, Verizon Fios represents an exciting addition to our overall effort aimed at making Ultra HD more affordable and faster to market for TV services providers across the region,” added Steve Corda, VP of business development for SES in North America.

RELATED: SES: 18 Mbps Is the Right Rate for 4K TV (subscription required)

For the trials, SES has been delivering 4K TV at 18 Mbps using HEVC coding. In an earlier interview, Corda reasoned that that bit rate squares with cable operators, because it allows them to fit two 4K TV signals into a 6MHz-wide channel. That bit rate also enables SES to balance video quality and cost, while allowing four UHD signals to fit into a satellite transponder, and up to 16 UHD channels to be remultiplexed on a satellite receiver.

Most of the cable operators that in the pilot are delivering the signals over QAM transport to set-top boxes, but some are also considering deliver over DOCSIS networks using IP multicast technology.

Channels offered via SES’s UHD MVPD trial include Fashion One 4K (reality shows, documentaries and entertainment news about fashion); Insight (reality, entertainment and sports content aimed at millennial audiences); Travelxp 4K (a travel channel dedicated to content in 4K and High Dynamic Range); Nature Relaxation (a nature channel produced in San Diego by film maker David Huting); C4K360 (extreme sports, drone races, dance and club music); 4K Universe (mix of movies, documentaries, and live sports); Nasa TV UHD;  UHD1 (an SES-programmed channel); and SES Demo Channel (test video sequences that MVPDs can use to conduct technical assessments).

Verizon’s new symmetrical 750 Mbps broadband tier, called Fios Instant Internet, has been launched to parts of Boston and Norfolk, Va.

Introduced earlier this month, the new offering, which replaces a 500-Meg service as telco’s high-end tier, has also debuted in New York City/Northern New Jersey, Philadelphia, and Richmond.

RELATED: Verizon Fios Launching Symmetrical 750-Meg Broadband

Verizon is selling the 750-meg service  $149.99 a month as a standalone, and as part of a triple-play bundle that starts at $169.99 per month.

Verizon, which launched Fios service in Boston, where it competes with Comcast and RCN Corp., in December 2016. Verizon ended 2016 with 5.7 million Fios Internet connections and 4.7 million Fios video connections.

RELATED: Verizon Boots Up Fios Service in Boston

Related >Making the Right Moves: Distributors Strategize in a New Era of Programming

You could say Verizon Fios started the hubbub around skinny bundles with its April 2015 launch of Custom TV, the first slimmed-down video package offered by a major multichannel video programming distributor.

But Verizon executive director of content strategy and acquisition Ben Grad, who was in on Custom TV from the beginning, would wonder what all the excitement was about. To him, coming up with what has triggered a flurry of skinny bundle packages from other distributors was just a simple case of giving the people what they want.

“We were listening to our consumers and what we believed our customers were interested in,” Grad said. “We built Custom TV to match their interest and needs.”

While some programmers took exception — ESPN sued Verizon, saying the package, which allowed customers to buy the network as part of a separate sports tier that included Fox Sports for $10 per month — they calmed down later after their networks were included in one of the two new Custom TV plans. Verizon said that after that modification, take rates for the package soared.

Related >Mediacom's Italia Commisso Weinand: Tough but Fair

While Custom TV may not be as skinny as it once was, Verizon has other innovations up its sleeve. Last year it launched go90, a free short-form video service, and CEO Lowell McAdam has said that “mobility” is the future for the video business. None of that seems to phase Grad, who along with the rest of the Verizon programming team will continue to hammer out deals.

That could mean content agreements for other parts of the company — Verizon purchased AOL in 2015 for $4 billion ,and is in the process of completing a $4 billion buy of Internet search engine Yahoo!.

“The biggest priority for us is leveraging our content relationships to offer growth across the company, not just the 5 million Fios customers or the 102 million Verizon wireless customers,” Grad said.

Grad and the rest of the team will have to do that without one of the best minds in programming, former vice president of content strategy and acquisition Terry Denson, who left Verizon in June. Denson, a former cable executive with Insight Communications, had joined Verizon in 2004 and wasn’t afraid to rattle some cages. Custom TV was developed on his watch; he was one of the first programming executives to say carriage deals should be tied to ratings; and he implemented one of the industry’s first regional sports network surcharges.

Related >Cox's Andrew Albert: Engineers on Board

No replacement has been named for Denson, and Grad said he and the Verizon programming team are continuing as they always had. The innovation pipeline is still humming with the customer in mind, he added.

“Ultimately I don’t know if there is a one-size-fits-all approach for consumers,” Grad said. “Some consumers are happy with the traditional bundle and some consumers are looking for something more like what we have with Custom TV. I think some consumers are looking at the proliferation of direct-to-consumer offerings, and they’re building their own bundle but going with traditional broadband. [And] we see things like 5G on the horizon; that opens up some additional options for consumers.”

Verizon Fios has signed on as the first MVPD to support Disney Movies Anywhere, the cloud-based electronic-sell through platform/digital locker for the Mouse’s mix of flicks.

The launch with Verizon coincides with Disney’s digital release of the new The Jungle Book.

Disney’s digital service, which offers more than 450 digital movies, including the Star Wars series and titles from Pixar and Marvel, launched in February 2014. Verizon launched its EST product in 2010.

Verizon Fios subs can now connect their digital movie collections with the Disney Movies Anywhere ecosystem. Those customers can also purchase Disney titles on that service and watch on Fios set-tops (via Fios on Demand), on smartphones and tablets with the Fios Mobile app. DMA also has an app that supports iOS and Android devices, Android TV devices, Amazon’s Fire tablets, Fire TV boxes and Fire TV Sticks, Roku players, and the Xbox 360.

In addition to Verizon Fios, DMA also works with a group of distribution partners that includes iTunes, Amazon Video, Vudu, Google Play, and Microsoft Movies & TV.

In concert with the Verizon deal, DMA said it will offer a free digital copy of Monsters, Inc. to new and existing members who connect an iTunes, Amazon Video, Vudu, Google Play, Microsoft Movies & TV or Fios through Wednesday, Sept. 7.

Comcast, which also has its own EST service, struck an expanded content licensing deal with The Walt Disney Studios in April to offer a selection of digital library titles and new releases as they become available via the Xfinity On Demand digital store. Comcast, however, does not currently link to the Disney Movies Anywhere platform. 

NEW HAVEN, Conn. — As pay TV industry consolidation has condensed the list of top operators, a couple of the names in the top 10 are completely new ones.

One is Altice USA, buyer of Cablevision Systems and Suddenlink Communications, at No. 6.

The other is Frontier Communications, a regional phone company, at No. 8.

Buying former Verizon Communications and AT&T systems has swelled Frontier into the fourth-biggest local-exchange carrier in the country. More surprising, though, is its pay TV ranking, for having about 1.5 million video customers on its network.

Most of those subscribers came from this April’s $10.5 billion acquisition of Verizon operations, including Fios systems, in California, Florida and Texas.

Even as it is integrating the last acquisitions, which didn’t exactly go smoothly at first, Frontier is expanding video into other markets. It has stated plans to add video in 40 traditional phone markets over the next three to four years.

It’s a pretty big change for a company that only entered the video business because a purchase of Verizon phone properties in 14 states six years ago included three markets that offered Fios TV and Internet services.

FULL-ON FOR VIDEO

Frontier has now fully embraced video, at a time when even some cable companies (notably Cable One) are pulling back in favor of more profitable broadband.

Durham, N.C., was the first new expansion location, switched on in February. Frontier also has applied for a statewide franchise in Ohio.

Frontier won’t disclose where the other new markets will be. In late June, though, the company applied in Middletown, N.Y., for a cable franchise to compete against Charter Communications-owned Time Warner Cable — Frontier’s first video foray into New York State.

The new video rollouts in non-Fios Frontier markets will use the Vantage IPTV platform Frontier provides in Connecticut to under 200,000 video homes (it doesn’t break the number out) and makes available to most communities in the state, with coverage continuing to increase.

“Clearly, Connecticut is a catalyst for our ramping up our video business across the country in copper markets,” as Mark Nielsen, Frontier’s executive vice president and general counsel, told Multichannel News. “Connecticut has presented us with a very valuable opportunity to deepen our expertise in the delivery of video over copper.”

Frontier is taking its Connecticut show on the road. And the executive in charge of the state agrees that lessons learned should pay dividends.

Ken Arndt, who oversees the state (and four others) as president of Frontier’s East Region, says the mix of Connecticut learnings, employee empowerment and an older history of making the most out of non-dense rural markets puts Frontier in position to be a successful multichannel-TV player.

“Connecticut was a huge opportunity for us,” said Arndt, 51, who’s been with the company since 2003 and has seen the game-changing acquisitions of the Verizon systems in 14 states in 2010; of the AT&T operations in Connecticut in 2014, for $2 billion; and of the latest Verizon systems this year.

“It not only provided technology that we didn’t have much experience with, and that’s the Mediaroom platform,” Arndt said. “It also provided us something more valuable, and that’s a workforce that understood how to use it.”

Frontier is a wireline-only phone company. As Kathleen Abernathy, the former Federal Communications Commission member who joined in 2010 as executive vice president of external affairs, pointed out in a recent episode of C-SPAN’s The Communicators, the wireless market is already crowded with big competitors. “In a perfect world we’d have it all, but we don’t,” she said. Scale was important to expand beyond voice and Internet into video, though, and Verizon and AT&T were willing to sell some of their markets. So we’ve had to invest, redefine, build and that’s what we’ve been doing with our acquisitions.”

STARTED WITH 3 SYSTEMS

Frontier has only been in the multichannel video business since the first, 14-state Verizon asset buy in 2010, for $8.6 billion. That purchase included Fios TV and Internet service in three markets: Fort Wayne, Ind.; Portland, Ore.; and part of Washington state.

That first Fios foray included some stumbles, notably a big rate increase in Fort Wayne in 2011 that prompted some subscribers to disconnect, as reported at the time. (Frontier then was headed up by Maggie Wilderotter, who left the company as executive chairman earlier this year. Dan McCarthy has been CEO since April 2015.)

Frontier experimented with IPTV around 2012, and then in 2014 bought the one-time Southern New England Telephone Co. assets in Connecticut from AT&T for $2 billion. AT&T had offered U-verse IPTV and broadband service in Connecticut.

Frontier continued with U-verse but, according to Arndt, AT&T was operating an older version of the Ericsson Mediaroom platform (which Ericsson acquired from Microsoft in 2013) and hadn’t upgraded it. The current version, 3.0, is “light years beyond,” he said, including improved visual search, wireless set-top devices and the ability to watch up to four channels at once in a mosaic.

In March, Frontier rebranded the IPTV system in Connecticut as Vantage and then promoted the change in May.

With Vantage came the introduction of a new feature Frontier said has become quite popular: the inclusion of Netflix service that shows up like a channel, a feature Comcast made headlines the other week by saying it’s agreed to add (and which TiVo-equipped cable providers also offer). No need to switch from the TV input to a different device to toggle from Vantage to Netflix.

“Within 15 days, we went to over 30,000 hours a day in Netflix watching” across the system “without even announcing it to customers — they just found it,” Arndt said. The figure has grown to more than 900,000 hours daily, Frontier officials said, citing data they said came from Netflix.

“Netflix is definitely a great partner,” Corine Wong, residential marketing specialist for Frontier’s East Region, said while demonstrating the Vantage product for a reporter.

Of the changes that came with the Vantage launch, “Netflix has gotten the best feedback because our cable competitors just don’t offer that,” she said. Vantage also has a social-TV component that shows up as a channel, enables the viewer to log into Facebook and see what’s being said on social media about shows while watching them, Wong said.

“We’re continuing to find ways not just to provide the functionality but to make it intuitive and easy for people to use,” Arndt said. “That’s where we’re going. The fact that it’s available is one thing — but to make it so that everyone can easily understand it and access it is the key.”

As Frontier continues to add new video markets, that means more and more content agreements to sign, retransmission-consent agreements to be reached with local broadcast stations and carriage pacts to negotiate with regional sports networks, among other items.

When Frontier switches over an acquired market, it does so with a “flash-cut conversion,” or a complete changeover all at once, instead of gradually over a period of months as, for example, Charter Communications plans to do in converting the former Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks systems it has purchased.

The massive April conversion of ex-Verizon systems in Florida, California and Texas led to billing and account mistakes, widely reported outages and missing chunks of the former Verizon VOD libraries. Those no doubt will lead to a certain number of disconnects that could be challenging to win back. Problems also were experienced after the 2010 and 2014 conversions — this latest one actually went better than the other two, according to Frontier coverage by Sanford C. Bernstein.

Arndt said the downside of flash-cut conversions were on display with those customer problems, which the company worked hard to fix after the fact and which affected, it says, less than 1% of all acquired customers. The upside? “You get it out of your system,” Arndt said.

“The biggest [issue] you deal with on a conversion is this idea of garbage in, garbage out,” he said. “So if the records and the data are not perfect, which they’re not, you start dealing with situations. The good side of it is you get employees focused very quickly on our way of doing business. Get them engaged in the model and get them engaged in the business.”

DECENTRALIZED APPROACH

AT&T had centralized call centers (closing one in Connecticut) and decision-making, but Frontier’s model is different. “We believe in decentralization and driving the decision-making as close to the customer as possible,” Arndt said. “Our call-center employees and our technicians in the field are the only two customer-facing organizations we have. If you’re not treating them differently, if you don’t understand and covet the skill sets that they have, you’re not going to compete very well.”

He said Frontier has added 400 to 500 people in Connecticut — including a call center in New Haven and, reopening, in 2015, a New London call center that AT&T had closed — “and it’s all meant to serve the customer better.” Thirty new employees are joining the New Haven call center, in the former SNET headquarters on Orange Street, on Aug. 1, Frontier said.

Frontier competes against Cablevision (now part of Altice USA), Comcast Xfinity, Time Warner Cable (now owned by Stamford-based Charter Communications) and to a lesser extent Cox Communications as cable providers in Connecticut. Company-wide, new Charter is Frontier’s biggest wireline video competitor, covering 46% of Frontier’s territories, according to a Sanford C. Bernstein analysis. “Cablevision was a very aggressive competitor and it will be interesting to see [Altice USA’s] new philosophy,” Arndt said.

Frontier said it has benefited on the subscriber side by the absence of the regional sports service YES Network on Comcast’s Xfinity platform during the current Major League Baseball season, including by some mutual promotions done with the network. “Through their extensive consumer outreach, Frontier has been an important partner in our eff orts to inform affected Yankees fans throughout Connecticut that other viewing options exist to watch the games on YES,” a spokesman told Multichannel News.]

Frontier also made a subscriber-acquisition play when it restored Hallmark Channel and Hallmark Movies & Mysteries shortly after taking over from AT&T in Connecticut. The channels had been dropped from U-verse TV in 2010. Frontier maintained the Fios programming lineups in California, Florida and Texas that were in place under Verizon. That meant signing contracts with many networks, mostly regional sports services and broadcast stations, that it hadn’t had before. Arndt said those content negotiations were “fairly uneventful” and that it was important to minimize changes for customers. Connecticut is costly because of the need to carry New York City and Boston regional sports networks, but Frontier’s negotiating position for networks has improved as the company’s scale has grown, Nielsen and Arndt said.

There are no guarantees Frontier won’t run into situations where it might drop networks, Arndt said, but it’s also looking for opportunities to integrate more apps into the Vantage platform. That could include app versions of existing channels — potentially offering HBO Go alongside HBO, he said.

“The makeup of our customer base will change,” as will their viewing habits, he said. “We feel we’re uniquely positioned with this type of a platform because we can integrate the IP.”

So what will be the keys to enabling Frontier to succeeding as Vantage enters new markets, takes on new content providers (and costs) and new competitors? Arndt and Nielsen pointed to the company’s investments in fiber-to-the-node networks that enable broadband service at 100 Megabits per second and streaming high-definition video at an efficient 2.6 Mbps. In Connecticut, the company also is building out fiber to the home “because that’s the beauty of Mediaroom, it’s transport-agnostic,” Arndt said.

TAKING SHARE

“We reinvest in markets [where] other carriers don’t know how to unlock the assets,” he said. Frontier has said it is on a path to offering video to more than half of its customer base, up from about 30% of 14.5 million homes in 29 states. The strategy, per Bernstein analysis, is to retain and target price-conscious consumers with offerings priced below cable and go after business customers: Its business penetration was low in Connecticut and is relatively low in the newly acquired Verizon markets, according to Arndt.

Local employees, as in Connecticut, will have a say in local-market strategies, where to invest and which territories to target, he said.

“I view the incumbents now as the cable companies and we’re coming in with a product that technically in a lot of cases is going to be more advanced,” Arndt said. “The feature functionality will continue to evolve. We think we’re in a really good position. So we’ll be taking share.”

Fios, launched in 2005, continues to be singled out for its speed, reliability and picture quality.

CEO and Founder of Pursuit Channel Rusty Faulk said in a release: “Becoming available to millions of Verizon HD customers represent about eight years of keeping our partners first.”

Prominent series premiers and all-new episodes of long-running television brands featured on Pursuit for 2016 include: Remington Country; ARO TV; Primal Instinct TV; Reaper Outdoors; Bloodline with Alex Rutledge; Silent Draw Outdoors; The Best of the West; Destination TQ; Horns and Hooks with Rex Peterson; Wallhanger TV; American Airgunner; Winchester & Drury’s Natural Born; Avian X; Ducks Unlimited TV; NWTF 365; Game Keepers of Mossy Oak; Mossy Oak Deer Thugs; Shoot Straight with Chad Schearer; Ultimate Outdoors; The Grind Waterfowl TV; Brush Country Monsters; The Bear Whisperer; Canadian Whitetail TV; Into the Wild and The High Road with Keith Warren.

Multicultural-themed programming is riding a wave of ratings and critical success on TV, but that rising tide isn’t lifting all boats.

From Emmy Award-winning shows like Netflix’s Orange Is the New Black and its multicultural cast, to ratings hits like Fox’s Empire, Starz’s Power and ABC’s Fresh Off the Boat and Black-ish, ethnically diverse TV content is hot. But even in such a TV climate, executives at independently owned multicultural networks said their services still struggle to gain widespread distribution.

Even with a growing base of multicultural subscribers who watch more hours of television than white viewers — along with an increase of young, multicultural millennials who are either cord-cutters or cable-nevers — distributors aren’t rushing to sign up networks that target the industry’s current and future subscribers, executives said.

“Overall, 40% of the population is multicultural, so what all that means is multicultural is now the new mainstream,” said Tonia O’Connor, chief commercial officer and president of content distribution for Univision Communications, which also handles distribution duties for four-year-old, male-targeted El Rey Network and young, Hispanic audience-targeted news service Fusion.

“It’s good business to be in this business,” O’Connor said. “Whether distributors have come to embrace it yet or not, they absolutely have to in order to continue to have any growth in the future — they can no longer ignore the multicultural consumer or opportunity.”

A HOT CATEGORY

While most television observers recognize today’s lineup of quality content from cable, broadcast and over-the-top digital services like Netflix as a new Golden Age of Television, it’s also arguably the most prolific time for multicultural programming.

This comes as the U.S. grows more diverse, and as diverse groups grow more influential determining in how and when entertainment content is delivered.

African-Americans watched more than 44 hours of live and time-shifted TV a week during fourth-quarter 2015, well above the 31-hour average for all adults, according to the recent Nielsen Total Audience Report. Hispanics nearly double all viewers in minutes spent watching video on smartphones, while Asian-Americans use multimedia devices to view television nearly a full hour more than the general public does.

Given those realities, the assumption would be that multichannel-video providers would be aggressive in launching networks aimed at the growing, highly influential multicultural audience. But network executives said some distributors have yet to recognize the value of multicultural content.

Most high-profile shows with appeal to multicultural audiences air on mainstream networks backed by major media companies, Africa Channel executive vice president of content and global operations Narendra Reddy said, adding that independently-owned multicultural channels don’t have the budget or staff to develop and market such programming. But that doesn’t mean Africa Channel’s scripted movies and reality shows originating from the continent are any less valuable or appealing to multicultural viewers, Reddy said.

He added that most favored nations language in contracts, restrictions on social-media marketing and promotion of content on the Web, and a lack of negotiating power during contract talks have hampered Africa Channel’s ability to gain distribution as an independent network.

“Even if the heads of programming for these various distributors believe that this content that we have will resonate with audiences, basically they’re forced to carry networks from the companies that have far greater leverage than we do,” Reddy said.

That doesn’t sit well with multicultural viewers who respond favorably to content targeted toward them. According to a recent Horowitz Race, Diversity and Media survey, 64% of multicultural millennials said they found television shows featuring a mainly multicultural cast appealing, compared to 44% of white viewers.

Yet beyond a few select shows, network executives say such images are rare on the current lineup of cable channels.

STILL AN UNDERSERVED AUDIENCE

“A multicultural cable subscriber today sees his or her dollar being mainstream, but the reality is when they look at what’s being offered they’re seeing that there’s just not that much there,” said Mark Walton, president of sales and marketing for One Caribbean Television. “Even though you may see an article or some conversation around all of this, from the consumer’s perspective it gets back to ‘I have 500 channels and I only have four or five that are addressing some of the interests I have.’ ”

One Caribbean Television, which offers entertainment, news and weather content from such Caribbean nations as the Bahamas, Antigua and Barbuda, Jamaica and Barbados, is currently offered on RCN with the network in distribution talks with several other operators. One Caribbean targets the nearly 10 million to 20 million African-Americans who have some connection to the Caribbean, as well as mainstream viewers who travel and have interest in the region.

“The consumer is paying X dollars but is getting X minus dollars in terms of value to them,” Walton said. “In order to breach that gap and reduce churn, you have to have the offerings that that consumer wants.”

Network executives said they recognize that MVPDs are under pressure to curb programming costs and adjust programming packages to prevent younger subscribers from churning or shifting to over-the-top subscription VOD services.

“[Distributors] might not be as confident to take risks on launching multicultural-themed channels,” Miguel Santos, general manager for Asian-American targeted network Myx TV, said. “The business environment is di_ cult — they’re seeing some churn, so it’s making a lot of MVPD executives risk-averse. They don’t really see at the moment the value of multicultural channels.”

One executive who said she does recognize the value of multicultural content is Verizon Fios executive director of content strategy and acquisition Michelle Webb. She told the Horowitz Associates Cultural Insights Forum in March that the telco is looking to balance that with finding the best ways to offer the most choice to consumers.

“It’s all about managing demand and bandwidth considerations,” she said.

Aspire TV has seen some small but noteworthy movement on the distribution front, vice president of business affairs and channel operations Melissa Ingram said. The African-American-targeted network, founded by basketball hall of famer Earvin “Magic” Johnson, has seen its subscriber rolls grow to 34 million viewers since its 2012 launch; it projects it will be in 37 million homes by year-end.

“Not only is [the multicultural] audience is requesting this type of programming but … from a business standpoint, affiliates are starting to understand the importance of having diverse content,” she said. “They’ve seen the success of shows like Empire and they’ve seen a movement by subscribers demanding such content, which is forcing these large distributors to understand the importance and value of it and to get more content like that on their systems.”

As networks continue to push for linear distribution, others are exploring the Web in an eff ort to generate interest and awareness for their brands. Networks such as Myx TV, Fuse and One Caribbean Television use apps to give viewers a chance to check out video content from the networks, as well as some live programming.

BOOSTING ONLINE REACH

“If you want to reach a younger audience, you have to be available on all of the relevant devices, and you have to have content that’s available on-demand,” Fuse Media CEO Michael Schwimmer said. “Obviously, you have to be able to balance that with the network’s role within the pay TV ecosystem, but I think that it’s all doable and important. Anybody that doesn’t have a strong digital presence does so at their own risk.”

Myx TV’s Santos believes networks targeting multicultural millennials in particular may find online distribution a more attractive way of exposing the brand to key audiences. Asian-Americans, especially, tend to watch content online on various mobile devices, so anyone looking to reach that audience would fare well in the digital space, according to Santos.

Myx TV is considering launching an OTT service in the near future, although Santos would not disclose a time frame. “OTT is possibly the key to diversifying entertainment,” he said. “Given the competitive environment and the uncertainty within the industry, it would behoove us to look at all options to really get our content out.

“In the end, the power is with the viewer, and they will decide where they want to watch their content — if they want to watch it over the top we should be there, and if they want to watch it on a linear platform we should be there, too.”

After a year dominated by news of a rise in pay TV subscriber losses, the emergence of “skinny bundles,” falling ratings for programmers and the continued consolidation of cable distribution, several top analysts said they believe 2016 will be a year when the media business begins to sort out its top priorities.

Telsey Advisory Group media analyst Tom Eagan believes ratings measurement — especially Nielsen’s release of its Total Audience Measurement product — could be a game-changer by offering accurate viewer data across content platforms. Falling ratings have hammered networks across the board as younger viewers move to mobile devices to watch content. With the ability to track those viewers, Total Audience Measurement could change that.

“Maybe we’ll see ratings be flat to up in 2016,” Eagan said. “We’ll know some of that when they roll this [Total Audience Measurement] out and when we see negotiations start in earnest for the upfronts in April. We may actually see a slowing down of the ratings declines, which have been occurring for the past three or four years.”

Being able to accurately measure viewing across all platforms and devices will be the final nail in the coffin for the old media business model, Eagan added.

“The old media model on the content side, which was roll out as many cable networks as you can because you’re going to get affiliate fees, is no longer the model,” he said. “You don’t want to have any weak links in your media stable.”

THE DISTRIBUTION DEALS

Pivotal Research Group CEO and senior media & communications analyst Jeff Wlodarczak said obtaining regulatory approval for the biggest merger deals of the year — Charter- Time Warner Cable and Altice’s purchases of Cablevision Systems and Suddenlink Communications — will be the top stories of 2016, but for a different reason than most suspect.

Wlodarczak said the industry will watch the Altice deals closely on the cost synergy fronts. Altice has said it believes it can squeeze $900 million in costs from Cablevision and another $215 million from Suddenlink, figures some analysts have said are too high. (The Federal Communications Commission gave the nod to Altice’s Suddenlink acquisition on Dec. 18.)

“If they do have the magic cost-cutting bullet, then others in the industry can implement the same strategies to boost EBITDA [earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization] margins,” Wlodarczak said.

As far as Charter, Wlodarczak said cable operators will be watching closely to see if bringing CEO Tom Rutledge’s business strategies to the combined entity will eventually drive low double-digit cash flow growth in 2017 and beyond.

The emergence of skinny bundles — smaller programming packages for cheaper prices — also made a big splash this year, with Verizon Communications’s FiOS TV Custom TV package, and are expected to continue to be news in 2016. FiOS Custom TV includes 45 channels — minus ESPN — for $54.95 per month initially, stepping up to $84.95 per month after a year. Subscribers also can choose from other programming packages, grouped by genres like Lifestyle, Entertainment, News & Info, Pop Culture, Kids and Sports, for an additional $10 per month.

Skinny bundles caused a bit of a stir at first — ESPN sued Verizon over dropping it from the Custom TV lineup — but haven’t really taken hold yet, mainly because existing programming contracts make it hard for distributors to break up the existing “fat” bundle. And several cable CEOs have said customers may come in inquiring about skinny packages, but the vast majority end up taking the full product suite.

Still, some over-the-top services like Dish Network’s Sling TV, which offers about 23 networks (including ESPN) for $20 per month in a single stream, have claimed success. Others, like Verizon’s go90 mobile-only service and Sony’s PlayStation Vue, are still searching for a market.

Eagan said skinny bundles could end up diluting demand for OTT.

CORD-CUTTING, SHAVING

Subscribing to skinny bundles “is the same as cord-shaving, but it’s voluntary cord-shaving,” Eagan said. “I think it will help offset the popularity of some of the OTT bundles.”

The emergence of more OTT players coincided with an acceleration in cord-cutting in Q2 and Q3, but cable operators were largely spared, due mainly to cable’s dominance in the broadband arena.

The rollout of DOCSIS 3.1, expected in the second half of the year and offering cable customers 1 Gigabit-per-second to 10-Gbps speeds, should help solidify that dominance, Wlodarczak added.

With cord-cutting not as big a concern for cable operators, MoffettNathanson principal and senior media analyst Craig Moffett said he believes the biggest overhang on the stocks will be the fear that Comcast or other operators will participate in the upcoming federal spectrum auctions as buyers.

“In the past, dalliances with wireless have been a significant negative for the stock, and we suspect some of the recent weakness in the shares owes to fears of reckless spending on either spectrum itself or on a network thereafter,” Moffett wrote, adding that it “is honestly not something we worry too much about.”

Cable operators made the case for the bundle in the third quarter.

In reporting their best basic-video subscriber performance in nearly a decade, U.S. MSOs cast some serious doubt on the actual impact of cord-cutters — young consumers who’ve dropped their pay TV subscription for a broadband connection — and of online content.

Comcast started things off, reporting a Q3 loss of 48,000 video customers, nearly half of what it shed in the same period last year and its best Q3 performance in nine years. Up next was Time Warner Cable, which reported a loss of 7,000 basic-video customers in the period (its best Q3 since 2006); and Charter Communications, which tallied a gain of 12,000 basic-video customers for its first positive growth since Q4 2014.

Not all cable operators have reported their third-quarter numbers yet — Cablevision Systems is scheduled to release results Nov. 3, with other smaller operators following suit in the coming weeks. But Comcast, TWC and Charter represent about 70% of all U.S. cable-TV homes.

So far, the numbers are in sharp contrast to the second quarter, when sector-wide declines sent stocks into a tailspin over fears that cord-cutters were taking a bigger bite out of pay TV companies than originally expected. While there are still some question marks left, cable has more than held its own.

Collectively, the three largest cable operators shed 43,000 basic-video customers in the third quarter, about one-third of the 121,000 they lost in the second quarter.

“Clearly, 2Q ’15 was not a negative inflection point for the industry,” Evercore ISI Group media analysts Vijay Jayant and David Joyce wrote in a research note.

MoffettNathanson principal and senior analyst Craig Moffett went further out on a limb: “It’s time to change the narrative about cord-cutting.”

It’s not that analysts believe cord-cutting has gone away, just that it is taking customers from sources other than cable. And Moffett said he believes cable’s video resurgence is due to a combination of its better content offerings and its longstanding broadband dominance — high-speed Internet additions at the three top cable operators were all ahead of the prior year, while AT&T lost 100,000 U-verse Internet customers, and Verizon Communications’s FiOS Internet additions were down.

“Cable’s two-way architecture and Comcast’s best-in-class user interface and VOD libraries are emerging as genuine sources of competitive advantage,” Moffett wrote in a research note.

Charter CEO Tom Rutledge had a simpler answer. “Our competitors continue to aggressively promote products at low price points,” he said on Charter’s Q3 earnings call. “We think, fundamentally, we have better products than they do.”

So far, cable has resisted playing the price-cutting game. And though promotions like the $90 triple play have brought in customers, operators are careful to lessen the shock once those promotions expire.

On TWC’s earnings call, chief operating officer Dinni Jain said the company made a concerted effort not to repeat past mistakes. Promotional customers are now told up front that prices will rise after the 12-month promo period expires, and those increases are now about $20 per month, compared to the muchstiffer hikes of the past.

“I think a combination of that transparency on the front end coupled with really working hard to nail the customer experience through the life of that first 12 months will give us a much better churn profile,” Jain said.

From a leased-access weekend program on a local broadcast-TV station, to an online channel that’s also on Roku and Comcast’s free video-on-demand platform, to additional VOD rollouts and placement on Amazon Fire TV — Chris Pati’s IndiMusic TV is boxing the electronic media compass.

The Long Island, N.Y.- based music-industry veteran (as a performer and producer) said his channel has progressed to the point where he doesn’t have to pay for TV time, as he did when he debuted a show playing music videos on WLNY in 2004. He says that show, when it aired at 10 p.m. on Saturdays, would draw an 0.8 or 0.9 rating, on par with Judge Judy. He sold enough local commercials to make the arrangement work.

Now his IndiMusic TV free-on-demand channel on Comcast (in about six states) operates on an advertising revenue-share basis. That will be the case when the service launches this month on Verizon FiOS TV’s free VOD platform, too, though he said Verizon initially pitched him a linear channel that would cost $60,000 per month. His service also is slated to launch on Dish Network this month as a VOD channel. Pati figures the distribution collectively will be about 30 million pay-TV homes.

But the VOD channel is really more about brand extension (and some ad cash) and another step in the evolution of what he hopes will ultimately be a hybrid of TV, electronic commerce and social media.

The formula is there now on website indimusic.tv. Launched in 2012, it offers musicians the opportunity to upload one video per month for free, or pay up to $199 per year to upload an unlimited number of videos. Most artists (about 80%) take the free option.

While the video plays, a dropdown menu appears that offers viewers the option of buying CDs, merchandise or tickets. All the money goes to the artists, Pati said. “You can buy and you never leave the broadcast.” That interactive feature, developed with Linkstorm, is what Pati would like to bring to television, and said he’s in talks with distributors about potentially making that happen. One of them, he said, is a cable provider that previously pitched him a leased channel.

This relatively new entrant to the pay-TV world — though he has had an Indi- Music TV channel on Roku since 2009 (with 21,000 subscribers) — sees cable and satellite television evolving into a “pipe” model where the distributor passes along third-party-owned content. That’s similar to how music labels have evolved to become mostly distributors, Pati said. “They can’t afford to be in both businesses,” he said of cable companies, a tune some of those firms have sung, as well.

Piling on Pylons: CBS Brings New Views to NFL, Too

The Wire (Aug. 31 edition) had no sooner finished telling the tale of ESPN’s expanded experiment with the Pylon Cam during National Football League contests when CBS said that it, too, will have high-definition cameras embedded into the custom-molded goal-line markers this season. They will feature during selected Thursday Night Football broadcasts on CBS and NFL Network and during NFL On CBS games to capture views from the goal lines and sidelines — and they might be used during the playoffs and Super Bowl 50.

Like ESPN, CBS said its Pylon Cams — developed independently and in consultation with the league — were part of a legacy of TV innovations, such as instant replay, the Telestrator and John Madden’s “CBS Chalkboard.”

CBS also released a short reel on Vimeo of Pylon Cam moments during the Detroit Lions-Jacksonville Jaguars preseason game on Aug. 28. “I love that camera,” play-by-play man Kevin Harlan declares after seeing a Jaguar player step out of bounds, up close and personal.

The NFL told The Wire that only CBS and ESPN are developing their own proprietary Pylon Cams.

Verizon said its 10-day FiOS Free On Demand Spring Marathon set a viewership record, pulling in 1.8 million unique users, up 16% from last year’s 1.5 million.

Running April 3-13, Verizon’s fourth annual VOD-fest drew more than 1 million transactions each day.

On an on-demand basis, X-Men: Days of Future Past was the most-watched movie during the event, ABC was the most-watched network (it had six of the top 25 shows, led by Scandal and Modern Family), and HBO’s Game of Thrones was the most-viewed series as customers binged ahead of the season five premiere on April 12.

In a blog post, Verizon said week-to-week premium network transactions rose by 31%, while non-premium networks saw a 10% bump.

Verizon ended 2014 with 5.64 million FiOS video subs.

Comcast’s similar “Watchathon Week,” which ran from April 6-12 and factored in cross-platform TV Everywhere viewing, also set usage records.

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.

One World Sports has expanded its relationship with the New York Cosmos through a renewal deal.

Under the multiplatform pact, financial terms of which were not disclosed, One World Sports will televise all of the 30 team's 2015 NASL regular-season games, as the upcoming campaign will mark the first time the global sports service will air the team's away matches.

“Cosmos fans have been clamoring to see away games,” said Alexander “Sandy” Brown, One World Sports president and CEO.  “Thanks to our new agreement, we’ll be able to ensure fans can catch all the action throughout the spring and fall NASL seasons.”

In the New York area, Cosmos fans will be able to watch the club on Cablevision’s Optimum TV, channel 1159; Dish Network, channel 9794; Verizon FiOS, channel 309; and RCN, channel 571. 

One World Sports is also available on mobile devices via a Watch One World Sports app for authenticated customers.

For the April 4 spring season opener, the Cosmos head to Fort Lauderdale to face the Strikers, which made the 2014 NASL playoffs. The April 18 home opener will see the Cosmos battle the Tampa Bay Rowdies at Hofstra University’s Shuart Stadium.

"This is great news for our fans and another step in the growth our club and the NASL," Cosmos COO Erik Stover said.  "One World Sports, with its very high-quality production values, has been a tremendous partner for us, so we’re delighted that our road games will also be broadcast this season.”

The full Cosmos schedule will be available on ONEWorldSports.com as the season approaches.

About ONE World Sports

ONE World Sports is a multiplatform sports network featuring exclusive best-in-class sporting events, live from around the globe. The network was created to fulfill American sports fans’ growing demand for global sports.  ONE World Sports delivers live and exclusive coverage of some of America’s most popular sports played outside the USA – basketball, baseball, golf and ice hockey – plus sporting events with the largest global following, including soccer and cricket.

ONE World Sports showcases some of the world’s most competitive soccer, including Arsenal FC, Chelsea FC, FC Bayern Munich, AC Milan, and the New York Cosmos, along with top soccer from Asia and the Pacific Rim. The network also exclusively telecasts the England National Cricket Team’s international home matches, Japan’s legendary baseball team, the Yomiuri Giants, Kontinental Hockey League, Champions Hockey League, Chinese Basketball Association, OneAsia Golf Tour and the top competitions in table tennis and badminton from around the world.

ONE World Sports is available via Verizon FiOS, DISH Network, Charter Communications, Cablevision’s Optimum TV, Mediacom Communications, Hawaiian Telcom, Google Fiber, RCN, Atlantic Broadband and a growing number of systems through the NCTC.

ONE World Sports, headquartered in Stamford, CT, is owned and operated by ONE Media Corp., which also owns and operates ONE CONNXT, a global HD/SD broadcast video transport services provider; and America ONE Sports, a leading provider of live broadband sports.

For more info, see www.oneworldsports.com.

Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) has is pushing Cox and Verizon (FiOS) to end their retransmission-consent dispute following the blackout of Cox's Fox affiliate WFXT TV Boston.

Markey, a member of the Senate Commerce Committee, said consumers were being hurt by the absence of the station to some 400,000 households. He did not point fingers at either side but simply pressed them to get a deal done for the sake of his constituents.

“For many Massachusetts consumers, Black Friday was preceded by blackout Thursday and could be followed by further programming blackouts until Cox Media Group and Verizon come to agreement," Markey said in a statement. "That's not right - the consumer shouldn't be caught in the middle. I urge both sides to continue working to resolve this dispute so consumers can access all of the programming they have paid for and expect from their video provider.”

WFXT dark at 3 a.m. on Thanksgiving.  In it most recent update on the station Web site, WFXT said it's continuing to negotiate with Verizon.

Both as a senator and as a member of the House Energy & Commerce Committee, Markey has been a consistent prod to retrans players to get their deals done.