Verizon CEO working to sign content deals for internet TV service

Verizon only recently inherited Intel’s failed internet TV project, but the company isn’t wasting time in pushing its over-the-top ambitions forward. Speaking at a conference yesterday, CEO Lowell McAdam said Verizon “would love to partner with content companies” on an online TV service. “We are going to work with them and find a model,” he said. In fact, some of those talks have already begun. “I have personally had discussions with the CEOs of the large content companies,” McAdam revealed, though he didn’t specify how far along discussions might be. 

Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam said Tuesday that he expects to reach a streaming deal with Netflix similar to a recent agreement struck by Comcast and said the telecom giant wants to partner with content companies for an over-the-top, or broadband-only, video service. Speaking at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media and Telecom Conference in San Francisco, he said “we would love to partner with content companies” to bring mobile content offers to subscribers of Verizon’s FiOS pay TV service and a wireless broadband service to consumers. While content licensing agreements for that depend on what content companies want to do, McAdam suggested that big entertainment companies “realize that the pie now grows if they go over the top.” He added: “We are going to work with them and find a model.”