Verizon finally giving cord cutters the TV they want in 2015

Verizon is aiming for a la carte TV service within the next twelve months, with the company conceding that vast bundles of channels of which only a few are viewed simply don’t work with today’s viewing habits. “No one wants to have 300 channels on your wireless,” CEO Lowell McAdam said this week at Goldman Sachs Communacopia conference, promising a new option with far more selectivity by mid-2015.

Describing the new service as a “bundle with [a] major broadcast provider,” Lowell said that the network will support the addition of “custom channels,” Deadspin reports.

Traditionally, cable TV providers have been loathe to separate out channels from the huge collections that are offered to subscribers. That usually means that, for each channel you particularly want, you also end up paying for multiple others that come along with it.

In fact, that reluctance is believed to have killed Intel’s OnCue cloud TV platform ambitions, with the chip firm selling the system to Verizon back in January.

Maybe because of that new tech, McAdam is surprisingly confident that the industry is ready for a change in tactics. “There’s no doubt in my mind we can make it a win-win,” he said of the unbundling. “Over the last six months to a year that dialogue has changed dramatically.”

Part of the motivation, the chief exec explained, is that a broader range of devices is being used to consume TV content, not just a big screen in the living room. Meanwhile, that content is also being pushed out over increasingly relied-upon wireless networks.

“No one wants to have 300 channels on your wireless,” he argued. “Everyone understands it will go to a la carte. The question is what does that transition look like.”

Delivering content over the internet will work as a companion, rather than a competition, to traditional cable TV, McAdam concluded. Although exactly what the bundle might consist of is unclear, he suggested around twenty channels would be likely.

SOURCE Deadline