Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ), like its cable competitors, has big plans for TV Everywhere, but it's purposefully taking a more conservative approach than some MSOs are when it comes to piping live TV to mobile devices like the iPad.

Verizon is trying to line up deals that will give it permission to feed programming beyond the set-top box, rather than asking for forgiveness later and possibly risking cease-and-desist letters and programmer-led lawsuits. But it also doesn't believe the recent dust-ups between Time Warner Cable Inc. (NYSE: TWC), Cablevision Systems Corp. (NYSE: CVC) and some major programmers will derail or in some way slow down Verizon's TV Everywhere deployment plans. In fact, the telco may need to notch fewer deals than you might think to get things rolling. (See TW Cable, Viacom Take iPad Fight to Court , TW Cable's iPad TV App Changes Channels and Fox to TW Cable: Stop Streaming Our Stuff .)

Verizon Director of Entertainment Services Joe Ambeault discusses with Light Reading Cable what FiOS TV has in store for TV Everywhere, offers his thoughts on the recent MSO-programmer battles over the iPad and explains how his company expects to move forward with mobile, live TV, including whether Verizon expects to charge extra for out-of-home access to video subscriptions.



And, by the way, he's not too wild about "TV Everywhere" as a consumer brand.

Contents:

— Jeff Baumgartner, Site Editor, Light Reading Cable



Light Reading Cable: News about service provider apps for the iPad has been buzzing lately. What's the status on Verizon's efforts with the iPad and other tablets?

Ambeault: Tablets are one device that we view as options to provide access to content like a traditional set-top box. The technology is well in place. Primarily, we had the advantage of starting FiOS TV in 2005 and being able to take a very Internet architecture approach, so the platform has made the technology portion of turning tablets and game consoles and Blu-ray players and broadband-enabled flatscreens into set-tops not that difficult for us.

The primary work right now is collaborating with our content partners on how the whole experience works, how it relates to TV Everywhere and making sure things are secured to our content partners' satisfaction -- it's really the collaboration step with our partners.

Light Reading Cable: But in the meantime, you've been using the iPad as a remote control, correct?

Ambeault: We've had service management applications for quite some time. Our remote control and DVR manager across all devices, including a number of tablets, is now available on more than 1 million devices. We've had more than 1 million downloads of those applications across Android, iOS and RIM.

Light Reading Cable: As you look ahead to 2011, Verizon will be delivering live TV to iPads in the home, but didn't some of that work get underway last fall with the FiOS football app with the NFL?

Ambeault: That was a way to collaborate with content partners. We purposefully didn't promote it, so its use was a natural discovery by folks going through the app store. If you looked at that experience, it was more than just about: turn this device into your TV screen. It certainly did that, but it also, as an important item to our content partners ... has been that it also plays a role as an auxiliary to the core TV experience.

Why we started with the service management apps and making sure these devices could interact with the TV is that you could be watching the RedZone channel on the tablet with all sorts of interactivity around it -- scores and tweets and that type of stuff [and let them tune to the games on the primary TV using the tablet].

We sort of look at it as certainly the kind of more pedestrian use case of turning it into another TV, but more importantly we think -- and something that is very interesting to the content providers -- using it as an engagement tool for the core business.

Light Reading Cable: How were you delivering that to the iPad? As an IP stream?

Ambeault: Yes, which is why I mentioned earlier that it's a bit more straightforward for us, from a technical standpoint, to do this type of work because FiOS TV has been delivering content over IP for years now.

Light Reading Cable: Even though you didn't promote the NFL app, what kind of response did you get from it?

Ambeault: The good news is, as a way to help drive engagement back to the big screen, it drove more sales of football content. Probably the most popular comment, which wasn't so dissimilar to the other two MSOs [that are delivering live TV to the iPad], is that I'd like not just to have it trapped to my house.

Next page: Mobilizing Live TV

Light Reading Cable: Looking forward and delivering live TV to devices like the iPad, does Verizon intend to limit viewing to in the home initially, or are you considering out-of-home viewing as well?

Ambeault: The application on these devices -- and not just the iPad ... there's tens of millions of game consoles and a growing number of connected Blu-ray players and Roku-type devices of the world -- it knows what kind of customer you are and where you are. If you took the tablet use case in your home, the expectation is that you'd have access, over time, to all the content that the set-top box would have access to.

That same application, as you step out of your home, knows that you have now left your home. And if your content does not have rights out of your home, then we'd preclude your access to that until we've procured those out-of-home rights. So that's why in Q4 we introduced the FlexView brand.

FlexView means to customers ... complete freedom in and out of your home.

Light Reading Cable: Have you already determined a package for in and out of the home yet based on your current contracts with programmers?

Ambeault: The out-of-home stuff is everything that has the FlexView logo attached to it. Under FlexView would be things you'd more commonly associate with TV Everywhere, except that it [TV Everywhere] is not a very good consumer brand.



Light Reading Cable: So FlexView is your brand for TV Everywhere?

Ambeault: And also beyond subscription content -- transaction content, for any content that is no longer constrained to particular viewing rights, but has that any device, any place, any time type of rights.

Light Reading Cable: How are you using FlexView today?

Ambeault: It's primarily being used for transactional content [such as] rental video-on-demand content. And we also support electronic sell-through.

Light Reading Cable: What's an example of that?

Ambeault: Electronic sell-though would be like [Amazon] Unbox or iTunes. Basically, purchase-to-own.

Light Reading Cable: What kind of results are you getting so far? Have customers been able to find it? Are they using it?

Ambeault: Maybe the best way to characterize it is that it has exceeded our business case. Customers are most engaged with the content through their TV screen, but are discovering their content through their mobile devices and computer.

Next page: Tablet Tension

Light Reading Cable: With respect to live TV on tablets in the home, there's been some recent tension between cable operators like Time Warner Cable and Cablevision and some major programmers. Has that caused Verizon to hesitate or even reconsider its live TV plans for devices like the iPad?

Ambeault: It didn't change our approach. We are, at least from a legal standpoint ... more conservative. So our approach for FiOS TV in any of our content relationships has always been very collaborative as opposed to some of the lesser collaborative approaches from some of our competitors.

Light Reading Cable: Since you'll be delivering only channels you'll have rights to, is there a set number of channels that you'll target in the early going?

Ambeault: No, if we have one of the major top five media companies to say yes, then that would be sufficient to get started. The strategy here is not that much different than what we've done with the TV Everywhere content, which is find some folks we can come to agreement with quickly -- an actual agreement as opposed to fighting it out in the press and in front of our customers, and then build from there.

Light Reading Cable: Will it require another round of negotiations to secure the rights you'll need?

Ambeault: The business development strategy is leveraging very healthy relationships and, knock on wood, you haven't seen any negative press between us and our content providers because we do try to collaborate as partners as opposed to an adversarial relationship.

My expectation is that the same strategy we've applied for TV Everywhere, which is basically this: Do a ton of meetings and whoever says yes first, focus there, and the rest will come along. If we get a major news network to agree and their competing news network was not as agreeable in those business development conversations then our historical experience has been, once you get one or two of them, the third or fourth will come along much easier.

Light Reading Cable: How does your FiOS activity with mobile video come up against what the wireless side of the house is doing? Is it competitive or complementary? [Ed note: For example, Verizon Wireless inked a separate deal earlier this year to offer subscription video services using Sling Media Inc. 's place-shifting technology.]

Ambeault: There's certainly overlap, but our wireless business addresses a much larger market, so I think the best way to answer that is [it's] complementary.

Light Reading Cable: As you put the business model together for TV Everywhere, is there any indication yet that customers might be willing to pay a bit extra, say $5 per month, for out-of-home access?

Ambeault: Our assertions, at this juncture, are that the in/out of home and multi-screen capability is a table stake going forward. To the greatest extent possible, we have avoided any incremental charges for the content. For instance, the YES Network, we were not successful in removing that incremental charge for the additional [broadband] access. There will certainly be exceptions, but the overall goal is: this is the cost of doing business. Value doesn't always have to come in the realm of additional dollars.

— Jeff Baumgartner, Site Editor, Light Reading Cable