FiOS TV Director Cuts the Cord

Maitreyi Krishnaswamy, director of FiOS TV, has a confession, and it doesn't bode well for the future of Verizon's fixed-line video business.

"I've pretty much cut the cord," Krishnaswamy admitted on a panel at the TV of Tomorrow event in New York City.

Krishnaswamy is bullish on Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ)'s new Go90 mobile video service, but she readily acknowledges there are major challenges in the traditional pay-TV business. (See Verizon's Go90 Is Live – Will Anyone Watch?)

Young audiences like TV shows, but they don't want to pay a lot to get them. And apparently, neither does Krishnaswamy.

Figure 1: Participants in the TV of Tomorrow NYC event include, from left to right, Luc Perreault, VP at The Weather Network; Sherry Brennan, SVP at Fox Networks; Tony Goncalves, SVP at DirecTV; and Maitreyi Krishnaswamy, director of FiOS TV, Verizon

The future of all of Verizon's fixed-line businesses has come into question recently with the sale of the company's FiOS footprint in California, Florida and Texas to Frontier, and rumors that Verizon is looking to sell off its enterprise business. (See Verizon Enterprise Sale Would Signal Big Shift.)

Verizon has vehemently denied that it's abandoning both FiOS and enterprise services, but it's also made very clear through its investments that wireless and OTT video are the company's priorities. Krishnaswamy reiterated that notion at the TVOT conference saying, "We are definitely positioning ourselves very clearly for the over-the-top future."

Unfortunately for Verizon, it's not clear that Go90 will gain the traction with millennials that it needs. The two young speakers on the TVOT panel said they had heard of Go90, but hadn't tried it out.

"I'm not too sure why I haven't, I guess I just kind of sometimes get lost in all the new platforms that are launching," said Nina Pablo, Strategy and Business Development Associate at BRaVe Ventures and recent MBA graduate. But she added, "It's definitely on my radar."

For Krishnaswamy, Go90 is not only on the radar, it's getting promotional priority over her own FiOS TV.

— Mari Silbey, Senior Editor, Cable/Video, Light Reading