MobiTV, MediaFlo, Go90, TVision — These are just a handful of the many different mobile content services that wireless operators have attempted to deliver to their customers over the past few decades. Each one was launched with a lot of hype and hope but no success.
But Verizon is making another attempt at the mobile content space with its announcement earlier this month that it plans to launch +Play, a content hub that will aggregate customers’ subscription services (everything from video entertainment to gaming, fitness and music) and serve as a central hub for them to manage their subscriptions across all devices.
Details about +Play are still a bit vague. During Verizon’s Investor Day, Manon Brouillette, EVP and Group CEO of Verizon Consumer Group, said that the company realized that the content bundles it offers with its Mix & Match unlimited plans resulted in lower churn and better customer satisfaction.
Verizon said that +Play has signed on Netflix, Peloton, WW International, A+E Networks, The Athletic, Calm, Duolingo,TelevisaUnivision’s Vix+, and Live Nation’s Veeps. It will also include the streaming services that Verizon has as part of its Mix & Match bundles such as Disney+, AMC+, Discovery+, ESPN+ and Hulu.
But Verizon has no plans to create its own original content, which makes +Play different from Go90, the company’s ad-supported mobile video service that offered original short-form videos and licensed programming from others. Verizon shuttered that service in 2018 because it failed to attract a big enough audience and struggled to generate advertising revenue.
Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg told investors that Verizon just wants to be a distributor and give streaming services access to Verizon’s subscriber base. “The biggest cost they [streaming services] have is going direct to consumer. That’s the biggest cost they have. We already have the platform.”
But this isn’t the first time mobile operators have talked about their mobile customer base as “potential eyeballs” for video content. This was a common selling point for their earlier attempts at being mobile content providers.
Recon Analytics founder Roger Entner, however, believes this time may be different because Verizon is trying to solve a problem and help consumers manage all their streaming services. And unlike some of the other streaming platforms that also aggregate content, Verizon won’t be promoting its own content.
“Verizon is Switzerland. It doesn’t have its own streaming content,” he said.
But Tammy Parker, principal analyst, global telecom consumer services with GlobalData, said that she thinks it’s unclear whether Verizon can improve upon what already exists in the market unless it intends to offer dramatic, and exclusive, subscription discounts for its customers.
“If so, I suspect these would probably be discounts for buying bundles of streaming services rather than discounts on individual services,” she said, adding that most big streaming services have little incentive to significantly lower their prices for customers of Verizon’s hub. However, this could be appealing to some of the less popular apps, she added.
Parker said that she suspects most of Verizon’s customers already have access to a subscription management platform like Amazon Prime, Apple+ or Roku, or even their local cable TV provider, so it’s possible that the bucket of potential customers for +Play is relatively limited.
But Brouillette said that the company was making deals with content partners and hinted that +Play customers will get some type of added benefit. It’s unclear whether that means discounted services or some sort of special content.
Parker thinks that Verizon will initially market +Play to its 5G Home Internet customers because it would give those customers a unique value-added service that they cannot get from rival T-Mobile’s fixed wireless service.
She also believes that one added benefit of +Play is the data that Verizon can collect from the platform, which could be very helpful to its content partners, and also potentially sold to third parties.
Entner said that Verizon is still working through all those details and Vestberg even noted on the Investor Day call that the +Play platform is still being built. The company is testing the platform this month and will release it live to customers later this year.
One big unanswered questioned is what happens to +Play when a Verizon customer churns? Will that customer still be able to use +Play or will they lose their access?
If they lose their access to +Play when they leave Verizon, this will be reminiscent of the “siloed” approach that wireless operators struggled with during their earlier attempts in the mobile content space.
Before +Play makes its debut later this year, I hope Verizon takes a look back at some of the missteps that have been made in this area and comes up with an innovative offering that is compelling to consumers.