Cord cutting is real, and it continues to grow: You might have heard that opinion before – but not necessarily from someone in the business of selling pay TV subscriptions. However, Verizon’s director of consumer video services Maitreyi Krishnaswamy, who is responsible for the company’s FIOS TV service, said as much in an interview with The Tampa Tribune Thursday (hat tip to Karl Bode).
Asked whether cord cutting is losing steam, Krishnaswamy said:
“No, that trend is not stopping. It’s growing. The question is: Is it growing enough for us?”
Of course, many traditional TV services vendors would rather see cord cutting go away, but Verizon seems to have a bit of a different take on the matter. That’s not just because the company is rolling out a Netflix competitor in cooperation with Redbox later this year, but also because cod cutting is fundamentally changing the parameters of Verizon’s TV business. Again, Krishnaswamy:
“Is the migration to a-la-carte enough that we can go that route? It has a way more important impact that (sic) just on them. It impacts how we negotiate TV contracts with studios. It’s not something we can do overnight, but definitely something we’ve been looking at.”
Krishnaswamy didn’t spell out all the details, but here is what read between the lines of this statement: Cord cutting isn’t just about some people not paying for TV anymore, but also about enabling new and innovative business models, including unbundled subscriptions to individual channels. And Verizon is apparently ready to take the plunge as soon as the wave is big enough.
