Showtime Extends Its 'Anytime' Service
Tom Christie, Showtime’s executive vice president of affiliate sales and marketing, acknowledged in an interview that HBO had forged ahead with HBO Go and called it an “excellent product.” But he said HBO’s head start “had no perceptible effect on our business.”“We took a look at what they did, and we took a look at what else was happening in the space that is frequently called ‘TV Everywhere,’ ” Mr. Christie said. “We took our time to be careful and put together the best product that we could.”
Both networks treat the streaming services as tools to retain subscribers and entice new ones to sign up. The services protect the current relationships between distributors and programmers by requiring viewers to log in with their cable or satellite account.
HBO moved quickly to line up all the major distributors for HBO Go, with two exceptions, Time Warner Cable and Cablevision. Those companies announced last month that they had belatedly reached agreements with the company. (Time Warner Cable officially turned on HBO Go on Tuesday.)
Verizon FiOS, a fiber-optic network that provides Internet, phone and TV service, is the carrier in all but a handful of cities. "If we had known something like this was happening, we could have done things to improve," said Baliwala, who said Verizon
Its fourth-quarter net additions were down by a third from the previous year's 297726, mainly because existing subscribers left at higher rates. Jan. 24: Verizon Communications Inc.'s wireless unit added 1.2 million subscribers on contract-based plans,