TelcoTV: Telcos will revitalize TV, Verizon exec says

ANAHEIM, Calif. – Telephone companies are in the best position to revitalize TV and put customers in charge of what they watch, when they watch it and on what device, John Harrobin, Verizon’s senior vice president of marketing and digital media, told the TelcoTV crowd today. But they will need to do targeted advertising, including insertion of relevant ads into time-shifted programming and video on demand, he added.

Harrobin also said Verizon is testing a Facebook widget that allows its FiOS customers to view and update Facebook profiles using their remote controls. Verizon already provides widgets that deliver local traffic and weather information as well as a newer widget with partner ESPN that allows consumers to track their fantasy football teams in real time, he said. Verizon pioneered the use of a cable standard, the Electronic TV Binary Interchange Format, or ETV-BIF, for interactive applications on the set-top box, Harrobin said.

Harrobin began by flashing news reports of claims from Google, Yahoo, TiVo and other executives declaring TV to be dead, based on the rise of Internet-based video.

“There were all these predictions about the death of TV, but TV is clearly not dead,” Harrobin said. “One model for TV viewing is dying – the one that requires customers to watch what the networks air when they air it and on one device.”

Telcos are driving the change in traditional TV, Harrobin said, citing Verizon’s and AT&T’s growing video subscribership. “We have the platform assets, we have the data, and we have the customer billing relationship,” he said. “Telcos make the best partners for content owners that want to monetize their content.”

Verizon is moving faster to introduce new features to its FiOS TV service than it has in the past, downloading three software upgrades this year to its deployed set-top boxes. “That’s not Internet speed, but it’s fast for Verizon,” Harrobin conceded. The real magic is in being able to distribute video to TVs, PCs and mobile devices, he said.