Verizon Communications is now offering more flexible TV packages under its FiOS service that allows customers to pay only for certain groups of channels that they want to access.
Beginning on April 19, customers will now be able to purchase a slim package composed of channels which includes Fox, ABC, AMC, CNN, Food Network, and a few others. Customers can then choose to add "channel packs" which cover various genres, including kids, sports, lifestyle and pop culture.
The cheapest plan under the new FiOS TV scheme will only cost a monthly fee of $55, including a pair of channel packs. For every additional channel pack, which could include between 10 channels to 17 channels, customers will have to pay a monthly fee of $10. Customers will also be able to change channel packs after every 30 days.
"Customers want flexibility to turn channels on and turn channels off," said Verizon FiOS President Tami Erwin.
Verizon's new FiOS TV package comes as distributors of pay TV services receive increasing pressure to provide consumers with more choices in how they purchase TV content, instead of forcing them to pay for a huge number of channels that include many ones that the customers do not watch.
Erwin, citing a 2014 report by Nielsen, stated that by 2013, Americans had been receiving an increased number of channels by 46 percent over the previous five years to an average of 189 channels. However, Americans on average only watch 17 channels.
The figures explain why consumers are increasingly discontinuing their pay TV services and are instead looking to online service such as Hulu and Netflix, where customers only pay for the content that they access.
Sling TV, Dish Network's streaming service, allows customers to choose the tiers of channels available to them in addition to a core package worth $20 monthly. Apple is also reportedly looking to offer a TV service in the fall.
Pay TV distributors have been trying to slim down their offerings to address the needs of cost-conscious consumers. The latest move of Verizon is not entirely a la carte pricing, wherein customers can choose exactly which channels they pay for, but it could come the closest for now.
Consumer groups and lawmakers have been clamoring for a la carte pricing on channels for years, but executives from media companies claim that such a model would only cause the downfall of the industry and would turn out to be worse for the consumers.
"While this is not all-the-way a la carte, customers have the ability to consolidate and collapse the kind of content they want to view," said Erwin, adding that channels on a la carte pricing would be more expensive compared to purchasing channels in packages.
Verizon also offers bundles for FiOS TV and Internet, with the $75 per month plan packaging the FiOS TV's base package and two channel packs with a 50 Mbps broadband Internet connection. For $10 more, a phone service is added.
