After scuttling its FlareMe TV service last month, Cox Communications confirmed that it's shutting down the rest of its Flare-branded digital video products.
The MSO is phasing out its Flare Kids online video platform, its Flare Play gaming served and its myFlare digital storage service. Cox expects to complete the shuttering by May.
According to Cox spokesman Todd Smith, the Flare platforms attracted nearly 300,000 users.
"However, as market conditions within these services continued to harden, we were unable to monetize the user interest and web traffic to the level we needed to sustain the business," Smith said. "As a result, we made the decision to shut down all Flare products, have begun to notify customers and will work to make the transition for these customers as smooth as possible. We'll start shutting down services this week and all Flare services will be turned down by mid-May.
"The nature of our new growth organization is to explore and aggressively pursue new ideas, products and businesses and then quickly adjust as needed," Smith added. "While we have successfully incubated several new businesses (e.g., Cox Homelife, Cox Business Security and Surveillance, Cox Tech Solutions, and our initial foray into remote health management with the acquisition of Trapollo), the ability to fail fast is the other side of an effective innovation process. We remain open to exploring a diverse array of new businesses, particularly those that rely on or interoperate with our broadband platform."
In 2013, Cox used the Fan TV IP video set-top from Fanhattan to launch the first Flare product, virtual cable service FlareWatch The MSO managed to strike deals with several major programmers to supply content for the test, including ESPN, Turner Broadcasting, NBCUniversal, Viacom and Fox Networks. The service never made it past the testing phase, however.
For more:
- read this Variety story
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