Verizon’s struggling free VOD service Go90 could be at the end of its rope, as Oath CEO Tim Armstrong recently hinted at the brand going away.
During Recode’s Code Media conference, Armstrong said that the streaming service is becoming more of a content creation and content library for Oath’s other brands and less of a standalone service. He said that much of Go90’s content would fit well under brands like Huffington Post, Yahoo Sports, Yahoo Finance and others.
All this is to say that Go90 may not be around much longer as a consumer-facing brand.
“The brand will remain—I don’t know how long for,” Armstrong said. “For now it’s remaining.”
RELATED: Verizon beginning to push Go90 content out to Oath brands
Last year, Verizon laid off 155 employees at Go90, which also lost General Manager Chip Canter and had Vessel co-founder and CTO Richard Tom take over. Marni Walden, executive vice president and president of global media and telematics, is also due to leave Verizon this month.
The reveal from Armstrong comes after Verizon confirmed last year that it was beginning to send Go90 content out to its other Oath brands.
“There has been no change in our overall content strategy or in Go90,” said a Verizon spokesperson. “In fact, we're beginning to distribute Go90 content across some of our Oath brands."
At the time, about 15% of Go90's content (mostly originals) had been distributed to AOL Video. Verizon said it planned to expand this effort to Yahoo's brands before the end of 2017.
During his time on stage at Code Media, Armstrong also addressed Oath’s ability to function as an alternative ad platform for big brands that are worried about having their ads pop up next to unsafe or off-brand content on platforms like Facebook and YouTube.