Oath, the name Verizon branded its combined AOL and Yahoo media business, may not be much longer for this world.
Alexander Kaufman, a reporter for Huffington Post (which is part of Oath), posted a now-deleted tweet revealing that Oath CEO Guru Gowrappan sent out a companywide email about the imminent name change from Oath to Verizon Media Group.
A Verizon spokesperson said the new name of the company is Verizon Media Group/Oath.
The reported name change for Oath arrives amid a companywide realignment for Verizon, which will now be divided into three areas: Consumer, Business and Verizon Media Group/Oath.
“This new structure reflects a clear strategy that starts with Verizon customers,” said CEO Hans Vestberg in a statement. “We’re building on our network transformation efforts and the Intelligent Edge architecture to deliver new customer experiences and optimize the growth opportunities we see as leaders in the 5G era. We’re focused on how our technology can benefit customers’ lives and society at large.”
RELATED: After Q3 slide, Verizon’s Oath says it won’t meet its previously set revenue target for 2020
Oath is coming off a rocky quarter. The division’s revenue for the third quarter totaled $1.8 billion, down 6.9% year over year.
Verizon CFO Matt Ellis blamed the decrease on revenue pressure from search and desktop usage, which he said is more than offsetting positive growth in mobile usage and video products, including Verizon’s distribution partnership with the NFL.
“Because search and desktop products make up the majority of the Oath business, and we believe pressure in those sectors is likely to continue, we do not expect to meet our previous target of $10 billion of revenue in 2020. The leadership team at Oath is focused on returning to revenue growth by completing the integration of the legacy AOL and Yahoo advertising platforms by year end, implementing initiatives to realize synergies across all of our media assets, and building services around our core content pillars of sports, news, finance and entertainment,” Ellis said during last month’s earnings call.