Verizon FiOS has made an appealing offer to CBS employees who can no longer watch the network in New York, Los Angeles and Dallas because of the company’s blackout on Time Warner Cable. Verizon is offering the employees discounts and promotions, says an LA Times story.
In a memo to staffers, CBS said Verizon FiOS is offering employees “exclusive discounts and special promotions.” Verizon is even going to send sales teams to CBS offices in those cities this week to sign up new customers.
Verizon’s push to poach CBS staffers comes as the CBS-Time Warner Cable blackout enters its third week. Time Warner Cable stopped carrying CBS-owned media properties, including KBCS-TV Channel 2 and KCAL-TV Channel 9 in LA on 8/2.
The issue is not just retransmission dollars, but how CBS makes it content available to other digital providers such as Amazon and Netflix.
RBR-TVBR observation: With the U.S. Open and the NFL regular season just around the corner, TWC customers are going to be pushing to get out of their 2-year TWC contracts and will feel they have the right to, since TWC has not “upheld” their side of the contract, not offering CBS Corp. networks. FiOS, DirecTV and Dish Network will be the ones they turn to where possible.
