As younger viewers move away from cable TV and towards mobile screens and devices, media companies are having to shift strategies to get in front of their eyeballs.
Enter Verizon's latest product, Go90, an over-the-top video platform launching Thursday that promises to provide millennial viewers with the content they want to watch, wherever they want to watch it.
"There really isn't a distribution platform for premium content for that audience," said Brian Angiolet, Verizon's senior vice president of marketing communications and digital media. "It's fleeing paid TV, and right now it's blowing out into the wind. We're trying to catch it."
It's true that how the millennial generation views content is completely rewriting the script. According to a survey by Animoto of more than 1,000 U.S. consumers, millennials are three times as likely than baby boomers to watch videos on a mobile device. Forty-eight percent of millennials surveyed only viewed digital videos on a mobile device.
"Mobile is clearly the dominant consumption vehicle for content for that demographic," Angiolet said. "It's the dominant discovery vehicle, affordable, and it's also the dominant conversation. Also a lot of the content rights, we were able to pull together for mobile. It's a win across the board."