Verizon FLICKS FINGER at Netflix with skinny à la carte-style TV package for fibre munchers

U.S. cable giant Verizon vowed last year that it would offer channels à la carte to its customers simply because the demand was there. From tomorrow (19 April), the telco's fibre network subscribers will be able to pick and choose the pay-TV they want.

Verizon's change in strategy is a direct stab at the likes of vid-streaming players such as Netflix.

The firm's FiOS customers will be able to subscribe to a slim package of telly channels, on top of which they can select genre-specific channel packs.

Reuters reported that the so-called "Custom TV" offers will start at $65 a month. The entry level package apparently includes broadband access, 36 fixed basic television channels and two channel packs.

Extras can be added at the cost of $10 a pop.

Verizon's national ops president Tami Erwin told the news wire:

Everybody is getting into the video space ... increasingly, customers are saying, "I want to pay for what I view".

Over-the-top (OTT) players such as HBO, Netflix, Amazon and Hulu are slowly changing the TV-viewing habits of consumers.

Verizon has finally acknowledged this by cutting through the rigidity of its cable service in the hope of preventing subscribers from exiting contracts in favour of OTT deals. ®