Game of Binge – FiOS On Demand Spring Marathon a Huge Success

The 11 million-plus customer selections during the recently completed FiOS On Demand Spring Marathon confirmed two things – binge viewing is for real, and TV shows are more popular than ever.

Total orders placed during the latest VOD Marathon nearly doubled those from the spring marathon event a year ago.  We gave FiOS customers a wide variety of what they wanted, offering over 2,300 movies and 100 TV shows.  Interest in TV options outweighed movie selections, with the top 10 TV choices totaling over 2.2 million selections, better than four times that of the movie selections.

Tweets during the week reinforced that customers enjoy the opportunity to binge view and that TV shows in particular were most watched:

I was really enjoying #GOT (first timer) on the free FiOS On Demand Marathon. Then they killed Ned Stark. #DepressionSetsIn #Hooked

— Mr. B (@CopyOnCrack) April 5, 2014

@VerizonFiOS Bingeworthy moment is when I watch food network nonstop for all days I missed. Need to find who is being chopped! #FiOSBinge

— Jason Lee (@ja2dalee) April 4, 2014

@VerizonFiOS That one time when I watched an entire tv series within a week. Oops. #fiosbinge

— Brittany (@MOdernisticmom) April 4, 2014

The top networks for the week, in order, were HBO, ABC, CBS, NBC, Cinemax, Starz, Epix and FOX. 

Free marathons give us the opportunity to surprise and delight our customers while also introducing them to the treasure trove of content they can find in our enormous library on a regular basis.  According to SNL Kagan, Verizon continues to offer the largest On Demand portfolio of any pay TV provider in the nation. In its February Multichannel Market Trends report, SNL Kagan reported we offered over 77,000 on demand options with nearly 30,000 in HD, a 72 percent increase over 2012.

Of course customers still love movies.  But TV shows, especially for those who love to binge watch, have really come on strong over the past two years.  Is it better production value?  Could it be that content in bite-sized chunks of 30-60 minutes allow consumers to invest as little or as much time as they want?  Perhaps it’s more of an emotional attachment to the characters seen week after week?

It’s probably not any one thing.  Our customers clearly enjoy both movies and TV whether during free marathons or on a weekly basis.  But we have noticed.  Earlier this year, we began offering FiOS On Demand full TV seasons and episodes in its library of content, sparking strong interest.

We’ll continue to use marathons to provide our customers with exciting, free content they can enjoy as they wish.  Meanwhile we gather important background on customer tastes and preferences during the marathons designed to make the every-day FiOS On Demand experience a value-added winner.  That’s a good deal no matter how you cut it.