Verizon wants a national TV audience

Apparently, Verizon is having conversations with major programmers about how to bring its FiOS programming service to a national audience.

Such a move would ape similar attempts by Comcast and Dish to gain control over TV channel rights that go beyond their existing footprint in the event the business goes through a radical shift. The radical shift would mainly be a change in how customers access their pay TV — away from a locally connected fiber-optic network toward a broadband service. “They’ve had exploratory talks about how to become a virtual [multiple-system operator],” one person close to the conversations said. “It’s a question of how to get there.” CEO Lowell McAdam and his executive team also needs to figure out which branch of government controls oversight of broadband, sources said. It is also noodling whether it needs programmer deals first before it goes to market, and whether it should first market its TV Everywhere product and then open it up to consumers beyond its base of five million subscribers. Verizon already has a streaming service that it operates in concert with Redbox.