Verizon Fios, LG team up to bring live TV, VOD to smart TVs
The companies say that 26 live HD channels and over 10,000 video-on-demand titles will be coming to LG's smart TV this year.
If there's any trend developing at CES, it's cable and satellite providers trying to capitalize on the growth of smart TVs.
Earlier this week, Verizon Fios announced that it will be offering 26 live HD channels and over 10,000 video-on-demand titles to customers who own an LG smart TV or Blu-ray player. In order to access the channels, LG TV owners must also be Verizon Fios customers and access the content through the service provider's Flex View offering.
Dish earlier this week at CES announced something similar for its customers. After acquiring one of the company's Hopper HD DVRs, which can record up to six programs at the same time on its 2TB hard drive, customers can push content from that box to companion "Joey" devices in up to three additional rooms. Kangaroo references aside, the idea is to make it easier for people to watch television content throughout the house without being required to have multiple DVRs.
However, it's the partnership between Samsung and DirecTV that might be most compelling. Those companies announced earlier this week that they will soon offer a "boxless" solution that lets people who own a 2012 Samsung smart TV have the full DirecTV experience, including access to live television and on-demand content, without the need for any box connected to the set. That offer is slated to launch this spring.
As for LG and Verizon Fios? The companies are being a bit more secretive about the timing, but say that consumers should expect to have the new feature available to them sometime this year.