Telcos place big bets on unproven content strategies

Depending on the markets they operate in, the number of subscribers they have and the competitive dynamics they face, telcos are pursuing content and media strategies to attract and retain customers and increase their average revenues per user (ARPU).

US telco Verizon has invested heavily in acquiring content and media assets, buying Yahoo and AOL and merging them into its Oath division -at a cost of almost US$10bn.

The motivation was to provide advertisers with an alternative to Google and Facebook, serving content from brands such as Huffington Post to its 117 million customers alongside advertising. The ideal outcome was to gain advertising revenue while simultaneously providing Verizon users with differentiated content to aid customer retention.

However, far from generating the US$10bn per annum by 2020 revenue that Verizon projected, Oath generated US$1.8bn in quarterly revenue in the fourth quarter of 2018, 6.9% down on the same quarter the previous year.

By December 2018, time was up. Verizon announced that it expects to…