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FLO TV To Cut Prices To Boost Mobile TV Usage

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Qualcomm’s service FLO TV has never really taken off. Not only does the mobile TV offering—priced at $15 a month and up—compete with free video increasingly available on cellphones that can stream it, but its reach is limited to a few devices from AT&T (NYSE: T) and Verizon (NYSE: VZ). According to the nytimes.com Bits blog, Qualcomm (NSDQ: QCOM) is hoping this will change when it starts selling the service direct to consumers later this year, when it also plans to cut the price of the service.

Currently, AT&T and Verizon sets the price of FLO TV, which is often bundled with other video services to boost the entire cost of the package to $25 and up a month. FLO TV’s head, Bill Stone, hired earlier this year, acknowledges this is too expensive. FLO TV plans to drop the price down, “probably less that $10 a month” for an annual plan. It is also considering one day passes—priced at perhaps $5 a month, while month-tom-month subscriptions may cost around the $10 mark.

Other plans include to increase its distribution selling a gadget the size of a keychain that would receive TV signals over the air and send them over WiFI to smartphones, including the iPhone, Blackberry devices, and other smartphones without a built in TV receiver. The company is also looking beyond cellphones to other gadgets that could be embedded with a receiver.

As for “why anyone needs linear TV in an on-demand age”, Stone tells Bits, “Live will always exist. If the Laker game is on now, I want to watch it now.” As for current networks, they wouldn’t be able to handle “millions of people” watching video at the same time.

Jun 24, 2009 10:10 AM ET

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Posted In: Media & Publishing, TV, Broadcast, Mobile, Companies, Qualcomm

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