CenturyLink Cooking Up OTT Video Service

Count CenturyLink among the growing number of multichannel video programming distributors that's developing an over-the-top video service. CenturyLink isn’t sharing a lot of detail yet, including when it will launch the over-the-top offering and what programming and content will grace it, but it “will provide a robust competitive video offering for customers both within and outside our Prism TV market footprint,” company president and CEO Glen Post said.

CenturyLink appears to be ramping up a slimmed-down OTT service amid the growing cord-cutting threat and the need to complement traditional, bigger pay TV bundles. It’ll also come into play amid other OTT-TV offerings that have emerged, including Sling TV, Sony PlayStation Vue, and standalone OTT services from Showtime, HBO and CBS, among others. Post acknowledged that programming costs for Prism TV remain high, but said they are still profitable customers because about 97 percent of them also bundle in CenturyLink’s broadband service. But he expects to enjoy “higher margins” with the new OTT product.