Verizon is shutting down go90

NelsonG · June 29, 2018

Verizon is pulling the plug on go90, its mobile video service (disclosure: Verizon owns Oath, which owns TechCrunch). It represented a big investment for the telecom company. After a big splashy launch in October 2015, the service never really found its audience.

“Following the creation of Oath, go90 will be discontinued,” Verizon told Reuters in a statement. “Verizon will focus on building its digital-first brands at scale in sports, finance, news and entertainment for today’s mobile consumers and tomorrow’s 5G applications.”

According to Digiday, Verizon could have spent as much as $1.2 billion on content acquisition for the service. The company acquired Vessel, bought a stake in AwesomenessTV and bought distribution rights for Vice Media shows.

You might remember Kobe Bryant receiving an Oscar for a short film earlier this year. “Dear Basketball” is distributed online through go90. Other than that, I can’t really name anything memorable on go90.

While go90 was a Verizon project at first, it was later moved to Oath, Verizon’s subsidiary that is the result of the merger of AOL and Yahoo. It sounds like Oath is going to be in charge of all content projects from now on.