UPDATED: FiOS Customers Binged Out on Video During On-Demand Marathon

Who doesn’t love free?

I’ll tell you who does.  During our biggest free video on demand ever, customers in Maryland, New York and California watched the most free video content during the FiOS Memorial Day weekend On Demand Marathon, which started Friday, May 24 and ran through Tuesday, May 28.

Customers in all 12 FiOS TV served states, and the District of Columbia, watched hit movies, comedies, various TV series, action-adventure and mind and body spiritual growth content.  

All that viewing gave Verizon’s VOD platform a whopping 156 percent year-over-year growth rate in on-demand streams versus the same five-day period a year ago when factoring just the networks that participated in the Marathon.  When factoring all FiOS TV on demand content, video streaming increased 36 percent on a year over year basis.  Equally impressive, some super video loving customers gorged on free on demand content in excess of 60 hours during the 120-hour event.

Most Watched

For movies, the offerings on the premium networks of HBO^®, Cinemax^® and EPIX were most watched (only STARZ original series, and not movies, were part of the Marathon.)  The HBO hit series Game Of Thrones^® rated tops in terms of viewership among all recurring series followed by Spartacus and Da Vinci’s Demons on STARZ and True Blood^® on HBO.

And care to guess what time of day was the most active in terms of watching on demand content during the entire Marathon?  For those who guessed that peak usage occurred on Saturday night between 9-10 ET, you’re right.

Biggest VOD Library Drives Viewing Trends

The free FiOS Memorial Day weekend On Demand Marathon served as a reminder to customers why industry analyst firm SNL Kagan says Verizon is the market leader both in number of video on demand (VOD) titles and HD on-demand titles, for both movies and TV.

With more than 50,000 VOD titles -- 15,000 in HD -- FiOS customers have plenty of options to choose from, and choose they did, for free, during the five-day video event.

It was a binge-viewer’s delight.  Thousands upon thousands of customers in all of our FiOS states enjoyed the free VOD opportunity. The event attracted a large percentage of non VOD users, including 1 out of 10 participants who had not used VOD in the past six months.

During the On Demand Marathon, comments from fans on Twitter and Facebook offered great insights into how well the event was received.  A mere sampling of some of the chatter says it all:

From Twitter:

Free movie marathon on Fios = my life

Omg the Verizon FiOS free movie marathon is so on point it's ridiculous

Thanks to Verizon Fios, My parents and I have had a movie marathon on On Demand from HBO to Epix and others. Slept late every night (:

And from our Verizon FiOS Facebook page:

I watched all of last season of True Blood and caught up on some Game of Thrones and watched several movies. Thank you!

I enjoyed this VERY much! I’m not too into movies but you guys have converted me. Thanx again!!

Overall, the free On-Demand Marathon exceeded our expectations and delivered smiles to a very large number of FiOS TV customers including my family which gobbled up six movies and multiple series.  I even found myself enjoying yoga Saturday morning on GAIAM TV.

Keep your eyes peeled for more crowd-pleasing, free on-demand events in the future. Meanwhile, keep using the blue “On Demand” button on your FiOS TV remote control.  We have plenty of free and transactional content waiting to be discovered on FiOS TV, and with Flex View, you can even purchase your favorites to view on a growing based of digital devices so the FiOS TV experience goes where you go. Now that’s truly “on demand!”

HBO^®, Cinemax^® and related channels and service marks are the property of Home Box Office, Inc.