Flo TV president says service is currently too expensive, sees lower prices ahead

You don't often see the president of a company saying to consumers that the service he offers is too expensive. Yet, that is exactly what Flo TV president Bill Stone told the New York Times. The company offers about 20 television channels for $15 monthly over certain cellphone models. Stone was brought in to run the mobile television service by Qualcomm and explains that because his service is usually bundled by Verizon and AT&T together in a package that includes other wireless video for $25 to $30 per month, it makes the price prohibitively high for consumers.

While Qualcomm has no control over what the carriers charge for its service, Mr. Stone says that his company is planning on taking pricing back into its own hands when it starts offering television services directly to consumers instead of offering it through the networkers. By going directly to cellphone owners, Stone figures that a price of $10 per month for an annual subscription might be more in line. Stone also puts part of the blame for the high pricing on the low number of handsets that are made to receive Flo TV's signals.

The company is also working on ways to get its signal onto the iPhone and BlackBerry devices as well as other handsets that do not have built in television receivers. The company is planning on selling a keychain sized product that will transmit the Flo TV lineup over Wi-Fi to smartphones (Uh, Oh, Storm owners). The executive also talked about getting its television channels on other portable devices like handheld game players, GPS terminals and automobile video systems. He also discussed adding some interactive features such as "On Demand" programming where shows could be taped on a handset overnight for viewing the next day.

source: NY TIMES