Verizon at Home

[#1]

By now, regular readers of the At Home blog know that we love free stuff. So, I’m excited to tell you about all the free programming coming to FiOS TV customers in the next month.

Starting now, you can make this a blockbuster weekend with free previews from Starz and HBO. Both are offering all of their channels, including video-on-demand programming, free of charge through Monday, April 2. This means you can watch Starz, Encore, HBO and Cinemax, as well as all the on demand programming you can handle. 

Check out movies like “Toy Story 3" and "Just Go With It” tonight on Starz, or catch the season premiere of “Game of Thrones” on HBO Sunday night. Plus, for those of you with 3D TV sets, check out what HBO and Starz have playing. You’ll find HBO and Cinemax on FiOS TV channels 400-431 and 899-931. Starz and Encore are on channels 340-355 and 840-850.

More movies are on the way at the end of the month, when EPIX offers a free preview from April 27-29. Find movies, documentaries and more on FiOS TV channels 395, 895 and 896, plus Video on Demand.

One last freebie to tell you about, and this one is for the baseball fans. MLB Extra Innings is coming your way next week, starting Wednesday, April 5. For 10 days, watch all the baseball you can handle on FiOS TV Channels 1475-1488. For those of you not familiar with the package, MLB Extra Innings features up to 80 out-of-market games each week during the regular season.

If you like what you see during any of these free previews, you can sign up right on your TV set with your remote control, as soon as the free previews are over. Or, just give us a call. Enjoy!

[#2]

Heather, thanks for the info. Have created a Favorites 2 list with all of those channels in it to use this weekend.

[#3]

Communication? REALLY??!!! How do you find out about these Free Previews? Why not send a message to my settop box? How about an email? It's great to finally find the community forums but I think corporate policy needs to review HOW you Communicate to your members. The new Interactive Media Guide v1.9 is so horrible you may have 1,000 movies to choose from but just try to figure out which ones you wanna watch? FYI, woken up about 5am when someone turned on the TV and found a Cinemax racey movie about Bikini clad women instead of the morning news. OMG

[#4]

Hi Heather,

It's Sunday evening April 1st and I stumbled upon your blog and the info about the free weekend preview. How do I find out about free previews ahead of time?

Thanks - Kevin

[#5]

Kevin - This was in the online Verizon magazine, "Spotlight," which comes by email.

I get "Spotlight" in my email, but I never looked at the most recent one (3/29, 8:46 a.m.).   And I almost never look at this blog, but luckily, I checked it last night and ended up staying up half the night scheduling recordings from those stations.  And also luckily, everything was working well and I was able to do it all on line. 

Heather - "Spotlight" only mentions STARZ and ENCORE.  I hope I'm not going to be charged for the HBO and Cinemax films I've scheduled!

It's great to have this free bonus, but of course there should be more notification.   I  checked my messages on the menu on the TV, but nothing about this was there.  There are pop-ups and messages about the one-time free movie download, which I had been just about to waste by downloading one of the movies that I'm now recording for free from STARZ.  A pop-up or email about this would have been welcomed, and maybe with a little more notice.

Anyway, thanks for posting it here.  I'm glad to have my DVR full of current movies.

[#6]

Thanks for the feedback. We try to let FiOS customers know about all of our free previews. In addition to this blog, we let customers know about the Starz & HBO free previews through Spotlight magazine and weekly emails, as AnnJ mentioned, as well as commercials and on the video-on-demand guide. We also post on our Facebook page and via our Twitter handle.

Heather

[#7]

Looked around myverizon website for where I can get the talked about weekly emails from Verizon and I have not been able to find anything about how to signup.

[#8]

Spotlight can be found on the FiOS TV Central website. Click here for the page where you can sign up.

[#9]

Hi, Heather.

Please forgive me, but AnnJ is right that Spotlight mentioned ONLY the Starz and Encore Free Previews from what I saw.

I didn't learn about HBO & Cinemax until I saw this blog post well after the Previews had ended, and, though I do subscribe to regular emails from Verizon, no(!) email came to me beforehand to tell me about them.

Please be more diligent in keeping us posted about events like these, even it ends up with Verizon being repetitive.

Thanks,

Bram Weiser

[#10]

Sometimes these free previews come up at the last minute and we're not able to get it into Spotlight. But we'll certainly do our best to give you ample notice whenever possible.

[#11]

Thanks for responding, Heather, but, in truth, Verizon didn't "do (its) best" here, and it certainly could have done more.

* Those regular emails could have featured information about the Free Preview, but, to my knowledge, it said nothing...nothing about HBO or Cinemax, and nothing about Starz and Encore (which had already appeared in the "Spotlight" magazine)...nothing at all.  Surely, room could have been found to talk about it at some point before the Preview was going to begin...

* ...but, even if not, then surely a separate email could have been sent out to promote the Free Preview anyway...yet none was.

I'm sure that Verizon participates in these Free Previews not only because its customers enjoy them, but because it sees them as effective ways to generate revenue by signing up new subscribers for these services.  However, lax effort to inform its customers about these opportunities probably translate well into noticeably-lower signup figures (and, by extension, smaller revenue) than might otherwise have been the case.

Surely, Verizon can, and should, do better.  Your customers eagerly await such efforts the next times that Free Previews are offered.

Sincerely,

Bram Weiser

[#12]

Heather and others,

Thanks for pointing me to the Spotlight Magazine for what's happening at Verizon. Up until it was mentioned here I did not know of its existence and the content. Heather - after seeing what others are experiencing it looks like Verizon still needs a little polishing in the communications department. A little ironic don't you think?!?

I look forward to the next couple of months to see what Spotlight has to offer.

Kevin

P.S. Anyone know a good place to find a clear explanation of what Flex is and how to use it to my benefit?