From Ars Technica: Verizon wants to only pay for channels that TV customers actually watch

Verizon wants to disrupt the television industry with a simple idea: smaller networks and media outlets shouldn’t be paid as much as big networks that offer channels on cable and satellite providers.

Verizon pays a per-subscriber fee for the right to air various channels via FiOS TV (it’s the sixth-largest provider in the US). But that fee is a flat amount based on how many potential viewers those channels could have, not the actual number of viewers.

“We are paying for a customer who never goes to the channel,” Terry Denson, the phone company’s chief programming negotiator, told the Wall Street Journal on Sunday.