Go90

Verizon's free mobile video app for teenagers, over a billion dollars spent, closed after 34 months

Shut down
19902026

Go90 was Verizon's free, ad-supported mobile video service, launched publicly on 1 October 2015 with original series, live sports and licensed TV aimed at 13-to-34-year-olds, and stocked by acquisitions of Intel's OnCue TV platform, AwesomenessTV, Complex Media and the Hulu founders' Vessel. It never found an audience despite more than $1 billion in spending, and Verizon closed it on 31 July 2018, moving what was left into Oath.

Timeline [edit]

  1. 2014
  2. 21 January 2014 Acquisition
    Verizon buys Intel Media (OnCue)

    About $200 million for the platform that becomes Go90.

  3. 2015
  4. 1 October 2015 Launch
    Go90 launches to the public

    Free, ad-supported, zero-rated on Verizon.

  5. 2016
  6. 6 April 2016 Acquisition
    Stake in AwesomenessTV

    Verizon buys 24.5 percent for original content.

  7. 2 August 2016 Decline
    "Rocky" rollout

    Advertisers tell the WSJ the audience is not there.

  8. 26 October 2016 Acquisition
    Verizon buys Vessel

    The Hulu founders' startup, shut down for its team.

  9. 2017
  10. March 2017 Peak
    $200 million a year on content

    Dozens of originals; still no audience.

  11. 2018
  12. 29 June 2018 Shutdown announced
    Shutdown announced

    Content moves to Oath.

  13. 31 July 2018 Shutdown
    Go90 closes

    A $658 million charge; about $1.2 billion spent in total.

The site through time

Browse go90.com as it was, via the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine:

2015 2016 2017 2018 Full archive →

Ownership [edit]

Verizon Communications 2015–2018 Founded Built on Intel Media's OnCue platform (bought January 2014) and folded into Oath in 2018

Why it shut down [edit]

Official line: On 29 June 2018 Verizon said Go90 would shut down on 31 July 2018 and its content would move to Oath, the AOL and Yahoo division it had bought. The app had never built an audience: reports through 2016 and 2017 described sparse usage, advertiser complaints and rounds of layoffs, and Verizon took a $658 million charge in the quarter it closed. Digiday sources put the total spent, including the acquisitions of Intel's OnCue and Vessel, at about $1.2 billion.

Our analysis: Go90 was a phone company trying to be a TV network for people who did not watch TV. It paid for original shows, NFL and NBA clips, AwesomenessTV and Complex, and gave it all away free with zero-rating on Verizon plans, and teenagers still opened YouTube and Snapchat instead. Content is not a distribution advantage when the distribution is an app nobody has a reason to install; the money would have bought a lot of Yahoo, and in the end that is what Verizon bought.

History [edit]

A carrier makes a network

Verizon spent 2014 assembling the pieces: it bought Intel's unlaunched OnCue internet-TV platform for about $200 million in January 2014, and set out to build a "mobile-first" video service for the generation that had stopped watching cable. Go90 (turn a phone 90 degrees to landscape) soft-launched in September 2015 and opened to the public on 1 October 2015: a free, ad-supported app with original series, AwesomenessTV and Vice content, live NFL games and NBA clips, Comedy Central and Food Network shows, and social features for sharing clips. On Verizon it was zero-rated, so watching did not eat your data, which drew a net-neutrality complaint.

Verizon kept spending. It took a stake in AwesomenessTV (April 2016), invested $200 million in Complex Media with Hearst, and in October 2016 bought Vessel, the subscription video startup from Hulu's founders, largely for the team. By early 2017 Business Insider reported the company was committing some $200 million a year to content, and Go90 had launched dozens of originals, from a Guidance drama to a Batman & Robin-style superhero series.

Nobody came

The audience never appeared. Advertisers told the Wall Street Journal in August 2016 that the rollout was "rocky", app-store rankings stayed low, layoffs hit the Go90 and AwesomenessTV teams in 2017, and Verizon reorganised the whole thing under Oath, the division formed from AOL and Yahoo, in early 2018. On 29 June 2018 Verizon announced Go90 would close on 31 July 2018, "to focus on Oath". It recorded a $658 million charge that quarter, and Digiday's sources put the all-in cost, acquisitions included, at about $1.2 billion. Verizon sold Oath's remains, renamed Verizon Media, to Apollo in 2021.

The domain today

go90.com no longer resolves.

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Sources [edit]

  1. Verizon agrees to acquire Intel Media to expand web TV offers Bloomberg 21 January 2014
  2. Verizon's mobile video service Go90 launches to public TechCrunch 1 October 2015
  3. Verizon launches free Go90 video service: why it might not connect Variety 1 October 2015
  4. Advertisers say Verizon's Go90 rollout has been rocky The Wall Street Journal 2 August 2016
  5. Verizon acquires Vessel TechCrunch 26 October 2016
  6. Inside Verizon's Go90 Business Insider 1 March 2017
  7. Verizon shutting down Go90 mobile video service Variety 29 June 2018
  8. Verizon is shutting down go90 TechCrunch 29 June 2018
  9. Verizon takes $658 million charge on Go90 shutdown Variety 24 July 2018

Last verified: 15 August 2026. Spotted an error? Suggest an edit (corrections with sources are reviewed and applied).