Verizon’s plan to develop a premium video content service with AwesomenessTV was scrapped in favour of producing more programmes for its troubled Go90 service, Variety reported.

The new service was set to create and deliver premium short-form, mobile-targeted, content aimed at a young adult audience and was originally going to be a completely separate proposition to Verizon’s ad-supported Go90.

Since the partnership was announced last year, AwesomenessTV – which counts Verizon as a 24.5 per cent shareholder – produced a number of series for Go90 and will now focus its Verizon work on raising the output level for this platform.

Content issues
The revelations are the latest chapter in a troubled six months for Verizon in its attempts to enter the content and advertising markets. In January, reports emerged the company had made 155 redundancies in its Go90 team and was using developers from its Vessel division to completely redevelop the streaming platform.

Its changes to Go90 follow reports in August in The Wall Street Journal stating advertisers were disappointed by the Go90 viewing figures. A month later, Verizon EVP Marni Walden revealed the company was “still learning” about the sector.

Speaking at a conference earlier this week, AwesomenessTV CEO Brian Robbins described the progress of Verizon’s Go90 as “really slow going”, Variety reported.

In addition to the apparent issues with Go90, in January Walden said Verizon’s proposed acquisition of Yahoo faced further delays as an investigation into its well-documented security issues took place.