FLO TV racked up 1 million customers in 45 months

Executives at Qualcomm Inc. (QCOM) were never eager to offer up subscriber count numbers for FLO TV. Until now, sort of.
At an event in Silicon Valley earlier this week, CEO Paul Jacobs said the company only managed to sign up about 1 million customers over its nearly four-year run.
Based on that number, FLO TV signed up an average of 22,222 customers per month over its 45-month span of service. The company has never reported the level of churn it saw on the service, which makes it difficult to gauge how many customers actually remained month-over-month. Or more importantly, how many of those million customers actually became paying customers? Many of the devices for FLO TV came with subsidized promotions for a trial service for 30 days or six months.
After making such a major investment in spectrum, towers, network management, content deals and research and development, it’s no wonder Jacobs is ready to throw in the towel.
During a chat with the Wall Street Journal, Jacobs said he hoped to find an exit for the subsidiary in the next quarter.
“Nobody wants a TV when it’s time-based,” he said. Live sports became the standout performer on FLO TV, but it never could convince the DVR generation that live broadcast programming had much value on mobile beyond major events that everyone already wants to watch live.
“Nobody turned on their phone at 4:30 to watch show X for half an hour,” Jacobs said. “That was a total non-starter.”