Australian subscription TV platform Foxtel is using TiVo’s voice search, part of its Personalized Content Discovery platform, said parent company Xperi Thursday. The search uses a dynamic knowledge base of entertainment metadata, said to be capable of understanding trends and conversations. Customers can search by voice across linear TV and video on demand programming.

Netflix had 2.2 million net paid subscriber additions in Q3, about 300,000 short of its July 16 forecast, said the company Tuesday. Q3 net paid additions declined 78% from Q2 and 68% from the 2019 quarter. Netflix is forecasting 6 million net subscriber adds for Q4, which would be a 32% decline from the 2019 quarter. The slowdown in growth was expected, management wrote shareholders: “We think this is primarily due to our record first half results and the pull-forward effect we described in our April and July letters.” Subscriber “retention remains healthy and engagement per member household was up solidly year over year in Q3,” it said. “The state of the pandemic and its impact continues to make projections very uncertain, but as the world hopefully recovers in 2021, we would expect that our growth will revert back to levels similar to pre-COVID.” Paid net adds are likely to be down year over year in the first half of 2021, “as compared to the big spike in paid net adds we experienced in the first half of 2020,” it said. Netflix management is “thrilled to be competing with Disney and a growing number of other players to entertain people,” it said. “Consumers and content creators will benefit from our mutual desire to bring the best stories to audiences all over the world.” Netflix stock fell 5.4% to $497.11 at 4:37 p.m. EDT.

Antitrust authorities approved Trian Partners buying a stake in Comcast, per an FTC early termination notice released Monday. Trian announced the investment in September.

An additional 72 Pluto TV channels are available on the TiVo+ network, said TiVo Thursday, bringing the number of channels to 144. TiVo+ is also adding 13 Spanish-language channels, said the company. TiVo+ unique viewership has grown 90% from March to September, and viewer engagement rose 165%, said the Xperi subsidiary. Pluto TV channels are available now on TiVo Stream 4K boxes and rolling out to select TiVo DVR customers.

Subscription VOD penetration of U.S. households hit new highs in Q1 at around 75%, but the penetration rate has seemingly flattened out, MoffettNathanson's Michael Nathanson wrote investors Wednesday. He said price continues to be a key reason viewers substitute subscription VOD for pay-TV subscriptions, and that trend should continue during the difficult economy.

Comcast's Xfinity Mobile wireless service is offering nationwide 5G coverage, it said Tuesday.

Comments are due Oct. 21, replies Oct. 28, on requested transfer of control of licenses for Blue Rooster Telecom, Digital West Networks and Norcast Communications from Digital West to TPG Global's Radiate, per an FCC public notice in Thursday's Daily Digest. The deal would create the No. 6 U.S. cable company (see 2010060001).

Disney should reject the suggestions of “activist investor” Dan Loeb with Third Point Management to redirect the company's $3 billion dividend toward over-the-top content production, Cowen wrote investors Thursday. “While we do expect Disney to announce increased investment in OTT products at its next investor day, we caution that drastically scaling content spend effectively would likely be difficult.” The analyst firm has been “bullish” on Disney+ because it thinks the service can reach “significant scale without overwhelmingly high content spend, due to the quality of Disney's evergreen library.” This "suggests the service could operate at significantly higher margins than competing services that rely on heavy ongoing investment in average quality content to combat churn.” Loeb appears to be under the “implicit assumption” OTT streaming will “devolve” to the model in which one or two dominant players “squeeze out everybody else,” said Cowen. “The history of content doesn't suggest that is likely, because it is far more difficult to monopolize content creativity than technological standards.” A Third Point spokesperson declined comment. Disney didn’t respond to questions. It hasn't announced a date for the next investor day.

Rolling out the 10G broadband platform will cost U.S. cable operators $81.4 billion, but it should have an economic impact of $330 billion and create more than 676,000 jobs over seven years, said a Telecom Advisory Services report Wednesday. The NCTA-funded report said cable industry investment could be incentivized by policy steps such as a sales tax cut on broadband equipment or a reduction in in-kind demands on cable operators.

Universal Electronics (UEI) will supply a voice-enabled remote control for Liberty Global’s 4K Mini TV set-top box, said the control company Wednesday. The Bluetooth Low Energy remote has automated setup and control through UEI’s cloud-based QuickSet platform. Customers can search by voice for content on Liberty’s Reference Design Kit-based Horizon 4 platform. The box is made from 35% recycled material and said to cut energy consumption by 77% versus previous set-tops.