While pay-TV subscriber numbers slide, broadband subscriptions continue rising, with 945,000 net additions in Q1 vs. 815,000 in the year-ago quarter, Leichtman Research Group reported Wednesday. The top broadband cable and telco providers, representing 95 percent of the market, accounted for 98.7 million subscribers, led by cable with 65.3 million. Cable added 925,000 subs; telcos added 20,000, with Q1 the first for net broadband additions since Q1 2016. AT&T reported 36,000 net adds to 15.7 million and Verizon 12,000 net adds to 6.97 million. On the cable side, Charter had the most net adds in the quarter, 428,000, to bring its total base to 25.7 million, while Comcast, with 375,000 net adds, ended Q1 with a 27.6 million subscriber base. The past year saw about 2.6 million net broadband adds, vs. about 2 million in the prior year, said Principal Bruce Leichtman.

BeIN Sports' application for a review of a Media Bureau order dismissing the programmer's third carriage complaint against Comcast (see 1903290054) asks the FCC "to turn a blind eye to ... deliberate gamesmanship" by beIN, the MVPD said in a docket 18-384 posting Wednesday. The operator said rules don't allow additional pleadings without showing extraordinary circumstances or FCC OK, and neither happened with the latest complaint. It said the commission's procedural rules were set up at the direction of Congress, and regardless, the second and third complaints arise from the same claim and operative facts and thus the third should have been included in that earlier pleading. BeIN, in its application for review, said its second and third complaint brought separate, stand-alone claims and didn't arise from the same "nucleus" of facts. It also said the third complaint was not an additional pleading requiring extraordinary circumstances or agency OK.

U.S. pay-TV providers lost more than 1.3 million net video subscribers in Q1, compared with 305,000 net losses in the year-ago quarter, said Leichtman Research Group. Subscriber count at the top pay-TV providers, representing 95 percent of the market, is at 87.8 million, breaking out to 46.7 million for cable, 28.3 million satellite, 8.9 million for phone and 3.9 million for the top publicly reporting internet-delivered vMVPD pay services. Satellite TV services more than doubled subscriber losses to 810,000, with direct broadcast satellite net losses reaching a new high and marking the fourth consecutive quarter of record losses. The top six cable companies shed 50,000 more subscribers vs. last year’s drop, reaching 335,000; top phone providers lost 105,000 video subscribers vs. 50,000 a year ago; and vMVPD services Sling TV and DirecTV Now swung to a drop of 75,000 subscribers vs. 405,000 net adds. Sling TV posted a net gain of 7,000 subscribers, while DirecTV Now had 83,000 net losses, Leichtman said. AT&T saw a net loss of about 625,000 subscribers -- 47 percent of the industry’s Q1 net losses across DirecTV, AT&T U-verse and DirecTV Now -- compared with a net gain of about 125,000 subscribers. Charter led cable losses with 145,000 net, followed by Comcast (120,000) and Cox (35,000). Q1 marked the third consecutive quarter of record pay-TV losses, coinciding with decisions by AT&T and other providers “to increasingly focus on long-term profitability when acquiring and retaining subscribers,” said Principal Bruce Leichtman. Also Tuesday, Kagan reported the shift from traditional multichannel video services, “on full display” for the past decade, is expected to increase moderately the next 12 months. The loss of content exclusivity is expected to shift the consumer base toward OTT video and fuel the growing ranks of online-only video households, Kagan said. While price hikes affected vMVPD subscriber growth, combined households relying on traditional and virtual multichannel services for video entertainment are still expected to account for 64 percent of occupied homes through 2023.

Discovery purchased from Conde Nast for $35 million Golf Digest as it looks to extend its golf media business. Discovery said Monday that adding the magazine and its multiplatform content to its GolfTV offerings comes as it's also signed a new content and sales relationship deal with the PGA Tour.

TiVo signed a multiyear deal to license its intellectual property to “a major social media company, our first in this growing space,” said CEO Raghu Rau on a Q1 call Thursday evening. The DVR maker will separate its product and IP licensing businesses into two publicly traded companies by first-half 2020. It hopes the deal will be “springboard” for future licensing agreements in those segments, he said. Several "web-based ad platforms" use video as a "form of communication," he said. On plans to “spin out” its product business and keep the remaining company as an IP licensing operation, “for many years, it was synergistic to have our product and IP licensing businesses combined,” said Rau. In “today's rapidly evolving market landscape,” the two businesses, “as stand-alone separate entities unconstrained by each other, will be better positioned to pursue growth opportunities,” he said. IP licensing “is a highly profitable business with revenue of $295 million in 2018, and a high percentage of this is recurring revenue,” he said. As video consumption “continues its shift beyond” traditional and pay TV into the “internet, social media and mobile domains,” the IP licensing business needs to be able to “diversify beyond traditional video content discovery and recording domains, into new consumer applications and functionalities,” the executive said. The stock closed down 14 percent Friday at $7.56.

One in three smart TVs sold in the U.S. in Q1 had a Roku operating system, up from one in four in Q1 a year earlier, said CEO Anthony Wood on a Wednesday evening earnings call. That's a "pretty big increase," he said. Roku is “now the No. 1 smart TV OS in the country,” he said. It's taking share away from TV makers that go to market with their own “homegrown solutions,” he said. TV OEMs “that are not licensing Roku TV are almost all losing in market share and Roku’s OEMs are gaining in market share,” he said. The new Apple and Disney streaming service launches (see 1905090001) “are absolutely positive for Roku and we are excited to bring them to our users,” said Wood. “With 29 million active accounts and some very effective audience development tools, we are an increasingly important partner for these kinds of services that are trying to reach viewers, build audience, increase engagement.” The service launches also “drive interest in streaming,” he said. “It drives more cord cutters, it just propels the whole industry generally.” Content companies like Disney that launch streaming services are “absolutely not competitors” of Roku’s, said Wood. “They are direct-to-consumer services, but they need a platform like Roku to reach consumers in the living room on TVs, and we’re a great platform for doing that.” They’re “important partners for us and we’re important partners for them,” he said. Roku's 74 percent increase in Q1 streaming hours from a year earlier to 8.9 billion and 51 percent revenue increase to $206.7 million sent the stock soaring 28 percent higher Thursday to close at $83.17.

Federal law bars damages that Comcast sought in a lawsuit challenging Sacramento cable franchise fees, ruled the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. Wednesday's opinion vacated a lower court’s summary judgment, directing that court to enter an order on remand to dismiss the suit without prejudice. Comcast had sought a return of its security deposit, totaling nearly $230,000 with interest, after disagreeing with the Sacramento Metropolitan Cable Television Commission about calculation of California Public Utilities Commission and public, educational and governmental fees under state and federal law. “Under 47 U.S.C. § 555a(a), local authorities and municipalities, involved in the regulation of cable television services within their boundaries, are exempted from civil money damages liability in any lawsuit for any claim arising from the regulation of cable services,” wrote Judge Randy Smith with Judges Consuelo Callahan and Fernando Olguin. Comcast is reviewing the decision, a spokesperson said. The Sacramento commission didn't comment.

A record level of cord cutting hit U.S. MVPDs in Q1, losses widening to nearly 1.2 million from 682,000 in the year-ago quarter, BTIG's Richard Greenfield wrote investors. Subscriber trends are slowing for vMVPDs, too, as net additions shrank to 174,000 vs. 933,000. Total subscriptions of companies tracked, representing more than 90 percent of the industry, were down nearly 2 percent year over year, said the analyst, and they should begin to negatively affect broadcast and cable network programmer retransmission/affiliate revenue in Q2. “The collapse in multichannel video subscribers that we are now witnessing is caused by the unwillingness of Disney and other legacy media companies to allow distributors to create the channel packages that their consumers actually want,” said Greenfield, citing Disney’s channel bundle, now with FX and Nat Geo, which costs distributors some $17-$18 per month.

The International Trade Commission seeks comment by May 10 on a Rovi complaint seeking a ban on import of Comcast X1 digital video receivers based on infringement of a group of Rovi’s patents, said Thursday's Federal Register. The April 27 Tariff Act Section 337 complaint is the third Rovi has filed against Comcast’s X1 set-top boxes, with one having resulted in an exclusion order and another forming the basis for an ongoing Section 337 investigation. Rovi seeks a limited exclusion order and cease and desist orders banning import and sale of set-top boxes that infringe this third set of patents. “Rovi launched this campaign in April 2016 by asserting infringement of 15 patents -- 14 of which have been held to be invalid and/or not infringed by Comcast, or have been withdrawn by Rovi,” said a Comcast statement Thursday. “We will continue to defend ourselves against allegations we determine to be meritless.”

"To encourage more broadband deployment," ACT | The App Association members back a Further NPRM to bar local franchise authorities from "duplicative and disproportionate demands in return for" ISPs building broadband facilities, the group told Commissioners Brendan Carr and Mike O’Rielly and aides to the other FCC members. The association itself also holds that position, a spokesperson emailed. The "FNPRM prevents unlawful taxation of broadband deployment," the association reported executives such as NeuEon Chief Technology Officer Scott Weiner; Hacksmith Labs co-founder Thomas Gorczynski; BadVR co-founder Jad Meouchy; Canned Spinach Partner Andrew Savitz; and Communication Circles founder Betsy Furler saying. Not all executives attended all meetings. The association and members "asked the FCC to continue on its current trajectory to ensure that states and localities facilitate 5G deployment without undue delay." The disclosures posted Friday in dockets including 05-311: here, here, here, here and here. The group also asked the agency to continue work to make more spectrum available for unlicensed use (see 1905030050).