A pair of local fiber cuts led to a Cox Communications blackout in northwest Arkansas, the company told us Thursday. It said service was largely restored later that day.

Hours consuming video declined among U.S. broadband households last year, but consumers watch more internet video on a TV, reported Parks Associates Thursday. Hours consumers watched video on a TV grew last year for the first time since 2014, said Parks, reporting 55 percent of respondents say watching TV or movies at home is a top leisure activity. As over-the-top competition “becomes a battle for the living room, the challenge for device makers and content producers is finding the correct product mix to maximize both profit and utility,” said analyst Billy Nayden. With consumers’ experimentation with OTT waning, they will begin to resist adding “another monthly subscription,” Nayden said, so providers are moving to freemium and advertising-based models in anticipation of a pushback. Last year, some 19 percent of consumers subscribed to Netflix, Hulu or Amazon Prime Video along with another OTT service, compared with 13 percent in 2017. Consumers watched 25.7 hours of video weekly last year vs. 29.5 hours a week in 2016.

The top cable companies added about 2.9 million broadband subscribers in 2018, while telcos lost 470,000, for the fourth straight year of net broadband losses, Leichtman Research Group reported Thursday of 98.2 million total customers. In 2017, telcos had 620,000 net losses vs. gains of 2.7 million for cable. At the end of 2018, cable had 65 percent share of the broadband market, highest since 2003, led by Comcast with 27.2 million customers and Charter Communications with 25.3 million, and phone companies had 35 percent share, led by AT&T with 15.7 million subscribers.

Regulatory approval for Disney's buy of Fox's entertainment assets should come "soon," Disney CEO Bob Iger said at the company's annual meeting Thursday. He said the ESPN Plus streaming service has more than 2 million subscribers, which "bodes well" for the Disney Plus streaming service launching later this year. He said some Fox businesses -- such as FX and the motion picture operations -- will keep the Fox brand after close. He said Disney Plus will include "the entire Disney motion picture library" plus original content. DOJ last year said it would seek to stop Disney/Fox unless 22 Fox regional sports networks were sold (see 1806270016).

Pay TV’s subscription exodus continued last year, widening to 2.9 million from 1.5 million in 2017, reported Leichtman Research Group Wednesday. Satellite-TV providers suffered the most losses at nearly 2.4 million, shared by DirecTV with a 1.2 million drop and Dish Network TV at 1.1 million. Comcast led cable company declines at 371,000, followed by Charter Communications at 244,000. AT&T U-Verse was the lone gainer among MVPDs, gaining 47,000 subscribers, while Verizon FiOS shed 168,000 and Frontier Communications 123,000. “AT&T’s programming contracts no longer incented them to get a DIRECTV customer rather than a U-verse, or to switch someone from U-verse to DIRECTV, so they went back to focusing on the bundle in the U-verse footprint,” analyst Bruce Leichtman emailed us. VMVPDs gained 641,000 paying customers. Of the top video providers, cable had 47 million subscribers, satellite 29.1 million, telcos 8.9 million and vMVPDs 4 million. Since the industry’s peak in Q1 2012, pay-TV subscriber count has declined by 6 million, with 10 million traditional MVPD subscriber losses offset by about 4 million adds for publicly reporting vMVPD services.

Cablevideo Digital of Argentina and Ziggo of the Netherlands joined CableLabs, said Tuesday's Federal Register.

Pay TV ended 2018 with a 78 percent penetration rate and that's likely to decline due to increased digital adoption and more streaming alternatives, Macquarie's Amy Yong wrote investors Tuesday. She said video subscriber losses likely will be around 3 million through 2020, with cable having about 700,000 and satellite TV losses accelerating with AT&T's focus on DirecTV Now and Dish Network's programming disputes. Broadband reached 82 percent penetration last year "and is likely to inch higher" with cable adding subscribers seeking higher speeds, the analyst wrote: There are indications many would consider switching broadband service from a cable provider to a telecom provider for 5G home broadband.

Comcast bought Virginia cybersecurity technology firm BluVector and installed a new CEO (see personals section of this issue), it said Monday. The deal is expected to increase collaboration on new cybersecurity technologies.

Companies are struggling with "unwarranted litigation risk" and bigger hurdles communicating with customers, which points to the FCC needing to provide guidance on application of key terms in the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, Charter Communications, Comcast and Cox representatives told an aide to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, recounted a docket 18-152 ex parte posting Monday. They urged the agency to make clear that equipment should be classified as an automatic telephone dialing system under the TCPA only if it can generate numbers randomly or sequentially and is used that way without human intervention. They said the FCC should make clear a call's intended recipient is the "called party" until the caller is told the number has been reassigned, and should clarify rules governing revocation of consent.

Monthly cost of Charter Communications' basic cable service tier in the Massachusetts franchise areas where the company is trying to get a declaration of effective competition would be its national rate of $23.89 if the petition is granted, it told an aide to FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks, recounted a docket 18-283 posting Friday. It said regulated monthly rates for basic tier in Massachusetts are now $12.49-$23.99, while the lowest-priced DirecTV Now package is $40. Charter cited DirecTV Now as effective competition to its cable systems in Massachusetts and Hawaii (see 1809170020).