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).

Shentel bought eastern Kentucky cable ISP Big Sandy Broadband, it said Thursday, to expand in contiguous markets.

“Speed matters and cable has a better mousetrap,” Pivotal Research Group's Jeffrey Wlodarczak wrote investors Thursday. Cable took 100 percent share of broadband net new subscriptions in Q4, 770,000 vs. the 795,000 Pivotal forecast, while telcos lost 130,000. The analyst sees “material cable data sub growth” ahead, at the expense of telcos’ copper architecture, currently numbering about 20 million subscribers, while fixed 5G is an “unlikely material competitor” over three-five years. U.S. broadband household penetration is 83.1 percent. VMVPDs reversed course and lost 75,000 subscribers vs. a gain of 1 million a year ago, Wlodarczak said, with vMVPD players finding their subscribers are “highly price sensitive.” Price hikes were met with “significant churn,” led by AT&T’s DirecTV Now. VMVPDs are “basically offering consumers fewer channels at about the same price without the quality of service,” Wlodarczak said, and limited credit checks are bringing in “very low-quality average subscribers.” The December quarter was “ugly” for pay TV, which had a 100 percent increase in subscriber losses, 300,000 more than Pivotal forecast, for the 10th consecutive quarterly subscription decline. Cable’s 320,000 subscriber losses in the quarter were in line with forecasts, while satellite TV lost 810,000, its worst quarter ever, which Wlodarczak attributed to cable’s increased bundling of broadband with “an improving video product.” At year-end, household penetration of traditional pay TV was 72.6 percent.

Comcast isn't trying to disqualify Eric Sahl as a beIN-hired expert or from future work, but he shouldn't have access to highly confidential information including viewership analyses and data put together by its enterprise business intelligence team and NBCUniversal affiliation agreement terms, the MVPD said in an FCC docket 18-384 reply posted Thursday. BeIN and Comcast clashed over Sahl's access to confidential information as part of the sports programmer's carriage complaint (see 1902260008). Comcast said Sahl's access to such information would skew future negotiations to Comcast's disadvantage.