An FTC probe into Media Matters for America is "aimed at silencing [it] and punishing it for its speech," the left-leaning journalism watchdog group told the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in a lawsuit filed Monday (docket 1:25-cv-01959) against the agency. It said that due to its reporting, "state governments and now a federal agency have employed sweeping governmental powers to attempt to silence and harass an organization for daring to speak the truth." The Texas and Missouri attorneys general previously launched investigations after unflattering reporting about social media platform X, but those probes have been dropped or halted by court injunction, so "the Trump Administration has picked up where the states left off." Media Matters asked the court to declare that the FTC's civil investigative demands are a retaliatory action in violation of the group's First Amendment rights and to enjoin the FTC from trying to enforce the demands or continue the investigation.

Fox Corp. is buying Mexican sports broadcaster Caliente TV, with plans to launch a sports streaming business in Central America, it said last week. With Caliente TV, it will launch a new pay-TV channel and a subscription video-on-demand platform that will join Tubi, it said.

With the average U.S. TV viewer divvying up viewing time among traditional pay TV, subscription video-on-demand and free ad-supported TV, they're seeing about half as many ads today as they did before streaming, nScreenMedia's Colin Dixon wrote. The ad loads of each service type vary sizably, he said. In the pre-streaming era, the average traditional pay-TV watcher saw 17 minutes of ads per hour, Dixon said. In Q4 2024, the average viewer sees 9.5 minutes, as the smaller ad loads of virtual MVPDs, subscription VOD and free ad-based services drag down that average.

TV viewing and radio listening continue to lose popularity, Attest said Tuesday in its annual media consumption report. Attest said 56% of U.S. consumers watch three or more hours of any type of TV per day, down from 61% in 2024 and 63% in 2023. Live TV has been hit hardest, with 28% of consumers saying they generally don’t watch any on an average day, up from 24% last year and 20% in 2023. The report said 31% of consumers listen to radio daily, down from 37% in 2023, while the percentage of those who listen a few times a week -- currently 23% -- has also been trailing off. The number of Americans who never listen to radio has grown from 11% in 2023 to 16% today, it said. As for streaming, 64% of consumers say they watch Netflix at least weekly, followed by 49% for Amazon Prime Video and 44% for Hulu. Attest said 42% of consumers listen to streamed music daily, while 21% listen multiple times a week. The data came from a survey of 2,000 U.S. consumers ages 18-67, done annually on Attest's platform in March and April.

Streaming reached an inflection point in May with its share of total TV use exceeding the combined share of broadcast and cable for the first time ever, Nielsen said Tuesday. It said streaming represented 44.8% of TV viewership in May, its largest monthly share of viewing to date, topping the combined share of broadcast -- 20.1% -- and cable -- 24.1%. Streaming's growth has been driven in large part by free streaming services and platforms, and YouTube represented 12.5% of all TV viewing in May, Nielsen said. Ad-supported services Roku Channel, Tubi and PlutoTV combined for 5.7% of total TV viewing in May, eclipsing any individual broadcast network, it said.

Discovery exchanges in a U.S. Patent and Trademark Office proceeding show a pattern of behavior by Paramount Global that has to be considered in any review of Skydance Media's proposed purchase of Paramount, Mack Toys said Wednesday (docket 25-95). The toy putty and slime maker has opposed the deal, citing Paramount's refusal to let Mack use the word "slime" --- which Paramount has trademarked -- in advertising (see 2502060068). Mack said Paramount not producing requested evidence as part of the trademark fight has "profound implications for the public interest."

Warner Bros. Discovery management says its separate global networks and streaming and studios businesses could take part in merger and acquisition deals as soon as the WBD restructuring is complete, Deutsche Bank's Bryan Kraft wrote investors Monday. However, he said, consolidation in the media and entertainment industry will likely be a challenge from a regulatory perspective during the current administration. WBD's restructuring into two independent media companies is to be completed in mid-2026 (see 2506090024). International Center for Law & Economics senior scholar Eric Fruits wrote that the WBD breakup "might be the best bad option" for the company, letting its streaming and cable networks arms pursue strategies that would be impossible within the corporate structure. The networks company could consolidate with other cable assets, and the streaming company would have the ability to partner, merge or be acquired without debt complications, he said. The networks company's job "is not necessarily to grow; that ship has sailed," given the acceleration of cord-cutting, he said. Instead, its job is to maximize cash generation while that business shrinks, which requires different management skills and capital allocation than growth businesses, he noted.

Former FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington's suggestion that streaming platforms be subject to MVPD-like regulation (see 2505270054) lacks statutory justification and is the wrong approach from a competition policy standpoint, Free State Foundation wrote Monday. It argued that the better way to put virtual MVPDs on the same regulatory footing as traditional MVPDs is to roll back rules governing satellite and cable TV. Under the U.S. Supreme Court's Loper Bright decision, it's likely that federal courts would determine that the federal law governing the FCC's authority over MVPDs doesn't extend to virtual MVPDs, the group said.

Disney told the SEC on Monday that it plans to close on its purchase of Comcast's share of Hulu by July 24. Disney said that on top of the $8.6 billion it has already given Comcast, it will pay an additional $438.7 million after a series of appraisals.

The Freedom of the Press Foundation is threatening litigation against Paramount Global if it settles a $20 billion lawsuit brought by President Donald Trump over its subsidiary CBS’ news coverage. Settling the lawsuit would damage CBS’ standing as a news organization, said a Thursday letter to Paramount’s board of directors. FPF is a shareholder of Paramount Global, the letter said. The board reportedly made a $15 million settlement offer to Trump recently. “A settlement with President Trump here would constitute a gross breach of the Board’s fiduciary duties to its shareholders, and we believe could violate laws prohibiting bribery of public officials,” the letter said.