ViacomCBS' CBS All Access streaming service will add content from such networks as Nickelodeon, MTV, BET and Comedy Central, and movies from its Paramount library this year, CEO Bob Bakish said in an earnings call with analysts Thursday. He said it will have live linear content from more than 200 local CBS stations.

Comments are due March 5, replies March 16, on proposed changes to the rules for retransmission consent talks between MVPD buying groups and large station groups, said Wednesday's Federal Register. The rules changes are required by the Television Viewer Protection Act (HR-5035) passed in December (see 1912190068).

Programmer Cinedigm bought the first tranche of stock in a deal that will see it with a 29 percent stake, valued at $68 million, in Chinese entertainment company Starrise Media, it said Tuesday. It said it plans to close on the remaining shares soon.

Streaming remains a minority of TV viewing, said Roku CEO Anthony Wood on Thursday's call on Q4. Over the next 10 years, “consumers around the world will choose streaming as their primary way of viewing TV,” Wood said, citing a confluence of consumers, “the biggest names in media,” leading advertisers and global TV brands embracing over-the-top video. By 2024, half of U.S. households will have cut the cord “or never had traditional pay TV,” he said. Roku added 9.8 million incremental active accounts last year, reaching 36.9 million, and streaming hours there swelled by 16.3 billion to a record 40.3 billion, it reported. In 2019, just under one in three smart TVs sold in the U.S. was a Roku TV, placing it as the No. 1 streaming TV brand, said Wood, up from one in four the prior year. Scott Rosenberg, general manager-platform business, said half of Roku users don't have a pay-TV package so are “not reachable through linear television,” and the other half are “very light linear TV viewers.” The company has been able to show advertisers the “vast majority” of Roku viewers aren't reached by linear TV, he said. Pivotal Research recommends investors sell the stock, it wrote them Friday. “All areas of the ecosystem [are] beginning to squeeze Roku.” Analyst Jeffrey Wlodarczak noted traditional distributors are attacking the direct-to-consumer aggregation opportunity with free equipment and programming, citing Comcast’s $5 monthly discount on NBC’s Peacock service. Wlodarczak expects all non-virtual MVPD DTC players to follow Netflix’ lead and sign distribution deals with traditional distributors to be bundled into pay-TV offerings, eliminating the need for Roku. Wedbush Securities' Michael Pachter sees “tremendous opportunities for revenue growth” at Roku, driven by licensing partnerships, and advertising growth from The Roku Channel and ad VOD partners. Pachter was less sanguine about the company’s road to profitability and said 2020 guidance implies “minimal growth in Player sales in 2020 and at zero margin.” Friday, the stock closed down 6.3 percent at $130.25.

Amazon’s $5 monthly Music HD streaming service for Prime members (see 1909190019) is a boon for the premium audio category, said ProSource CEO Dave Workman. The tech giant’s financial muscle positions it well as a long-term high-res audio streaming service vs. smaller streaming audio players trying to crack the U.S. market, he said in an interview Tuesday. ProSource announced it's adding members to the buying group.

The FTC seeks comment on social media advertising guidance 60 days after Federal Register publication, it announced Wednesday, as expected (see 2001300058). The agency noted its endorsement guidance says connections between an endorser and a seller of an advertised product “that could affect the weight or credibility of the endorsement ... must be clearly and conspicuously disclosed.” The FTC is considering whether changes in technology or the economy warrant changes to the guides.

FCC staff asked NAB if broadcasters would support on-air application notice rules requiring one announcement per week for four weeks between 7 a.m. and 11 p.m. even if some additional announcements were required. That's per a filing posted in docket 17-264 Tuesday on a Saturday call between NAB and Media Bureau Audio Division Chief Albert Shuldiner. NAB wouldn’t object to additional announcements if the flexible timing were retained. Staff also asked for NAB input on requiring online notices to be available via a tab on a station’s homepage instead of on the homepage itself. “Some broadcasters expressed concerns about a tab option, stating that their current website design does not involve the use of tabs at the top of the home page,” NAB said. Others “stated that they would find the tab option less burdensome.” NAB “would not object to an approach that could provide broadcasters with reasonable flexibility while still meeting the Commission’s goal.”

Wedbush remained “neutral” on Roku stock, Michael Pachter wrote investors before the company’s Thursday Q4 report, seeing “tremendous opportunities for revenue growth” but profitability likely in five years due to R&D, licensing and expansion costs. Cord cutting and the rise of over-the-top video services will likely contribute modestly to Roku’s player business as the company expands its licensing partnerships and ad revenue on The Roku Channel and with advertising on demand partners, Pachter said. Apple Plus and Disney Plus launches in the quarter drove increased cord-cutting, “which may have accelerated active account growth on the Roku Platform in Q4 in excess of our estimates,” said the analyst, though average revenue per user could be lower than estimated, with revenue share terms unclear.

Sonos Chief Legal Officer Eddie Lazarus said “quite a few players” in wireless multiroom audio are “infringing on our patented inventions,” on a quarterly call. The company is hopeful discussions will “bear fruit” financially, said Lazarus, who was FCC chief of staff under then-Chairman Julius Genachowski. The company views licensing talks as a long-term proposition. CEO Patrick Spence cited a successful outcome in litigation against Denon and current patent infringement complaints against Bluesound parent Lenbrook and Google (see 200206007). Separately, Sonos irked customers recently by saying it would no longer support older gear. Spence said the company didn’t get its communication right when it made the legacy product announcement. He underscored efforts to move long-time customers “into the latest and great products” via its trade-up program offering a 30 percent discount on new products. Shares closed 12 percent higher Thursday at $15.76 after fiscal Q1 sales rose 13 percent year-on-year to $562.1 million.

SiriusXM’s 360L interactive vehicular platform “is now the plan of record” with the automotive OEMs, said CEO Jim Meyer on a Q4 call Tuesday. Installations of 360L will reach 2 million vehicles by the end of 2020, “and will accelerate sharply in the years to come,” he said. The platform marries "satellite broadcasting with two-way internet connectivity,” said Meyer. SiriusXM expects 360L to improve paid-subscriber "conversions" and reduce churn, he said. “It’s our first platform that can handle significant over-the-air updates.” The "backward-compatible" platform can introduce new features across the “fleet” of SiriusXM car installations, said Meyer. “This provides a path to move Pandora capabilities into large volumes of cars at some point.” Introducing 360L was “harder than we thought,” conceded Meyer. “It’s the first time we really had a mammoth amount of real-time data coming back” from SiriusXM vehicles, he said. Figuring out how to “accumulate” and “organize” that information brought “significant challenges,” he said. “We’ve learned a lot.” It’s ready “to step on the gas” and speed 360L’s penetration, he said. All major automotive OEMs are expected to adopt SiriusXM's new “wideband chipset” over the next few years, said Meyer.