Google hardware revenue fell in Q4 vs. the “fairly strong” hardware growth rate in the year-ago quarter, said Chief Financial Officer Ruth Porat on parent Alphabet’s Monday earnings call. A “difficult hardware comparison” included the launch of the Pixel 3 last year, Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter wrote investors Tuesday. Overall revenue grew 17 percent to $46.1 billion, below analysts' consensus of $46.94 billion. Revenue in the “other" line -- Google Play, hardware and YouTube's Premium, Music and TV subscription offerings -- rose 10 percent to $5.3 billion, due to growth in YouTube and Play, offset by declines in hardware, said Porat. Google’s “other bets” had a $2 billion operating loss, vs. a $1.3 billion loss, said the company. Pachter noted in other bets that Alphabet “has the luxury of funding its experiments” in artificial intelligence, “self-driving cars, high speed Internet and various new hardware initiatives while continuing to generate growing losses.” He’s “skeptical that many of these initiatives will pay future dividends.”
Antitrust authorities cleared the way for Tencent to buy part of Vivendi’s Universal Music Group. An FTC early termination notice dated Friday and released Monday ended the transaction's Hart-Scott-Rodino waiting period. The deal has involved a 10 percent UMG stake.
Amazon shares closed up 7.4 percent Friday to $2,008.72 after Q4 earnings driven by Amazon Web Services, advertising and Prime one-day delivery. Sales gained 21 percent to $87.4 billion, beating analysts’ forecasts and topping its guidance of as much as $86.5 billion. The company has more than 40 million active users for Fire TV, while Amazon Music has more than 55 million customers worldwide.
To comply with the Television Viewer Protection Act (HR-5035) passed in December (see 1912190068), the FCC Media Bureau is proposing rules for retransmission consent talks between MVPD buying groups and large station groups. Comments are due 15 days after Federal Register publication, replies in 25 days, said a public notice Friday.
If Roku doesn't reach an agreement with Fox to redistribute its channels, it will be "forced to remove FOX channels from the Roku platform because we can't distribute content without an agreement," blogged Roku Friday. That was hours ahead of the 11:59 p.m. deadline when its distribution agreement with Fox was set to expire. Saying it doesn't want that to happen, Roku said it "tried for months" to get Fox to sign an agreement -- "and we offered FOX an extension but they declined." Vizio reminded football fans Friday that its TVs support Apple AirPlay 2 and Chromecast built-in, providing streaming for cord-cutters and viewers who might be blocked from watching the Super Bowl due to retransmission fee conflicts (see 2001290047). Vizio SmartCast TV owners could watch by pulling up the Fox Sports or Fox Now apps on a smartphone or tablet, selecting the game and tapping the Chromecast or AirPlay button to stream to sets, it emailed.
Traditional pay-TV offerings will evolve to become “indistinguishable from a pure” over-the-top package of services, said ABI Research analyst Michael Inouye. Though cord cutting is often seen as “a consequence of expanding OTT consumption,” the market dynamics “are more complex,” Inouye said Tuesday, noting the pay-TV industry embraced OTT “as a complement and value-additive.” The OTT video market will top $200 billion by 2024, 90 percent fueled by subscription and advertising revenue, ABI said. The remainder will include digital purchases, electronic sell-through, rentals and transactional video on demand, Inouye emailed us. Disney Plus and Apple Plus, with aggressive pricing and packaging, plus continued expansion by long-term players in the subscription VOD market, are pushing the segment to new highs, ABI said. There are 700 million-plus OTT SVOD subscriptions and 1 billion for pay TV market.
MGM -- reportedly in talks with Netflix and Apple about being acquired -- might be a bad fit for either, nScreenMedia analyst Colin Dixon blogged Monday. MGM's content library and production experience would be big assets for either buyer, but a deal could be a financial stretch for Netflix, and Apple/MGM could mean culture clashes between tech management and Hollywood moguls, he said.
Claiming Dish Network keeps carrying 13 of its TV stations even after the Jan. 18 expiration of a retransmission consent agreement, Terrier is suing for copyright infringement. In a complaint (docket 20-cv-00583, in Pacer) filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Chicago, Terrier -- which in the suit said it's doing business now as Cox Media Group -- said the 13 stations were part of its 2019 takeover of Northwest Broadcasting. It said Dish received a temporary restraining order from a Cook County, Illinois, Circuit Court stopping Terrier from withdrawing its signals (see 2001210056), but that order doesn't prevent it from seeking damages from copyright infringement. Terrier is seeking unspecified compensatory damages or maximum statutory damages. Dish didn't comment Monday.
NBC Olympics and Snap are continuing their Olympic partnership, connecting U.S. Snapchat users to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics with customized content, they said Friday. NBC will release more than 70 episodes over four daily shows, three times the content of the 2018 Games. It will create two daily highlight shows for the messaging app that will be updated in “near-real time.”
Comcast's accelerating video subscriber losses (see 2001230008), increasing average revenue per unit being paid to video programmers and more people now subscribing to a single service than to a triple-play package in 2019 point to a more-difficult pay TV ecosphere this year, nScreenMedia analyst Colin Dixon blogged Thursday. He said the video sub losses are likely to pick up speed further due to proliferating over-the-top services, including Comcast's Peacock service.