Netflix CEO Reed Hastings praised Disney's rival service, which launched in November (see 1911120048). After more than 20 years of “watching different businesses” come and go, Hastings has “never seen such a good execution of the incumbent learning the new way and mastering it” than Disney’s launch of its direct-to-consumer streaming service, he said Tuesday. “To have them achieve over 50 million in six months, it's stunning,” Hastings said. Netflix expects “a bunch more” streaming services to come to market soon, he said. “It's great, obviously, for the consumer to be able to have all these options.” The significant increase in subscriber growth that Netflix experienced as the global COVID-19 pandemic hit in March was “essentially a pull forward of the rest of the year,” said Hastings on a Q1 call (see 2004210059). “Our guess is that subs will be light in Q3 and Q4 relative to prior years because of that.” Though content production is at a global standstill, “we work really far out relative to the industry because we launch our shows all episodes at once,” said Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos. “So our 2020 slate of series and films are largely shot and are in post-production remotely.” Netflix is “actually pretty deep into our 2021 slate,” said Sarandos. Before shooting can resume anywhere, “we have to be able to look our employees and our cast and crews in the eye and say that this is a safe place to work,” he said.

Q1 Netflix subscriber net adds as COVID-19 hit soared to 15.77 million globally, 125% higher than its Jan. 21 forecast and a 64% increase from Q1 2019, said the streaming service Tuesday. “We are fortunate to have a service that is even more meaningful to people confined at home, and which we can operate remotely with minimal disruption in the short to medium term,” said a quarterly shareholder letter. “We’re seeing temporarily higher viewing and increased membership growth,” but Netflix expects viewing to decline and membership increases to slow down as “home confinement ends, which we hope is soon,” it said. It’s forecasting Q2 net subscriber adds to decline 52% sequentially but increase 178% from Q2 last year. “This pandemic has demonstrated the importance of a strong internet like never before,” said the letter. Networks in some countries “have struggled to cope” with the higher demand, it said. The engineering team in March was able to reduce network use by 25% “virtually overnight in those countries, while also substantially maintaining the quality of our service, including in higher definition,” it said. “We’re now working with ISPs to help increase capacity so that we can lift these limitations as conditions improve.” Most operations have "gone smoothly" during the pandemic, except for "significant disruption" in customer support, and content production has come to a global standstill, it said: "This has been devastating for millions of workers in the TV and film industry."

Fox closed on its roughly $440 million purchase of Tubi (see 2004100010), the buyer said Monday.

Fandango is buying Walmart's streaming video sales and rental operation Vudu. The deal won't affect existing customers' libraries or accounts, Vudu said Sunday. It said there will be no immediate change regarding it and Fandango's FandangoNow online video brand.

DVDVideoSoft.com launched a free MP4 video converter desktop app for Windows that converts any video for playback on smartphones, tablets and other personal devices, it said Friday: It claims to support at least two dozen of the most popular video formats and does its conversions without quality loss.

Having delayed implementation of Television Viewer Protection Act truth-in-billing requirements by six months to Dec. 20 (see 2004030029), the FCC doesn't have authority to do another, broadcast lawyer Peter Tannenwald of Fletcher Heald blogged Wednesday. Once in effect, MVPD and broadband bills should be more understandable for consumers, he said.

Since movie theaters might not reopen for weeks or months after shelter-in-place orders start to be relaxed, premium VOD -- with accelerated digital release of first-run movies at a premium price -- might have particularly long legs, nScreenMedia analyst Colin Dixon blogged Monday.

The number of 4K TV owners watching 4K content grew from 49% last year to 56% this year, Hub Entertainment Research reported. Some 11% of TV households “claim they own an 8K TV,” said Hub. Some 9% of households plan to buy an 8K set in the next 12 months. Ownership of streaming media players is flat year on year, as TV households with a Roku smart TV grew from 18% to 22%; TVs with an Amazon Fire TV operating system increased from 14% to 15%. Roku’s penetration of TV-based streaming media devices rose five points to 35%; Amazon’s from 23% to 26%. Fifty-nine percent of smartphone households have unlimited data plans, up from 56%, with 30% of households saying they watch premium video on their phones weekly, up from 23%. TV households with voice remotes grew from 31% to 36%. Smart speaker ownership grew to 42% from 37%; growth of “any” smart home devices grew from 33% to 39%.

The Supreme Court will hear oral argument via telephone conference May 4, 5, 6, 11, 12 and 13 in some previously postponed cases, with justices and counsel participating remotely, it said Monday. It expects to provide a live audio feed of arguments to news media. Numerous federal courts have opted for telephonic oral arguments or postponing cases in light of the pandemic (see 2003130039). The high court will hear PTO v. Booking.com (see 2002140016) in early or mid-May via teleconference, SCOTUS said. The court postponed oral argument for Google v. Oracle (see 2002200061) until the October term.

Comments and reply deadlines for the FCC communications market competitiveness report to Congress were extended about two weeks each to April 27 and May 28 because of the pandemic, the Office of Economics and Analytics said Friday. There was some but not all the time music groups requested (see 2004060067).