Emergency alert system participants are required to provide accessible EAS alerts, said the FCC Public Safety Bureau in a reminder public notice Wednesday before the planned Aug. 7 nationwide EAS test (see 1907010041). EAS participants “should take necessary steps” to ensure the hearing and visually impaired have “full access” to the alert messages, the PN said.

Netflix significantly underperformed in Q2 against its paid net subscriber addition targets, saying in a shareholder letter Wednesday the damage was felt across all global regions. It finished the quarter with only 2.7 million net subscriber adds, 46 percent fewer than the 5 million it forecast in April. It had projecte 300,000 net subscriber adds for the U.S., 4.7 million internationally, but had 130,000 net subscriber losses in the U.S., and only 2.83 million net sub adds overseas. The worst performance was in regions where Netflix imposed price increases, said the company. “We don’t believe competition was a factor since there wasn’t a material change in the competitive landscape during Q2, and competitive intensity and our penetration is varied across regions (while our over-forecast was in every region). Rather, we think Q2’s content slate drove less growth in paid net adds than we anticipated.” The competition for “winning consumers’ relaxation time is fierce for all companies and great for consumers,” said Netflix. Competition will grow more intense in the next 12 months when new services launch from Disney, WarnerMedia and others, it said. “The innovation of streaming services is also drawing consumers to shift more and more from linear television to streaming entertainment.” In the U.S., “we still only earn about 10% of consumers’ television time, and less of their mobile screen time, so we have much room for growth,” said the company. Ad-free “remains a deep part of our brand proposition,” it said. “When you read speculation that we are moving into selling advertising, be confident that this is false. We believe we will have a more valuable business in the long term by staying out of competing for ad revenue and instead entirely focusing on competing for viewer satisfaction.” Minutes before the shareholder-letter disclosures, Netflix shares closed 10 percent lower at $362.44. The stock was trending 12.5 percent lower after hours to $317.19 at 5:15 p.m. EDT.

Globecast told the FCC fiber-based proposals for clearing the C band won’t work. Fiber is expensive and not available everywhere, the company said in docket 18-122. “As a service provider that utilizes many technologies including fiber, satellite and the public internet, Globecast can state from experience that the reliability of single-thread (non-diverse) fiber is far inferior to that of satellite and is unacceptable for all broadcasters and programmers that rely on providing uninterrupted services to their subscribers and advertisers." Also Tuesday, a House Communications Subcommittee hearing touched on the band (see 1907160067).

"War" and "warlike action by a military force" have specialized meanings in insurance, and a lower court erred when it used ordinary language readings of those terms to find war exclusions in a TV production company's policy applied to a 2014 attack by Hamas on Israel that halted a TV production (see 1804120004), said a 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel Friday. A docket 17-56672 opinion vacated summary judgment on Universal Cable Productions' bad-faith claim Atlantic Specialty Insurance, and remanded it. The opinion, by Judges Ransey Cole, Wallace Tashima and Jacqueline Nguyen was penned by Tashima. Atlantic outside counsel didn't comment Monday.

AT&T accused retransmission consent negotiations consultancy Max Retrans of violating a 2016 non-disclosure agreement and misappropriation of company secrets, in a complaint filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in St. Louis. In the heavily redacted civil lawsuit, (docket 19-cv-01925, in Pacer) AT&T said the unspecified damages it sought includes retrans fees stemming from AT&T agreements with station groups that, due to Max Retrans' conduct, meant those stations received higher retrans fees than they would have. Max Retrans Principal Duane Lammers didn't comment Friday.

The FCC should defer acting on Hemisphere Media's petition for a declaratory ruling on foreign ownership (see 1907100056), said DOJ, DOD and the Department of Homeland Security in a letter posted Friday in docket 19-194. "The Agencies currently are reviewing this matter for any national security, law enforcement, and public safety issues, but have not yet completed that effort." The agencies "will advise the Commission promptly upon completion of our review," the letter said. Miami-based cable network and broadcaster Hemisphere sought permission to be up to 100 percent foreign owned. It operates under a declaratory ruling allowing foreign investors to own up to 49.99 percent in the aggregate of both its equity and voting interests.

AT&T is launching an emergency weather information channel for homes in the Gulf region as a substitute for local news coverage on Nexstar stations that have gone dark, it said Thursday. It said it has done similar weather information channels in the past to keep tabs on hurricane conditions. The blackout, which began last week, involves more than 120 Nexstar stations that were on DirecTV, DirecTV Now and U-verse lineups (see 1907090048). AT&T said Nexstar is demanding sizably more in retransmission fees. Nexstar said it has a long history of successful carriage agreements with MVPDs, while DirecTV since its 2015 purchase by AT&T "has been routinely involved in disputes."

SiriusXM announced “synergies” between the satellite music service and Pandora, the music streaming service it bought Feb. 1 for $3.5 billion (see 1904040024). Subscribers to SiriusXM All Access and SiriusXM Premier streaming packages can create customized commercial-free Pandora music stations within the SiriusXM app. Personalized Stations Powered by Pandora will use technology driven by the Music Genome Project, the company said. Also Wednesday, some 30 million SiriusXM Select subscribers gained access to unlimited streaming of hundreds of music, sports, talk, news and entertainment channels on a phone, at home and online via mobile app and connected devices. SiriusXM Select subscribers also get 100 recently launched Xtra Music channels, curated by genre and era to fit a mood, occasion or activity, it said.

Comments are due Aug. 9, replies Aug. 26 on a Hemisphere Media Group (HMTV) petition for declaratory ruling that would allow foreign investors to own up to 100 percent of its equity and voting interests, the FCC Media Bureau said in a public notice Wednesday. It said the Miami-based cable network and broadcaster currently operates under a declaratory ruling allowing foreign investors to own up to 49.99 percent in the aggregate of both its equity and voting interests.

New “warning signs” abound in the decline of terrestrial-radio use in the car, reported Strategy Analytics Tuesday. SA canvassed consumers in the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Italy and China. It found terrestrial-radio usage is in “fast decline” across all those regions. Consumers are sending “mixed signals” on their preferences for the next “must have” technology for in-car entertainment, said the researcher. “In the lengthy search for a next successor to the CD player, streaming media has shown a remarkable surge in usage and interest, relative to owned media on portable devices.”