AT&T's streaming service HBO Max, will roll out in spring 2020 with 10,000 hours of premium TV and movie content, including original content, it said Tuesday. Netflix tweeted it will lose the sitcom Friends to HBO Max.

The FCC Media Bureau adopted procedures limiting access to proprietary and competitively sensitive information in AT&T's complaint against nine broadcast station groups alleging they violated good-faith negotiation rules (see 1906190027), in a docket 19-168 order Tuesday.

Univision’s board is “reviewing strategic options for the company,” it said Wednesday evening. “The U.S. Hispanic audience represents one of the very few certain growth opportunities in today’s media marketplace, and Univision is ideally positioned.” The broadcaster hired Morgan Stanley, Moelis and LionTree as financial advisers "to assist with the process." The current media market “favors scale and cross-platform offerings, and we believe those major media companies that fail to recognize and capitalize on this unique opportunity in Spanish-language media will be left behind,” said CEO Vince Sadusky.

C Spire never made a serious effort to discuss carriage of Tegna's WWL-TV New Orleans as a condition for carriage of Gray's WLOX Biloxi, Mississippi, Tegna said in an FCC docket 91-159 posting Tuesday. It said C Spire's complaint makes clear it wasn't willing to carry WWL and wouldn't have considered any arrangement other than no-fee carriage even if it did enter into negotiations. C-Spire alleges in its retransmission consent complaint that CBS and Gray are blocking a WLOX deal unless it also pays to retransmit fees to Tegna's CBS affiliate (see 1906040031). C Spire said Wednesday the Tegna filing confirms its allegation that CBS "is exploiting its affiliate agreements with local broadcasters to undermine the market-modification process that Congress promulgated to promote the availability of local, in-state news.”

U.S. broadband homes likely to cut the cord in the next 12 months watch more than six hours of video content on their mobile phone a week, vs. 2.5 hours among all broadband households, blogged Parks Associates Monday. The trend led MVPDs including Comcast and Charter to launch mobile services as a way to extend their services-based product portfolios, it said, noting one in 10 broadband subscribers is likely to cut broadband, with half likely to make the change in the next 12 months. Many subscribers are satisfied with their current provider overall, but they're aware of other available options and could cut the cord if their current service doesn’t “continually meet their needs,” said analyst Brett Sappington. Two-thirds of broadband households currently subscribe to a cable internet service and three in 10 subscribe to DSL or fiber; a third use mobile data services. Potential broadband cord-cutters rely on their mobile devices for entertainment and are “significantly more likely to watch” live video content via mobile, including live TV broadcasts and livestreaming, averaging an hour more per week each compared with average broadband households, Sappington said. As 5G mobile and 10G fixed broadband services start to deploy, substantial performance improvements will be attractive to this segment of subscribers, Parks said.

Lack of 8K content will persist, “curtailing consumer demand” for sets that can handle the format, said Futuresource analyst Matthew Rubin Monday. He noted most content is still being produced in standard definition, HD and full HD. Online platforms such as Vimeo will make “some progress” with 8K content, he said. With the 2020 Olympic Games in Japan the first major event to be broadcast in 8K, Futuresource forecasts global shipments next year will be 1 percent of total shipments -- and about 100,000 shipped in Japan, or 2 percent of that country’s shipments. Barriers to uptake will begin to fall away and 8K will be a “significant part of the premium market by 2023," said Rubin. This year, 4K UHD TV shipments will account for more than half the market, said the research firm.

Emergency alert system participants are required to file Form 2 in the EAS test reporting system (ETRS) before 11:59 p.m. EDT Aug. 7 for the nationwide EAS test (see 1906030050), reminded a FCC Public Safety Bureau public notice Monday. Test participants are also required to file ETRS Form 3 by Sept. 23, the PN said. EAS alerts must be accessible and there are specific rules on where on a TV screen the visual message portion of an EAS message can be displayed, the PN said. The bureau also reminded EAS participants to coordinate with state emergency communication committees and to upgrade EAS equipment software and firmware, and the stakeholders to ensure they can receive and process the national periodic test code.

Cumulus Media said it’s selling WABC(AM) New York to Red Apple subsidiary Red Apple Media for $12.5 million in cash. The deal’s expected to close Q3, Cumulus said Thursday. Cumulus will use the proceeds for investment and to pay down debt, it said.

Comments are due July 26 and replies Aug. 9 on a Pluto TV ask for a one-year waiver of rules requiring closed captioning of IPTV content, said an FCC Media Bureau public notice in docket 11-54 Thursday. The streaming service's petition said more than 90 percent of its users have access to captions, but some platforms are dated and lack core capabilities or that Pluto's engineering work has focused on the most heavily used platforms.

AT&T Communications CEO John Donovan said agency consideration of Nexstar/Tribune must take into account a dysfunctional retransmission consent marketplace. In a docket 15-216 filing to be posted, AT&T said it told FCC Chief of Staff Matthew Berry it's dealing with blackouts in more than 25 markets and may have more by summer's end because broadcasters are demanding retrans terms "that make no economic sense," including MVPD payments for stations they don't own or haven't launched yet. AT&T earlier this month brought a complaint against nine broadcast station groups alleging they were violating the good-faith negotiation rules (see 1906190027). Saying it hasn't received an unredacted copy of AT&T's good-faith complaint, Deerfield Media asked for a waiver allowing it to answer within 20 days of receipt of the unredacted complaint but no earlier than July 22. In a docket 12-1 posting Wednesday, Deerfield also opposed AT&T's request for expedited treatment. It said it took days to hire outside counsel that could represent it in the matter and look at the "confidential" version of the complaint, and some other defendants also are obtaining counsel. Perkins Coie is representing Deerfield in the complaint. AT&T didn't comment Thursday.