Viewing data for the season 8 premiere of HBO's Game of Thrones illustrates "the age of live linear television for non-sports programming is forever in the past," and the premium channel is facing a tough post-GoT future, The Diffusion Group's Rob Silvershein blogged Tuesday. He said the 54 million times the premiere was pirated in its first 24 hours was more than three times more than the legal number of viewers, with the 4 million U.S. illegal views "significantly disturbing." Silvershein said GoT's premiere attracted big numbers, but only 10 percent of the most-viewed live episodes of any TV show last year weren't sports, and non-sports content isn't likely to re-emerge as "must-see TV." The analyst said HBO has no other program likely to fill GoT's role once it wraps up. HBO parent WarnerMedia, part of AT&T, didn't comment Wednesday.

Spotify’s U.S. membership grew by 3 million in Q1, Consumer Intelligence Research Partners reported Tuesday. Thirty-seven percent of U.S. members have a premium subscription, a dip from the previous quarter, said analyst Josh Lowitz, saying continued overall growth, including in advertising-supported members, caused the slight decline. Among ad-supported listeners, 27 percent trialed a paid subscription in the quarter, up from 18 percent in Q4, and 81 percent of trial Premium subscribers converted to a paid subscription in Q1 vs. 72 percent. Fourteen percent of paid Premium subscribers ended a subscription, either reverting to an ad-supported account or quitting the service altogether, up from 13 percent in Q4. Findings are based on surveys of 500 U.S. Spotify users January-March.

SiriusXM is looking to connected cars and smart speakers to expand beyond its factory-installed satellite radios in autos, CEO Jim Meyer said in a proxy at the SEC for a June 5 annual meeting in New York. Smart speakers are “a great way to extend the reach of SiriusXM in-home,” he said. “We are creating more content and more functionality for Amazon’s Alexa-powered platform and are working with several other large players in this space.” It’s targeting smart-speaker owners with its 300-channel, $8 monthly Essential streaming-service package (see 1904220019). Meyer said an automaker presence “remains a central part of our strategy,” with receivers to be factory-installed in more than 80 percent of new vehicles through 2028, when its current Toyota deal expires. He got an $8 million cash bonus in February after actions that included completing the $3.5 billion Pandora buyout Feb. 1 “to create the world’s largest audio digital entertainment company.” The CEO also got a 2018 base salary of just under $2 million, an increase from $1.8 million in 2017. Meyer, 64, is under contract through Dec. 31, having signed a one-year extension in August, his second one-year deal in as many years. SiriusXM agreed in August to pay Meyer for up to 100 hours of "personal flight time" yearly on a private plane, it said Monday.

In appealing the FCC's granting market modification in Ohio, Block Communications hasn't shown it was hurt or that the agency didn't act reasonably in modifying the market for WHIO-TV Dayton, the FCC said in a 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals respondent brief Monday (docket 18-4137). Block's argument that it might have a tougher time negotiating cable carriage of its CBS affiliate in Auglaize County now that the county has been assigned to WHIO "is sheer speculation," the agency said, saying the station never had must-carry rights there and WHIO was the most-watched station there. WHIO owner Cox Communications, in an intervenor brief in the docket (in Pacer), said market modifications aren't intended to defend TV stations in a particular market against competition but to ensure cable viewers have access to local stations, and evidence clearly shows WHIO is local to those Auglaize County viewers. Block, in its petitioner brief last month, said the FCC did nothing more than "a superficial box-checking exercise" and paid little attention to the issue of localism in approving the market mod. It said WHIO was on Auglaize cable systems at the time of Cox's petition, and the modification order undermined Block's interests.

“SiriusXM. No Car Required” is the promotional tagline for the rollout of the $8 monthly Essential 300-channel streaming subscription plan, available now through a 90-day trial for $1, it said Monday. Essential’s $8 fee is about half that of SiriusXM’s step-up Premier package, which includes Howard Stern's two full-time audio channels, plus Howard Video and NBA, NHL and NCAA programming, it said. Essential’s launch is in keeping with SiriusXM CEO Jim Meyer's long-running strategy to build a broader subscription base outside the car. In addition to smartphones for people on the go, he sees smart speakers “as a great way to distribute our service in home” (see 1901300019). “Stay tuned for more content and more functionality” on smart speakers, he said in January. Its debut earlier this month of Pandora Now as a SiriusXM channel and Pandora interactive station and playlist was the first cross-platform initiative since SiriusXM completed its $3.5 billion all-stock Pandora buyout Feb. 1 (see 1904040024). SiriusXM reports Q2 earnings Wednesday.

FCC Media Bureau staff sought and received additional information about the TV Parental Guidelines Monitoring Board, said an ex parte filing from NAB, MPAA and NCTA posted Wednesday in docket 19-41. The FCC will report to Congress on the ratings oversight body May 15 (see 1903010046). The monitoring board's chairman -- a position rotated among the heads of NAB, MPAA and NCTA -- appoints non-industry board members after input from the board's other members, the filing said in response to Media Bureau information requests. Current members “represent a cross-section of organizations that deal with parents and children, consumers and media,” the filing said. Repeated complaints about a program’s rating can first lead to the three trade associations discussing whether action is needed and contacting the program’s distributor before an official decision is needed from the chairman, the filing said. “These discussions can -- and do -- result in changes being made to ratings before an adjudication is necessary,” the filing said. “There is no specific number of complaints that automatically results in an adjudication.” The board has conducted four adjudications in the 20 years it’s been in operation, the last in 2007, the filing said. “Complaints are often addressed before they reach an adjudication,” the filing said.

Cinedigm launched a network, ConTV, as a digital-first linear channel on Viacom's Pluto TV streaming service, it said Tuesday. It said ConTV's content focus is on genre movies such as horror and science fiction, plus cult films and TV shows.

The Association of National Advertisers’ chairman said a “dark side persists” as digital media has grown exponentially. “Seven out of 10 consumers say ads are annoying, and ad blocking is accelerating. Privacy breaches and consumer data misuse keeps occurring. Unacceptable content continues to be available and is still being viewed alongside our brands,” Marc Pritchard, also Procter & Gamble’s chief brand officer, told the ANA Media Conference in Orlando Thursday. Among his suggestions is to place a tag “on all ads, for all formats across digital and TV, which is used to control ad frequency and de-duplicate impressions.”

As the newspaper examines privacy practices, it's turning its gaze inward, too, wrote New York Times Publisher A.G. Sulzberger as part of the initiative that posted numerous opinion pieces Wednesday and Thursday. The company has "significantly reduced the amount and type of data shared with social media companies. We put in place stronger controls to limit data shared with third parties through advertisements," he wrote. He said the paper averaged 24 web-tracking "cookies" in articles on a single topic, five more than Financial Times reports on the same topic and fewer than half that of The Washington Post and News Corp.'s The Wall Street Journal, and compared with 83 at AT&T's CNN and 100 at Gannett's USA Today. The Times' control over data from the cookies "is often more limited than it seems because, in many cases, the news organizations that host the trackers don’t know what happens with that information once it is transferred to third parties," Sulzberger wrote. The Internet Association declined to comment. Later Thursday, FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel recommended another opinion piece in the package. "While we may have zero privacy, it doesn’t mean that we have given up our right to control our digital selves," said the commentary by Kara Swisher. "As tech marches on, that might be the one right that needs to be protected most of all." Swisher sought a national privacy law that's not as stringent as some European rules. Later, we couldn't find Rosenworcel's tweet, and her office confirmed that she accidentally deleted it.

Entravision Communications' Univision- and UniMas-affiliated TV stations are back on Dish Network lineups after a nine-month blackout, due to the Univision/Dish carriage agreement the two inked in March (see 1903260057), Entravision said Thursday. It said it has Univision or UniMas stations in 24 markets.