Nest founder Tony Fadell is leaving the company, he said in a Friday blog post. Marwan Fawaz, technical advisory board chair at ADT, will succeed him as CEO. Fadell called the news “bittersweet,” saying “there is never a perfect time to transition.” The company has grown to “much more than a thermostat company,” and is now a “hardware + software + services ecosystem” still in early growth phase, he said. Nest's future is bright, he said, saying the transition plan has been in place since late last year. Fadell will “remain involved” as an adviser to Google parent Alphabet, he said.

The Media Bureau hasn't identified a “technologically and economically feasible alternative” to the current designated market area system, it said in a report to Congress on increasing localism through market modification. The report was required by the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act Reauthorization, and was intended to address the issue of “orphan counties” -- localities in a DMA that are largely in another state, making it more difficult for them to receive local news. This problem is rare, the bureau said. The “overwhelming majority of consumers in the United States” can access programming from TV stations licensed to a community within the same state, it said. The existence of orphan counties “may have less to do with the fact that DMAs cross state lines and more to do with broadcast television economics and the incentives broadcast stations have to reach large populations,” the bureau said. “Adopting a DMA alternative would not alter this reality.” Instead, localities considering market modification should work closely with local broadcasters “to ensure the standards for market modification are met,” the report said. Legislators could consider future laws to provide “targeted relief” for orphan counties in rural areas, the report said. It rejected suggestions that repealing syndicated exclusivity and network non-duplication rules would increase localism. Since the FCC has an open proceeding on those rules, pleas to get rid of them should be dealt with there, the bureau said. Encouraging stations to make their programming available online could increased localism, the report said.

Though adoption of Ultra HD TVs began to “ramp up” only in 2015, consumer awareness of the technology is high, NPD said in a Wednesday report. Fifty-two percent consumers canvassed by NPD in January and February said they were aware of Ultra HD TVs, the research firm said. That figure “spikes” to 73 percent among consumers who own an internet-connected TV, NPD said. Increased consumer desire for and awareness of 4K streaming-video services has accompanied the growing adoption of 4K TVs, it said. A third of consumers surveyed are already aware of 4K streaming services, it said. Awareness increases to 42 percent among 18-to-34-year-olds, it said. NPD surveyed 5,000 consumers.

NBCUniversal's 2013 retransmission and affiliation contractual agreements with Dish Network don't contain any prohibition of screen crawls warning that NBC programming might soon be dropped from Dish's lineup, NBCU said in a filing (in Pacer) Friday in U.S. District Court in Rockford, Illinois, in response to Dish's breach of contract suit filed in March (see 1603150053). In its 16-page reply, NBCU denied all allegations of contractual breach and repeatedly referred the court to the twin agreements. Dish didn't comment Tuesday.

Comments on proposed additional rules governing video description are due June 27, replies July 26, the FCC Media Bureau said in a public notice Friday. The NPRM seeks comment on increasing the amount of video description that's required (see 1603310058)

The FCC doesn't have the power to substantially involve itself in retransmission consent matters, and can't regulate rates or force broadcaster consent and should ignore multichannel video programming distributors' "'mashup' of various out-of-context sources to try to create that authority out of thin air," Meredith General Counsel-Local Media Joshua Pila told Commissioner Michael O'Rielly and legal advisers to Commissioner Mignon Clyburn and Chairman Tom Wheeler, according to an ex parte filing Friday in docket 15-216. Meredith also said that the 10 largest MVPDs account for 94 percent of MVPD subscribers, and those 10 dwarf the largest independent broadcasting groups. "Even if the Commission had authority to regulate rates or order carriage with the broadcasters' consent, there would be no reason to exercise it on behalf of MVPDs, most of which are far larger and have far greater resources (including large staffs of professional carriage negotiators and lawyers)," it said. The company said rising retrans fees reflect rising programming costs, so substantive retrans regulation wouldn't bring down consumer prices but would make it so broadcasters wouldn't have the needed resources for national programming or local news.

Pay-TV subscriptions continued to fall in Q1, though cable subscription numbers improved, SNL Kagan said in a news release Thursday. Cable posted “its best first-quarter in eight years,” by losing only 18,300 video customers, the media research firm said. But cable, DBS and telco multichannel video programming distributors as a group lost 162,000 subscribers in Q1, it said. “The mounting loss in the quarter foreshadows mounting pressure on service providers and an accelerating annual decline.” MVPDs lost 1.2 million subscribers over the preceding 12 months, SNL Kagan said. DBS gained 166,000 subs in Q1, it said. The growth was driven by DirecTV's growth strategy and offsetting losses from Dish Network, the researcher said.

Netflix “is a great partner, and at the same time they’re a competitor to us,” CBS CEO Leslie Moonves told the Needham Emerging Technology Conference Thursday in New York. In that dualality, Netflix typifies “a number of other companies in our universe,” Moonves said. CBS will continue to sell its content to Netflix, he said. “We’ve generally sold them library or shows that are coming off the air, and we’ve had a very successful relationship with them. On the other side of the coin, they’re producing 35 original television shows, so they’re a competitor in terms of getting the best producers.” At CBS, “we like doing business” with Netflix, “we will continue to do business with them,” Moonves said. “By the way, we talk to Hulu, we talk to Netflix, we talk to Amazon -- we sell to everybody.” However, CBS also chose “to go our own way” with the CBS All Access over-the-top service, he said. “We own the IP for Star Trek, which is obviously a huge property, and instead of selling it to Netflix or Amazon -- both had wanted it -- we said that was going to be the first original series on All Access. It will be on the air in January, and we think it will contribute to millions of new subscribers going there.” CBS announced in November that a “totally new” Star Trek TV series would debut in January and that after the debut episode, all first-run episodes would air exclusively on CBS All Access. Moonves won’t disclose ratings data on CBS All Access for as long as Netflix declines to do so for its OTT service, he said. “We’ve been saying that for a long time,” he said. “They’re playing Hide the Weenie,” so why should CBS report viewership data for CBS All Access content? he said. “They’re declaring shows hits that could be watched by 10 people.” Netflix representatives didn’t comment.

Mobileye and STMicroelectronics are teaming to codevelop the next generation of Mobileye's EyeQ SoC, the EyeQ5, to be “the central computer performing sensor fusion” for fully autonomous vehicles when they’re commercialized starting in 2020, the chipmakers said in a Tuesday joint announcement. Engineering samples of EyeQ5 are expected to be available by first half of 2018, they said. EyeQ5 will be delivered to automakers and Tier-1 OEMs with “a full suite of hardware accelerated algorithms and applications that are required for autonomous driving,” they said. Mobileye also will support an “automotive-grade” standard operating system and provide a complete software development kit “to allow customers to differentiate their solutions by deploying their algorithms on EyeQ5,” they said. The companies expect to make the software development kit available by late 2018, they said.

Roku continued as the top streaming media player brand in the U.S. between Q1 2015 and Q1 2016 with 30 percent market share, said Parks Associates. Amazon moved into a “virtual tie” for second with Google at 22 percent of sales, it said, and Apple TV was fourth at 20 percent. The top four had 94 percent of streaming media player sales during the period, up from 86 percent in 2014, Parks said. Amazon benefited from promoting its Fire TV devices in tandem with its Prime Video service and premium subscriptions through its Streaming Partners program. Apple had the biggest increase in unit sales on the launch of its long-awaited refresh of Apple TV, growing sales 50 percent over 2014. Roku and Amazon, meanwhile, benefit from offering multiple form factors: boxes and sticks, said analyst Barbara Kraus. A third of Roku sales for the period were sticks, compared with three-quarters of Amazon sales, she said. Thirty-six percent of U.S. broadband households own streaming media players, and Parks estimates 86 million streaming media players will be sold globally in 2019.