Streaming advertising is doing well, but the linear ad market in the second half of 2023 has been "disappointing," with no rebound immediately in sight, Warner Bros. Discover (WBD) Chief Financial Officer Gunnar Wiedenfels said Wednesday as the company announced Q3 financial results. Also outside the company's control is the ongoing Screen Actors Guild strike, which helped result in "one of our lightest original content schedules in years," which in turn affected Q3 streaming subscriber numbers, CEO David Zaslav said. Also hurting streaming sub numbers were declines in the Discovery+ subscriber base due to its being incorporated into Max. WBD stock closed for the day at $9.40, down 19%. "We made a last and final offer" that met most of the actors' union goals, Zaslav said. He said WBD will launch Max in Latin America in Q1, to be followed by launches in the Nordics, Netherlands, and Central and Eastern Europe in the spring, with further global expansion over the next two to three years. Wiedenfels was bullish on the Charter Communications/Disney distribution deal reached in September (see 2309110034). "You can imagine a world where we're redoing our deals" where Max is available to cable subscribers, he said. "it created potentially a very interesting bridge to more scale, lower churn and more stability to linear."

Nexstar and Cox Communications have reached a multiyear distribution agreement covering 38 Nexstar-owned television stations in 23 markets, Nexstar's NewsNation cable news network and its digital networks Antenna TV and Rewind TV, the broadcaster said Tuesday.

Disney might have to pay Comcast an additional $4.2 billion to $5.8 billion for its share of Hulu atop the agreed-upon price, LightShed Management's Rich Greenfield wrote Thursday. Disney announced Wednesday it was buying Comcast's 33% stake for $8.61 billion, with the potential of having to pay more after an appraisal of the streaming platform's fair value is done. Disney said the appraisal should be completed sometime in 2024. Greenfield said the challenge in putting a value on Hulu is its deep integration within Disney and the benefits it brings Disney through bundling with Disney+ and ESPN+ and through its Hulu+ Live TV virtual MVPD service. He calculated it ultimately could be worth $40 billion to $45 billion.

Disney executives met with FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, Media Bureau Chief Holly Saurer, and Commissioners Brendan Carr and Anna Gomez about “ongoing changes in consumer preferences,” according to a brief ex parte filing posted Thursday in docket 14-261. That docket is associated with proposals to reclassify linear streaming services as MVPDs, and the filing was also posted in quadrennial review docket 22-459. The Monday meetings involved discussion of Disney’s “history of partnering closely with ABC affiliates to accelerate comprehensive access to digital content distribution” and Disney’s investment in “on the ground reporting” at the ABC stations it owns. Broadcasters supporting the reclassification have said networks have a disparate level of control over contracts involving digital distribution of local news content generated by their affiliates, threatening the existence of local news. “We outlined broad trends in the media marketplace that both shape and respond to the needs of viewers,” the filing said.

Cable news network Newsmax will no longer be streaming for free on over-the-top platforms like Roku, YouTube, Xumo and Pluto starting Wednesday, it emailed subscribers Tuesday. "Under our cable agreements Newsmax has to go behind a paywall," it said, urging people to instead sign up for its Newsmax+ streaming service.

Paramount Global has completed the $1.62 billion sale of its Simon & Schuster publishing business to KKR, it told the SEC Monday. The companies announced the deal in August (see 2308070066).

Mediacom will join Comcast and Charter Communications in offering the Xumo Stream Box streaming device to its Xtream internet customers in the coming months, Comcast said last week. Xumo is a joint venture between Comcast and Charter.

The FCC “will take a look” at a letter from 20 members of the Senate Democratic Caucus (see 2310180067) urging the agency to refresh the record on reclassifying linear streaming services as virtual MVPDs, Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said at a news conference after commissioners' open meeting Thursday. Commissioner Brendan Carr said at his own news conference the agency “needs to be very, very careful to hew to the letter of the law that Congress written.” That a policy is outdated and “does not itself give rise to FCC authority,” Carr said. NAB and the Coalition for Local News, an advocacy group formed by broadcast TV network affiliates, applauded the Senate letter Thursday. “We strongly reinforce their advocacy" and calls by Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., "for the FCC to refresh the record to promote and protect localism in the streaming era,” said the Coalition for Local News in a statement.

Rising stock prices for broadcasters “are coming at the expense of consumers,” said the American Television Alliance in a statement Wednesday: “The current regulatory environment enables big broadcasters to exploit loopholes that are responsible for thousands of consumer blackouts and massive annual price increases.” FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel recently announced proposals on retransmission blackouts that are considered more unfavorable to MVPDs than to broadcasters (see 2310110075). Gray Television released an investor presentation this week predicting continued growth in broadcast retrans consent revenue. “MVPD’s $40 billion annual spending on linear programming fees will continue to be reallocated to premium content providers and especially to broadcasters, particularly as the number of cable nets and [regional sports networks] continues to decline,” said the investor deck. “Migration of professional local/regional sports games to broadcast television provides a further opportunity to grow retrans revenues including by reallocating programming fees from cable nets and RSNs to local broadcast stations.” This broken system does not work for consumers and led to over 200 blackouts in 2023 alone, ATVA said: “We urge Congress and the FCC to act to end predatory practices by broadcasters at the expense of subscribers and ensure broadcasters fulfill their public interest obligations.” NAB didn’t comment.

Twenty members of the Senate Democratic Caucus, including Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.; Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn.; Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn.; and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., have signed a letter urging the FCC to refresh the record in docket 14-261 on reclassifying linear streaming services as MVPDs. The FCC “should be developing a record and recommendations to ensure that our regulatory system -- which has enabled a thriving locally focused broadcast system that is the envy of the world -- is not undermined by the explosion of new technologies that were not foreseen even a mere decade ago,” said the letter, which was helmed by Sen. Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M. FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel has maintained that the agency doesn’t have the authority to reclassify streaming services, and the FCC said her thinking hadn’t changed after a June letter from Senate Commerce Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash. (see 2306230062). “We urge you to refresh the aging, unclosed record from the 2014 proceeding by seeking new public comments to provide updated video marketplace information,” Wednesday's letter said.