Cable and direct broadcast satellite operators would have to prominently specify the “all-in” price for video service in their promo material and on bills, under a draft NPRM circulated by FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel's office, the agency said Wednesday. The agency didn't make the item publicly available but said it proposes that the line item in bills and the figure in promo materials include retransmission consent, regional sports programming and other content fees. The agency said the aim is "to eliminate the misleading practice of describing these video programming costs as a tax, fee, or surcharge." "No one likes surprises on their bill, especially families on tight budgets,” Rosenworcel said. “We’re working to make it so the advertised price for a service is the price you pay when your bill arrives and isn’t littered with anything that resembles junk fees."

Newsmax's blackout on DirecTV is ending, with the two striking a multiyear distribution deal, the cable news network said Wednesday. Terms weren't disclosed. Newsmax's going dark on DirecTV in January got considerable criticism from House GOP members, and the FCC received dozens of public complaints in the days after, claiming viewpoint censorship (see 2303100007). “Newsmax recognizes and appreciates that DIRECTV clearly supports diverse voices, including conservative ones,” Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy said in a statement. Echoed DirecTV CEO Bill Morrow, "This resolution with Newsmax, resolving an all-too-common carriage dispute, underscores our dedication to delivering a wide array of programming and perspectives to all our customers."

Media rights revenue for the top 15 sports leagues will likely grow from $43.8 billion this year to $67 billion by 2028, Rethink Technology Research said Tuesday. It said growth won't be uniform, with MLB growing the slowest, with a compound annual growth rate of about 2% over the next five years, while the NBA is expected to enjoy a CAGR of 26.3%, reaching $13.5 billion in 2028, it said. Heated competition between legacy pay-TV systems and streaming new entrants is driving the growth, it said. Inevitably, sports leagues will take their content direct to the consumer exclusively via proprietary streaming platforms, it said.

Streaming service spending on content, after two years of double-digit growth, is likely to flatten this year, MoffettNathanson Robert Fishman wrote investors Tuesday. He said as companies shift the focus away from subscriber growth and toward profitability, industry content spending will likely stay relatively flat or even start declining. Wall Street increasingly is questioning "whether streaming is a good business" and companies "are no longer willing to spend whatever it takes, in part because attitudes and strategies have shifted and rationalized, but also because their balance sheets no longer have what it takes," it said.

The recent unsolicited offer to sell Showtime "wasn't that interesting to us," Paramount Global CEO Bob Bakish said Wednesday in a Morgan Stanley investor conference. "Our internal plan is far more value creating" for earnings and synergies, he said. He said there's "huge opportunity" to gain market share in streaming, especially given this year's consolidation of Paramount+ and Showtime. "The NFL clearly works on streaming," he said. "We like sports." Paramount Global spending on content has gone up considerably the past two years, but it will peak in 2023, he said.

Unless something stems the cord-cutting tide, traditional pay-TV penetration will fall below 50% before year end, nScreenMedia analyst Colin Dixon blogged Monday. In 2022, 51.6% of occupied homes were traditional pay-TV homes, down from 57.7% in 2021, he said. Traditional pay-TV penetration peaked in 2013 at 88.3%, he said. Virtual MVPDs are helping some homes maintain access to a big bundle of programming, but vMVPD gains are small compared with traditional MVPD losses, he said.

The largest pay-TV providers in the U.S., with about 92% of the marketplace, lost about 5.9 million net video subscribers last year, vs. a loss of 4.7 million in 2021, Leichtman Research Group said Friday. The biggest cable providers lost about 3.5 million, compared with a loss of about 2.7 million the previous year, LRG said. Other pay-TV services lost about 2.7 million subscribers, slightly less than the 2.9 million loss in 2021, it said. The one growth area was virtual MVPDs, with publicly reporting ones saying they added 370,000 last year, though that was down from the 885,000 in sub gains in 2021, it said. The top pay-TV providers ended 2022 with about 70.2 million subs, LRG said.

YouTube's 2023 priorities include offering more monetization routes for content creators, such as by expanding its subscriptions business, investing in shopping and continually improving its paid digital goods offerings, CEO Neal Mohan blogged Wednesday. He said YouTube is expanding access to the ability to add language tracks to videos and also testing it in livestreams and Shorts. YouTube also will allow viewers to remix clips into Shorts and add features allowing easier recomposition of gaming content into Shorts, Mohan said. He also said YouTube TV will add a feature letting viewers watch multiple NFL Sunday Ticket games simultaneously.

Nexstar's NewsNation cable news network launched a connected TV app on streaming platforms including Amazon Fire, Roku, Apple TV and Android TV, it said Tuesday. It said the free app allows over-the-top views clips and highlights of NewsNation content.

Saying it wants to return to DirecTV "on a fair and equitable basis," Newsmax told us Thursday it's "currently not planning FCC or legal action" about being dropped by the MVPD last month (see 2301250042).