HBO Max's terms of use make it clear that any supposed Video Privacy Protection Act violation claims would be handled individually through arbitration and not via a class-action suit, HBO said in a motion to compel arbitration Monday (docket 1:22-cv-01942) in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. Suing HBO and seeking putative class-action status are two subscribers -- one in California, another in North Carolina -- who allege the streaming service's integration of the Facebook Tracking Pixel into the HBO Max website allows disclosure of their video viewing behavior to Facebook without their consent. Plaintiffs' attorneys didn't comment.

Getting HGTV's newsletter is the same as subscribing to its video service for purposes of being considered a subscriber under the Video Privacy Protection Act, counsel for plaintiffs suing Discovery Communications for VPPA violations told the U.S. District Court in Manhattan, according to a letter posted Thursday in docket 1:22-cv-02031. Discovery is accused of providing HGTV newsletter subscribers' personal information to Facebook without notifying them. Discovery, in an April 25 letter that said it's planning a motion to dismiss the putative class action, said district precedent aligns with the argument the plaintiffs aren't subscribers because the email newsletter is separate and distinct from HGTV video content.

FCC intervention is the only way to improve closed caption accessibility due to “recalcitrance and resistance” from industry commenters in docket 12-108, said the National Association of the Deaf, Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing and other consumer groups in a call with staff from the Media Bureau, Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau and the Disability Rights Office Tuesday. “More than two decades after the display settings were first adopted, it is time for the Commission to act in a design space that has yielded relatively little improvement,” said an ex parte filing posted Friday. The FCC has “ample legal authority to impose these requirements” under the 1990 Television Decoder Circuitry Act and commission precedent, the groups said. The FCC “rightly has never found that the bare provision of captions can serve Congress’s goals of achieving equal television access,” the filing said.

A Q3 rate hike helped push SiriusXM's average revenue per user in Q1 up 9% year on year to $15.53, said management on an earnings call Thursday. Quarterly revenue grew 6% to $1.7 billion, despite impact from lower auto sales due to supply chain disruptions. SiriusXM self-pay subscribers slipped by 25,000 and paid promotional subscribers fell 54,000, said the company. Net additions in the quarter “were impacted by the lower auto sales we began to see in the second half of last year as supply constraints became more pronounced,” said CEO Jennifer Witz. “These conditions have not yet eased.” New car and estimated used car penetration rates “grew modestly” to 83% and 52%; the SiriusXM-enabled fleet numbers nearly 146 million vehicles, she said. Growth in digital subscriptions, the company’s fastest growing segment, was offset by declines in traditional in-car subs, said Witz.

Some 51% of U.S. TV content viewers subscribe to a traditional pay-TV service, down from 63% last year and 81% in 2020, said Horowitz Research Wednesday. Though 37% are paying for a subscription VOD service -- and not cable or satellite -- a 30% year-on-year increase, the overall percentage of TV content viewers subscribing to at least one SVOD service fell to 62% from 74% in 2021, partly due to a drop in Netflix subs, it said. An additional 10% have access to other SVOD services by borrowing passwords, said the research firm. Streaming subscribers reported spending an average $75.80 monthly on SVOD and/or virtual MVPD services, up $26 a month from a year ago. The share of TV viewers watching free, ad-supported services, including over-the-air content via antenna, was unchanged at 66%. Survey findings suggest churn will become a "bigger challenge" as consumers become even more cost-conscious, Horowitz said, saying 18% of SVOD subscribers are planning to cancel at least one of their services, 42% for vMVPD customers. The next phase in the maturing industry “will be a reset,” said Horowitz Chief Revenue Officer Adriana Waterston. The firm predicts more ads in free or low-cost ad-supported tiers and more consolidation of services and subscriptions.

Seventy percent of Americans support the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA), according to a survey sponsored by JCPA proponents the News Media Alliance. The proposed bill would grant an anti-trust exemption to allow media outlets to collectively bargain with tech companies over compensation for news content shared on online platforms. The survey of 1,000 adults also shows 79% believe tech companies have too much power over the news, and 76% believe tech companies are driving local news outlets out of business, News Media Alliance said. Schoen Cooperman Research conducted the survey April 1-8.

Activision Blizzard shareholders approved Microsoft’s proposed $68.7 billion buy of the game company in an all-cash transaction (see 2201180009), voting virtually in a special meeting Thursday, Activision said. More than 98% of the shares voted were in favor of the deal, it said. Microsoft’s proposed buy, the largest in its history, is expected to close in Microsoft’s fiscal year ending June 2023.

East St. Louis, Illinois, is ignoring the growing number of state and federal courts dismissing claims against streaming services because of a lack of right of action (see 2203290039), defendants WarnerMedia, DirecTV and CuriousityStream said in a docket 3:21-cv-00561 reply Tuesday in support of their consolidated motion to dismiss. They told the U.S. District Court in East St. Louis the city contends local governments have rights over their public rights of way, but it doesn't explain how those rights would create a cause of action regarding Illinois' Cable and Video Competition Law. Counsel for the city didn't comment. It's one of an array of localities pursuing franchise fees litigation against streaming services (see 2112230003).

Netflix had 29% of total connected TV viewing hours in February, followed by YouTube with 21%, Hulu at 12% and Amazon Prime Video at 9%, but rivals are quickly gaining ground, blogged Courtney Gursky, Comscore senior marketing content specialist. Netflix’s overlap with Amazon Prime Video subscribers in February was 67%, up from 60% in February 2021, and was 67% with YouTube, 51% with Hulu, 44% with HBO Max, 40% with Disney+ and 30% with Peacock, according to Comscore. The market may have reached a “tipping point” where consumers with multiple over-the-top video services will begin to cut back on subscriptions, Gursky said Monday. Netflix could grow its popularity with an ad-supported tier, which CEO Reed Hastings last week suggested as a possibility to stem a subscriber exodus after the company reported a 200,000 subscriber loss last quarter (see 2204200002). An ad-supported tier could be a "game-changing move" for Netflix since half its subscribers said they would choose an ad-supported plan for $5 less per month, she said, citing a June report from Hub Entertainment Research. In February, the reach of ad-supported video-on-demand services was 75.3 million households vs. 74.7 million for SVOD services, she said.

Consolidating the Shiloh, Illinois, litigation seeking franchise fees from streaming services with a similar East St. Louis suit pending in the same court would be more efficient than remanding the Shiloh case to state court, as ordered last month (see 2203240053), defendant Dish Network told the U.S. District Court in East St. Louis Friday in a motion to reconsider (docket 3:21-cv-00807). Shiloh's outside counsel didn't comment.