ViacomCBS and Gray Television signed a multiyear agreement renewing Gray's 47 CBS network affiliations, the station group said Tuesday. Gray said the agreement has its CBS affiliates continue to be locally available to subscribers on Paramount+ and distributed across virtual MVPD platforms.

Signs are strong that releasing feature films through “an exclusive theatrical window remains the best approach to maximize profitability for content producers,” said National CineMedia CEO Tom Lesinski on a Q3 investor call Monday. NCM bills itself as the largest cinema advertising network in the U.S. Amid the “significant” revenue lost to streaming piracy, “it has become increasingly clear that studios are leaving money on the table with their day-to-day streaming strategies,” said the former Warner Home Entertainment executive. “These realities may underlie recent announcements by all major studios that they will maintain or reconsider an exclusive cinema release window for most, if not all, their films in 2022.” Lesinski also sees signs that “some of the new non-studio streaming services will start to consider theatric release for some of their productions,” he said. “With audiences returning to the cinema, the strong 2022 film slate and continued TV ratings challenges, we are very well-positioned to make NCM a larger part of the marketing plans of national brands and local and regional businesses.”

U.S. consumer spending on home entertainment content jumped 9.5% in Q3 from a year earlier to $7.96 billion, driven by the 16.9% rise in subscription VOD to $6.38 billion, reported the Digital Entertainment Group Monday. Packaged media sell-through declined 10.9% in the quarter to $430.49 million, but DEG accentuated the positive, saying the category “showed some resiliency” in Q3, decreasing by roughly half the rate of decline in recent quarters. U.S. home entertainment spending in the first nine months of 2021 increased 6.3% to $23.58 billion, coming amid the nearly 62.5% drop in consumer box office to $1.56 billion. SVOD spending through nine months increased 19.5% to $18.56 billion, said DEG. Packaged media sell-through was down 21.6% to $1.38 billion.

Several activist groups urged AT&T to remove One America News Network from its DirecTV lineup. In a letter Monday, Free Press, Common Cause, Media Matters for America, the National Hispanic Media Coalition and 12 others said they were "deeply disturbed to learn that AT&T helped establish and fund OAN, a purveyor of racial bigotry, conspiracy theories and calls for anti-democratic violence that endanger lives." AT&T emailed that it “has never had a financial interest in OAN’s success and does not ‘fund’ OAN. CNN is the only news network we fund because it’s a part of AT&T." It said OAN founder Robert Herring "pressured us for months to carry OAN," when it acquired DirectTV in 2015, "We declined to do so and in response, Herring Networks sued. Only as a result of the settlement of that lawsuit did DIRECTV consent to a commercial carriage agreement with OAN. DIRECTV does not dictate or control programming on the channels it carries, and any suggestion otherwise is wrong. The decision of whether to renew the carriage agreement upon its expiration will be up to DIRECTV, which is now a separate company outside of AT&T.”

AMC Theatres continues seeking ways to diversify its theatrical business after at least a year of COVID-19 theater closures. Days after announcing it was entering the multibillion-dollar popcorn industry, AMC said Monday it will host “surprise screenings” of “fan favorite” movies from Disney+ Friday-Sunday at more than 200 locations in 34 states to celebrate the second anniversary of the streaming service’s November 2019 debut. Each title will play once a day for $5 a ticket, including promotional perks, it said.

On the contrary, Dish Network is the one that delayed and obstructed negotiations with Tegna, refusing to engage with its proposal, the broadcaster told the FCC Friday in a docket 21-413 answer and good-faith negotiations cross complaint in response to the MVPD's October complaint (see 2110180033). Dish's negotiation tactics "have made it a leader in retransmission consent disputes, with more than 200 'blackouts' in the past year alone," Tegna said. Dish said Tegna's answer and cross-complaint "is meritless and riddled with mischaracterizations and falsehoods," omitting that the TV-station owner didn't respond to Dish's proposal for close to six weeks before doing so three days before the agreement's expiration. It said Tegna communications "have been inconsistent, dilatory, and its offers repeatedly unreasonable."

ViacomCBS streaming audiences are growing rapidly, but so are its streaming content expenses, the company said Thursday, announcing Q3 results. CEO Bob Bakish said streaming content expenses will be double in 2021 what they were in 2020, and continue to grow to $5 billion by 2024. Overall revenue rose 13% year over year, to $6.6 billion. Streaming revenue topped $1 billion in the quarter for the first time, with a 62% increase. Global streaming subscribers exceeded 46 million, adding 4.3 million in the quarter. Chief Financial Officer Naveen Chopra said pay subscriber additions will be higher in Q4, due to demand for Paramount+ content. Bakish said a deal announced with T-Mobile, where every T-Mobile postpaid customer gets a free year of Paramount+ Essential, is part of the strategy of exposing consumers to Paramount+ as its content is ramped up. He said Pluto TV's lunch in Italy last week was part of the that service's international expansion, and Paramount+ will launch next year in the U.K. and Germany and be in 45 markets globally by end of 2022. ViacomCBS stock closed at $35.90, down 4.4%.

FuboTV's gaming platform launched Wednesday in Iowa, said Fubo Gaming. The company has market access agreements in Pennsylvania, Indiana, New Jersey and Arizona and expects to announce additional markets through 2022, subject to regulatory approvals. Legalized U.S. sports betting revenue is expected to grow from $2.1 billion this year to $10.1 billion in 2028, said the company, citing Gabelli and Census Bureau statistics.

Penguin Random House's acquisition of ViacomCBS' Simon & Schuster would give Penguin, already the world's largest book publisher, "outsized influence" over what's published in the U.S. and what authors are paid, DOJ said Tuesday in a Clayton Act antitrust complaint (docket 21-cv-02886) in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia seeking to block the transaction. ViacomCBS said in an SEC filing the Simon & Schuster purchase agreement includes commitments by Penguin to defend any litigation that would prevent the deal, as well as a termination fee to ViacomCBS if the transaction doesn't close for regulatory reasons. ViacomCBS, named as a defendant in the suit, said the Justice allegations "are without merit and [it] intend[s] to defend against them vigorously." The $2.2 billion purchase was announced a year ago.

Podcast listening has become mainstream in the U.S. in “surprisingly rapid fashion,” with more than half of digital audio listeners accessing podcasts this year, said eMarketer. Some 40% of internet users in the U.S., 117.8 million, listen monthly, followed by Sweden, home to Spotify, at 34.6%. The analytics firm cited the “enormous” library of U.S.-supplied podcast content.