Regional sports networks went dark on Comcast and Dish Network over carriage license terms. MSG Networks said Friday the Comcast blackout was primarily in New Jersey and Connecticut and the cable company was "try[ing] to force us to accept terms they’d never agree to for their own regional sports networks." Comcast didn't comment. Dish emailed late that it's not carrying AT&T SportsNet and Root Sports and is pushing for RSNs to be available a la carte to subscribers in negotiations with parent AT&T. The telco didn't comment.

ViacomCBS closed on its purchase of the Chilean broadcast network Chilevision from AT&T's WarnerMedia, said the buyer Thursday. The deal was announced in April (see 2104050031). Transaction terms were not disclosed.

Consumer adoption of smart TVs jumped to 56% of U.S. broadband homes during this pandemic, with smart speaker adoption reaching 53%, reported Parks Associates Wednesday. Both had “significant growth since 2019,” it said. “TVs are now consumers’ most common video centerpiece in the home,” said analyst Paul Erickson. Tech “powerhouses” are “vying to own this point of entertainment aggregation -- and all the data that goes with it -- by controlling the platform itself,” he said. “Smart TVs are now seen as a key anchor device for ecosystem penetration into today’s broadband households.”

Recommendations for including age-based content ratings for streaming content from the TV Parental Guidelines Monitoring Board are “a small step” toward addressing “widespread inconsistencies” in program ratings, said the Parents Television Council Tuesday. The industry-run board, which is led by NCTA, NAB and MPAA, “quite simply, needs to do more,” said PTC President Tim Winter. The guidelines recommend including ratings and descriptors for streamed content, displaying the ratings at the start of playback and as the content plays. “Video streaming services should at a minimum strive to replicate the ratings experience available for programming that is shown on television,” the best practices say. The guidelines were released earlier this month, and Winter also faulted the board for inadequately promoting them. Ratings for streaming won’t help unless they're consistently applied and paired with parental controls that are effective, Winter said: “We’ve proven they’re not.” The board didn't comment. PTC has been critical of the ratings board in the past (see 1910150054).

With its NBCUniversal carriage agreement expiring Thursday, YouTube TV told subscribers that absent a renewal NBCU content will no longer be part of its streaming lineup and monthly YouTube TV pricing will drop from $64.99 to $54.99. It blogged Sunday that it's seeking rates for NBCU that similar-sized networks charge. NBCU didn't comment Monday.

Ninety-six percent of Apple TV+ users have an Apple device, said Kagan Friday. A March survey showed iPhones were the most commonly used Apple device among the streaming service’s users, at 84%. Amazon Prime Video and Netflix were the most commonly used subscription VOD services among Apple TV+ users surveyed; Disney+ (66%) and Hulu (60%) were also popular. Most (81%) Apple TV+ customers subscribe to five or more SVOD services vs. 33% of all SVOD users. Some 71% of SVOD users stream at least once per week, 85% for Apple TV+ subscribers. Smart TVs were the most widely used device for viewing SVOD among Apple TV+ users at 76%; 71% of that group also streamed on a tablet vs. 47% of all SVOD users.

Netflix's 2021 amortized content spending could reach $13.6 billion, growing to $18.92 billion in 2025, with $5.1 billion allocated to originals, emailed Kagan's Deana Myers Thursday, citing a “rough year for productions and swelling competition in the streaming space.” Subscribers from the U.S. and Canada were about 56.2% of the streaming service’s total subscribers in 2017 vs. 35.4% in June, she said, referencing Netflix’s “localization focus.” The two markets generated 60.8% of revenue in 2017 vs. 44.3% in Q2, reflecting strong pricing in the U.S. and Canada, along with Europe, the Middle East and Africa vs. lower pricing in Latin America and Asia-Pacific, Myers said. Addition of subscription VOD players such as Disney+, HBO Max, Peacock and Paramount+ resulted in “swaths of content being held back as each looks to populate their own services,” said the analyst. Kagan expects distributors to continue to reserve rights for their own SVOD services, and more so from territories where they will launch soon.

Consumer expectations of streaming services are rising as more options become available, reported J.D. Power Thursday. The company canvassed nearly 22,000 residential pay-TV customers October-July, finding satisfaction with costs among customers who also have a streaming service was 81 points higher (on a 1,000-point scale) than among those without a streaming service. More than nine in 10 who subscribe to cable and streaming expressed no plans to drop cable in the next 12 months. J.D. Power takes that as “an indication those customers have not found all of what they are looking for outside of the traditional TV landscape -- yet.” Dish Network ranks highest nationally in pay-TV customer satisfaction, followed by AT&T and TPG's DirecTV and Comcast's Xfinity.

ViacomCBS is “spending a lot of time on release strategy” for its feature films, and “really testing different models to maximize the value of that film slate in this evolving landscape, particularly in this COVID-ruled space,” CEO Bob Bakish told a virtual Goldman Sachs conference Wednesday. Paramount’s animated feature, PAW Patrol: The Movie, was its first released simultaneously in theaters and on Paramount+ when it debuted Aug. 20, he said. “That's actually a very good model for kids’ and family films” in this “COVID-impacted time,” he said. “It gives consumers optionality to view the product where they feel the most comfortable, and we did a bunch of research on that.” The film “did very well” theatrically and was a “significant driver” for Paramount+, “where it's actually now one of the most watched originals,” he said. ViacomCBS prefers a 45-day theatrical window for the “bigger films,” because that's the “sweet spot of driving theatrical revenue and streaming growth in general,” said Bakish. The “range of tactics” is designed to “maximize the value of film across this now-broader ecosystem," he said. "But theatrical definitely still matters.”

Streaming TV content is now more popular than watching linear TV, Attest reported Monday, based on surveys of 2,000 adults. It said 83% watch streaming content, vs. 81% linear TV. Viewing of TV news has collapsed, with 32% regularly tuning in compared with 46% in 2020, it said.