Vizio added the HBO Max app to its SmartCast TVs, said the TV vendor Wednesday. Vizio will feature an HBO Max content discovery “carousel” on the SmartCast home screen, it said. The SmartCast carousel will include access to 13 HBO Originals programs, plus a rotation of new titles from the HBO Max library.

The Locast streaming service infringes on broadcasters’ copyright, ruled U.S. District Court in Manhattan Judge Louis Stanton Tuesday in an opinion and order granting summary judgment to plaintiffs that include Fox, CBS, Disney and NBCUniversal (docket 19-cv-7136, in Pacer). The payments Locast requests from users are charges rather than gifts, and exceed the amount needed to maintain and operate the service, ruled Stanton. That keeps Locast from falling under a statutory exemption from copyright rules for nonprofits, the opinion said. “It is of no consequence that a number of users employ the service without paying.” Locast operator Sports Fan Coalition “solicits, and receives, substantial amounts in charges from recipients for its uninterrupted service,” Stanton wrote. Locast had argued that it falls under the exemption because it uses excess funds only to expand the service, but Stanton said Congress could have included the word “expansion” in the statute if that was part of the law’s intent. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which represented Locast, disagreed. “This ruling that nonprofit retransmitters can’t use viewer contributions to expand access will do the opposite of what Congress intended,” EFF emailed Locast users. “Our client is in the process of evaluating the decision and formulating next steps,” said Locast attorney David Hosp, of Orrick Herrington.

Comments are due Sept. 30, replies Nov. 1, in docket 98-204 for the FCC’s proceeding on collecting broadcaster and cable equal employment opportunity data, said Tuesday’s Federal Register. Commissioners unanimously approved a Further NPRM in July (see 2107260059).

U.S. households belonging to a subscription VOD service from Netflix, Amazon Prime or Hulu are holding steady year over year in 2021 at 78%, reported Leichtman Research Group Tuesday. Just over 40% of adults stream a top SVOD service daily vs. 40% last year and 33% in 2019, it said, citing a survey of 2,000 households. Those using any of the services daily leveled off “after being pulled forward last year due to the coronavirus pandemic,” said President Bruce Leichtman. “While the breadth of households with a major SVOD service is similar to last year, those with multiple top SVOD services continued to expand.” About 27% of households report having five or more SVOD or direct-to-consumer services. Some 54% of adults watch video on non-TV devices; 58% of U.S. households have more than one of the top three SVOD services vs. 55% in 2020. Ages 18-34 make up 41% of adults using SVOD daily; ages 18-44 are 67%.

Memberful customers can share paid podcasts directly to the Spotify platform via private RSS feeds, Spotify said Monday. Memberful provides tools and support for monetizing content through customizable software. Artists’ audiences have to be able to access their content “on the platforms and apps they use most frequently," said Tiffany Perko, Memberful marketing head, noting Spotify’s podcast listening hours grew 30% year on year in Q2.

Comments are due Oct.19, replies Nov. 18, in docket 15-94 on an FCC Further NPRM on recommendations to improve the emergency alert system, said a public notice listed in Wednesday’s Daily Digest. The FNPRM stems from a unanimous FCC vote in June (see 2106170063).

Over-the-top video subscriptions will rise from about 230 million this year to 277 million in 2026, blogged Parks Associates Tuesday. In Q1, the average OTT subscription in U.S. broadband households was roughly 2.5 years. Subscriptions had a strong correlation with age, with younger consumers holding on to a subscription for a much shorter time. Younger consumers may subscribe to a larger number of services “but are more likely to churn through them,” said the report. “Information providers can design support services that appeal to consumers at different life stages, who prefer different channels, and adapt as their needs evolve,” said Everise President Dave Palmer.

Nexstar bought online political news publication The Hill for $130 million, the broadcaster said Friday. The news site will create “synergistic opportunities” with Nexstar’s new cable news network, NewsNation, and local news stations, the release said. The Hill, which is primarily advertising supported, had 48 million average monthly users and 2.2 billion total page views in 2020, Nexstar said. Nexstar said it's “ideally positioned to accelerate The Hill’s growth and further penetrate the massive political news market to grow audience share and drive increased content monetization.”

The FCC Media Bureau granted WarnerMedia’s request for a partial waiver of the FCC’s audio description requirements for its network TBS, said an order Wednesday. TBS asked for a waiver of the audio description rule’s restrictions on repeat content -- normally, a given episode can count toward an MVPD’s total amount of described content only twice on a given channel. As one of the top five “nonbroadcast networks,” TBS is required to provide 87.5 hours of described content per quarter. Due to the way TBS programming is structured, “the repeat rule results in ‘only a small fraction of the hours of [audio] described programming that TBS provides each calendar quarter’ counting towards the audio description requirement,” the order said. The bureau granted the waiver because it was unopposed, supported by consumer advocates and because WarnerMedia “made a commitment to provide a substantial amount of audio description on TBS, and other commonly owned networks, that exceeds the current quarterly requirement,” the order said. The waiver is conditioned on TBS carrying at least 1,000 hours of audio-described programming and more than 1,400 hours of audio-described programming on average during a quarter, without restricting repeats, the order said. WarnerMedia also promised to “provide audio description for 100 percent of newly produced, non-live programming aired during certain core hours on TBS, TNT, and TruTV,” the order said. The waiver expires June 30, 2024.

Virtual MVPDs Sling TV and fuboTV were the sole gainers in Q2 among major pay-TV providers who give regular reports, reported Leichtman Research Group Tuesday. Sling TV added 65,000 subscribers in the quarter to reach 2.4 million. Sports-focused fuboTV added over 91,000 subscribers, reaching 681,721 subscribers, and Hulu+Live TV lost 100,000 subscribers to 3.7 million. The vMVPD figures don’t include YouTube TV or Philo, which don’t provide regular reports. Total pay-TV subscriber losses were 1.2 million in the quarter, down from 1.5 million in Q2 2020, said LRG. Traditional pay-TV providers continued to shed subscribers, with Comcast losing 399,000 to 18.6 million, while Charter lost 50,000 to 16 million, Cox 60,000 to 3.5 million and Altice 48,300 to 2.9 million. Among other traditional pay-TV services, AT&T Premium, including DirecTV, U-verse and AT&T TV, dropped 473,000 customers; Dish 132,000 to 8.6 million; Fios 63,000 to 3.8 million; and Frontier 30,000 to 423,000, said the report.