Comcast's ad-supported Peacock streaming service has close to 22 million sign-ups since its July launch, is starting to help with churn, and is playing a role in increased broadband subscriptions, CEO Brian Roberts said Thursday as Comcast announced Q3 financial results. It ended the quarter with 27.84 million broadband subscribers, up 1.8 million year over year, Comcast said. It said revenue for the quarter was $25.5 billion, down from $26.8 billion last year. Roberts said Comcast is focusing on a three-pronged strategy of broadband, streaming and aggregation or bundling of services. He said its Flex streaming service and platform for broadband-only subscribers now has more than 1 million monthly active users, which more than offsets the decline in the number of traditional pay-TV video subscribers for the past two quarters. Comcast said it ended the quarter with 19.2 million video subscribers, down 1.2 million year over year. Roberts said Comcast's theme park business is still hurting from the global pandemic but is expected at least break even in 2021. Chief Financial Officer Mike Cavanagh said Comcast has spent $239 million in COVID-19 pandemic-related restructuring and severance costs so far this year and expects to spend about $480 million more in Q4. Comcast said it ended the quarter with 2.6 million mobile subscriptions. It said the wireless business is being hurt somewhat by some retail stores remaining closed due to COVID-19, but the vast majority are now open. Comcast said it ended the quarter with 9.68 million residential voice customers, down 270,000 year over year.

The FCC International Bureau approved an assignment and transfer of control of OneWeb licenses and market access grants as part of the satellite operator's planned emergence from Chapter 11 bankruptcy (see 2009010005), in a public notice in Wednesday's Daily Digest.

Congress shouldn’t let local news “die” because Big Tech companies unfairly leverage the ad market, Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., said Tuesday, releasing a report showing newspaper revenue declining about 70% by the end of 2020 vs. two decades ago. The report said broadcasters lost more than 40% of ad revenue 2000-2018, and since 2005, papers lost about 60% of their overall workforce. “The biggest online platforms unfairly use content, take local news consumer data and divert customers away from local news websites, while providing little in return,” she said. NAB, Public Knowledge and the News Media Alliance welcomed the report. NAB supports “findings that the competitive power of a handful of digital platforms has dominated the marketplace for advertising and audiences,” said CEO Gordon Smith. “Targeted federal funding and new regulatory tools can help transition local journalism to succeed in the digital marketplace,” said PK Senior Policy Fellow Lisa Macpherson. Google and Facebook “effectively regulate news publishers by determining how (and whether) journalism is distributed and monetized,” said News Media Alliance CEO David Chavern. The "accusation" that Facebook scrapes news articles is "simply not true," a company spokesperson emailed: "We give news organizations the ability to post news on Facebook free of charge, and they have full control over how that content is accessed and monetized." The platform cited $400 million in contributions to "programs and partnerships with a focus on local news." News publishers are facing “enormous” challenges, but the report is a misrepresentation, a Google spokesperson emailed: “We provide value to the news industry by sending people to news sites 24 billion times a month, help publishers make money with our advertising products and provide support via the Google News Initiative.” The company cited a $1 billion investment in partnerships with news publishers for Google News Showcase.

Chatbots’ inability to express emotion, attitude or opinion, especially if they can’t solve a consumer’s problem, leads to user frustration and cessation of use, said Strategy Analytics Monday. Research shows a customer’s emotions have significant influence on their satisfaction with a service chatbot, said analyst Diane O’Neill. Despite some success in development of empathetic chatbots, human-level intelligence “is still not fully understood,” said analyst Kevin Nolan. Further advances are needed for chatbots to diversify into critical health-related services such as mental support systems.

Waivers for incumbent C-band earth station operators to add existing collocated antennas for interference protection were addressed individually in an FCC International Bureau order Friday, with some granted and some denied. The order resolved reconsideration petitions and waiver requests filed regarding the incumbent earth station list released in August. Close to 70 waivers were granted, including those sought by Disney, Vyve Broadband and Morgan Murphy Media. Multiple were denied. Denials included an NAB/NCTA reconsideration petition asking approval for registration of additional antennas involving collocations.

Theatrical and content production delays from COVID-19 prompted S&P Global to downgrade MGM to B from B+, said the ratings service Thursday. MGM’s twice-delayed James Bond feature film No Time to Die, now scheduled for April release, typifies similar delays expected “for some of its theatrical and television content due to the negative impacts from COVID-19,” said S&P. “While we expect that the decision to further delay James Bond may provide MGM with an opportunity for a more favorable theatrical release in early 2021, when social distancing restrictions from the pandemic are presumed to have eased," there's still "substantial risk" of further delays if infection rates remain high. MGM didn’t respond to questions.

Quibi, the short-form video service founded by Jeffrey Katzenberg in 2018 and headed by former HP CEO Meg Whitman, was a “bad idea -- that inexplicably -- managed to raise $1.75 billion” in funding, Brightcove analyst Jim O’Neill emailed Thursday, reacting to the service's shutdown after only six months. In a joint letter to employees, investors and partners Wednesday, Katzenberg and Whitman said they're “winding down the business” and seeking buyers for Quibi’s content and technology assets. They said the goal of Quibi, originally called NewTV, was to create a new category of content -- short-form entertainment for mobile devices -- but circumstances weren’t right for Quibi to succeed “as a standalone company.” They cited two possible reasons: “because the idea itself wasn’t strong enough to justify a standalone streaming service or because of our timing” during a pandemic. But, they said: “Other businesses have faced these unprecedented challenges and have found their way through it. We were not able to do so.” Though Quibi was a good outlet for experimenting with content creation, O’Neill said management “totally misread the market,” ignoring data about how consumers view content and jumping into the space “without adequate research.” In a January prediction, O’Neill wondered how the service would justify the subscription price and questioned how it would engage consumers long term. Quibi management falsely assumed because “Gen Edge and Millennial viewers consume a lot of YouTube content that they’d do the same” with what the service considered premium content, “assuming users want short-form content,” O’Neill said Thursday. Millennials are actually the most avid moviegoers, said the analyst. “They want to binge,” he said, “and they don’t always go to their phones to watch.” Amid a crowded video streaming market, O’Neill downplayed competition for eyeballs as the reason for Quibi’s demise. Parks Associates analyst Steve Nason wasn’t shocked Quibi closed shop but was surprised it happened after only six months. He cited contributing factors including “outsized expectations” and a patent infringement lawsuit brought by Eko. As recently as this week, Quibi had mixed messages, Nason said. It announced Monday it planned to take the service to connected TVs to widen its base: “That should have been done at launch,” said the analyst. “It was very shortsighted.” The Quibi failure stands out from other services that were doomed because their content didn’t connect with users. That wasn’t the case with Quibi, which nabbed 10 Emmy nominations. “Content wasn’t the issue,” Nason said.

Netflix “came pretty close” to its Q3 forecast of 2.5 million net paid additions (see 2010200056) “to land within 300,000 members on a member base of roughly 195 million,” said Chief Financial Officer Spencer Neumann Tuesday evening. “It's super difficult to forecast with perfect precision given all the unknowns,” he said. “Retention trends in our business are healthy.” The company is forecasting slower first-half 2021 growth due to the tough comparisons, said Neumann. “We grew by 26 million members in the first two quarters of 2020. That's more than twice the level of growth we had in 2019.” Since the COVID-19 shutdowns, Netflix has completed work on more than 50 productions, “and we expect another 150 before the year is over," said co-CEO Ted Sarandos. “All that ramp-up puts us back to nearly fully operational in most parts of the world.” Consumers’ desire to watch films at home has been growing during lockdowns, “and we've been satisfying it,” he said. “I think at some point theaters are going to reopen and people are going to go back out to the theaters. I hope so.” People crave “the social interaction to go out and see a film with an audience,” he said. “I don't doubt that is going to come back in some capacities.” Theaters just reopened in Japan at 100% capacity, and people are "looking at the impact of that around the world," he said. The stock closed down 6.9% Wednesday at $489.05.

Lenbrook’s BluOS multiroom music platform is a launch partner for Tidal Connect, said the audio company. Following Tuesday's software update, BluOS-enabled products from NAD Electronics, Bluesound, Dali and Monitor Audio can access Tidal’s casting technology, which lets users stream music directly to connected devices in lossless audio quality. BluOS customers who are subscribers to Tidal’s HiFi tier are able to use the Tidal app as a controller.

MLB teamed with T-Mobile on a 5G-enabled event for a “bird’s-eye view," they said Monday. T-Mobile wireless 5G BatterCams mounted on players and coaches' caps will let customers feel what it’s like to be in the batter’s box, they said. An immersive view will be provided by 360-degree 5G cameras. The livestream will air before Tuesday's Game 1 of the World Series. The livestream will air before game one of the World Series on MLB.TV, MLB.com, Twitch, @MLB on Twitter, the Official MLB Facebook page, MLB VR on Oculus and T-Mobile’s Beyond the Bases page, they said.