Last year was a “record" for Technicolor disc replication services “in terms of volume,” CEO Frederic Rose said on a Thursday earnings call. "The market is declining much slower than people expected,” he said. “We are well structured to continue this cash extraction.” Nine years ago, people began forecasting that the death of physical media would “occur five years hence,” Rose said in Q&A. “Every year I tell you [that] you should assume an 8-10 percent decline in units shipped on a yearly basis, and every year I’ve been wrong." The firm’s connected home segment in 2016 “experienced significant commercial success,” especially in North America, “with the largest U.S. players,” Rose said. Connected home is “an industry where we need to capture the new next-generation products” in over-the-top video or in broadband delivery, Rose said. “These are innovations that we are going to continue focusing on in 2017, all served by the fact that we clearly have been able to win the confidence of the customers” following Technicolor’s $600 million acquisition of Cisco’s connected-devices business in November 2015 (see 1511200038), he said.

Pandora is working with A Million Ads in an exclusive partnership for real-time personalized ads and sequential messaging and targeting, it said in a Thursday announcement. The combination of Pandora’s “massive data set” with A Million Ads’ ability to deliver tailored, data-driven audio creative in real time will help advertisers “unlock the power of audio,” said Pandora Chief Revenue Officer John Trimble. Marketers will be able to build and serve audio ads to listeners based on attributes including gender, age and ZIP code through a single tag, factoring in location, time of day and weather, Pandora said. Advertisers will be able to create “thousands” of versions of an audio ad easily and efficiently, it said. Through sequential messaging and targeting, advertisers will be able to capture attention by telling a story over time through sequential ads that give listeners new pieces of information about a brand or product, Pandora said. Campaigns that tell a brand story before asking people to make a purchase have proven “significantly more effective than ones that immediately focus on people to take an action,” it said.

Meredith will buy WPCH-TV Atlanta from Turner Broadcasting, with the deal expected to close by June 30, it said in a news release Thursday (FCC application is here). AT&T had said it expects to buy Turner parent Time Warner without any license transfers, thus obviating any need for FCC review of the deal (see 1701060057) and the sale of WPCH had been expected by some (see 1610240046). At Thursday's commissioners' meeting, Chairman Ajit Pai, asked about TW licenses and the AT&T deal, said the agency hadn't yet considered whether any of TW's licenses give it entry to review. Aside from WPCH, TW also holds numerous earth station licenses for CNN operations (see 1610260022). Meredith -- which also owns WGCL-TV Atlanta -- said it has assisted in day-to-day operations at WPCH, doing business as Peachtree TV, since 2011, including advertising sales, marketing and promotions and technical operations. In a note to investors Thursday, Wells Fargo analyst Marci Ryvicker said the $70 million WPCH buy is, from TW's standpoint, "a very small deal that helps remove a big [FCC] overhang" from the AT&T acquisition.

Some 30 million virtual reality headsets shipped last year, split among six major platforms, said a Strategy Analytics report Tuesday. Google has a “commanding lead” in shipments and installed base with the low-cost Cardboard platform, despite only a 12 percent slice of revenue, and its market share is attracting marketers and brands looking to use the technology as a promotional tool, said analyst David MacQueen. By revenue, Samsung’s Gear VR led with 35 percent share. Samsung and Sony, with its PlayStation VR, accounted for more than half of VR revenue for the year, he said. Analyst Cliff Raskind said direct sales, bundling and promotions helped seed the VR market, but six competing platforms “makes for a market which is crowded and fragmented.” Strategy Analytics expects shakeout among the platforms this year with some to “fall by the wayside," said Raskind.

Journalists "have an obligation to monitor and question those in power," said entertainment industry union SAG-AFTRA in a statement Monday on “the Rights of a Free and Unencumbered Press.” SAG-AFTRA includes broadcast and online journalists as members, and “champions the rights of a free press, whose primary role is to provide citizens with the information they need to effectively govern a democracy,” the release said. “As working professionals, members of the news media have an obligation to verify the accuracy of what they report, with loyalty only to their readers, listeners and viewers and not to any political party, affiliation, or ideology.” SAG-AFTRA is the successor union to the Screen Actors Guild and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. Members of President Donald Trump's administration have been critical of media.

Charter Communications hasn't come even close to satisfying any part of the preliminary injunction test and uses baseless arguments to cloud its frivolous case and lack of irreparable injury, Univision said in an opposition filed Monday in New York State Supreme Court against Charter's blackout restraining order (see 1702020072). It said Charter, by seeking an injunction preventing the termination of the Univision signal on its system, is now arguing the opposite of what it did in 2016, before the year-end expiration of the programmer's agreement with Time Warner Cable. Univision said Charter's argument it has a reduced burden of showing likeliness of success isn't supported by case law, and its irreparable injury arguments don't fly since it could simply pay the new rates Univision is seeking. It said if Charter had just paid those rates and sued or counterclaimed seeking the difference between them and what was charged under the TWC agreement, Univision would have provided Charter with programing pending the outcome of the litigation. Univision said the balance of equities test "clearly does not tip in Charter's favor" since the injunction would force Univision to provide programming at a discount against its business interests. The operator didn't comment Tuesday.

The FCC should reject requests from pay-TV groups to “impose additional regulatory burdens” on the ATSC 3.0 transition, NAB told aides to Commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Mike O'Rielly in a meeting Wednesday, said an ex parte filing in docket 16-142. Inquiries into capacity issues for multichannel video programming distributors and other questions raised by the American Cable Association and the American Television Alliance (see 1702090057) aren't necessary for “a voluntary transition that does not require MVPDs to carry programming transmitted using the Next Gen standard,” NAB said. The FCC also shouldn't intervene in retransmission consent negotiations over ATSC 3.0, the broadcast association said. “If ACA’s members are aggrieved by specific actions during their negotiations, they are free to allege a violation of the Commission’s good faith negotiation standard and prove that claim on a fact-specific basis,” said the broadcaster group. “Instead, ACA asks the Commission to put a regulatory thumb on the scale to benefit cable companies by prejudging private contractual negotiations. That is not the Commission’s role.”

Music technology company MQA and Universal Music Group announced a multiyear agreement under which UMG will encode its catalog of master recordings in MQA, making the recordings available for the first time in hi-res audio streaming. MQA CEO Mike Jbara said the agreement with Universal is a step toward the company’s goal of moving “studio-quality sound” mainstream. Michael Nash, UMG executive vice president-digital strategy, said "the promise of Hi-Res Audio streaming is becoming a reality, with one service already in the market and several more committed to launching this year.” MQA, said to deliver master-quality audio in a file small enough to stream, launched on the Tidal streaming service earlier this year. MQA has agreements with the three major music labels -- Universal, Sony and Warner -- “and it is fair to assume that each of the deals is similar in matters related to the release of their music into the market,” Jbara emailed us, declining to provide details. The company has completed agreements with some services and is in discussion “with many more,” both local and global, said Jbara, leaving it up to partners to announce plans. Pandora -- slated to launch its Premium on-demand streaming service next month and cited at a hi-res audio news conference at CES (see 1701060031) for throwing support behind high-res streaming -- didn’t respond to questions.

Online should surpass TV as the largest U.S. ad spending category this year, S&P Global Ratings announced Thursday. S&P said overall U.S advertising spending will be up 1.7 percent this year, less than half the 3.9 percent gain of last year due to absence of political and Olympics ad spending. Excluding those events, core ad spending would be up 3 percent, and 2018 spending is expected to be up 3.1 percent due to the Winter Olympics and political spending in the non-presidential year. The firm said its ratings on the U.S. media and entertainment sector are trending negative due to ongoing shifts in media consumption and ad spending. S&P said online, outdoor and core TV sectors likely will have ad revenue growth, while newspapers, magazines and radio will have continued ad revenue declines.

Eight independent programmers expressed concern with the FCC draft NPRM on ATSC 3.0, said a letter to the FCC posted in docket 16-142. The agency should address concerns that the American Cable Association recently raised about carrier capacity to carry the new standard (see 1702140065), said the programmers, which include Aspire Channel, Cinémoi, Herring Networks, MAVTV Motorsports Network, Ride Television Network and KSE Media Ventures on behalf of the Outdoor Channel and other such programmers. “As programmers unaffiliated with the largest conglomerates, our offerings will be at particular risk should the transition to ATSC 3.0 compel [multichannel video programming distributors] to eliminate cable channels” because of a carriage squeeze, the programmers said. Independent programmers “would likely be the first to go in systems where capacity is limited,” the letter said. “Such an outcome should concern anyone interested in preserving the diversity of media voices.” ACA met with aides to Commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Mike O’Rielly on similar issues Thursday, said an ex parte filing.