Paramount Global’s self-preferencing behavior on the Pluto TV streaming platform shows how the proposed Skydance Media/Paramount deal would hurt independent programmers, Fuse Media told the FCC in comments posted Monday in docket 24-275. Fuse said its Shades of Black streaming channel launch saw viewership on Pluto start dropping notably, beginning in late 2022, suggesting Pluto was trying to undermine the channel while promoting proprietary programming aimed at the same African American audience through Pluto's Black Cinema and Black Visionaries channels. Fuse said Skydance CEO David Ellison's plan to use Oracle AI capabilities -- his father, Larry Ellison, is a co-founder of Oracle -- would allow Paramount to further control content acquisition and distribution via Pluto. FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, the agency's incoming chair, has said a political news distortion complaint against Paramount's CBS could affect the Skydance/Paramount agreement (see 2411190051).

Global streaming subscriber numbers are set to reach 2 billion by 2029, Ampere Analysis wrote Thursday. Paid streaming subscriptions total 1.8 billion today, it said. It forecast a notable slowing of subscriber growth compared with the previous five years, when global subscriptions doubled from 2019 to 2024. It said streamers must invest in marketing and locally relevant content to reengage growth in less-saturated markets, with the Asia-Pacific region a big driver of that growth over the next five years. Ampere said by 2029, streamers will generate $170 billion annually from subscriptions and another $22 billion annually in ad sales.

A three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals questioned arguments from Mission Broadcasting and DirecTV Monday about whether the latter has standing to bring a retransmission consent price fixing case against the broadcaster. DirecTV has accused Mission of conspiring with Nexstar – which operates Mission’s stations and includes Mission’s profits in its SEC filings -- to overcharge the MVPD in retrans negotiations. DirecTV appealed the case after the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York granted a motion from Mission to dismiss the case over DirecTV’s standing. During Monday’s oral argument, Wiley attorney Stephen Obermeier, representing Mission, argued that DirecTV lacked standing to bring the case because it didn’t ultimately reach a retransmission consent agreement with Mission and never paid the prices it said are anticompetitive (see 2407250038). Non-purchasers have historically not been granted standing in antitrust cases because their injuries are speculative, Obermeier told the court. The 2nd Circuit panel questioned that, with one judge suggesting that since DirecTV has reached retrans agreements with Mission previously and because there is only a small pool of MVPDs purchasing retrans rights, it is possible for DirecTV to show that it lost subscribers and income over the failure to reach a contract with Mission. That doesn’t match prior rulings, and ignores that the injury to DirecTV is caused by third parties – customers – electing not to subscribe, Obermeier said. Judge Richard Sullivan pressed DirecTV’s representative, King & Spalding attorney Paul Mezzina, about whether the company’s arguments would mean new entrants lack standing to bring such complaints. For example, if, hypothetically, Sullivan founded a competitor to DirecTV with private equity money, “you're saying that we'd be out of luck because we didn't have prior dealings?” Sullivan asked. Mezzina said that the hypothetical wasn't the case that he needed to win. DOJ also argued in favor of remanding the case Monday, saying that the lower court’s narrow ruling on what constitutes harm in price fixing cases should be reversed.

A Nevada Probate Court commissioner rejected media tycoon Rupert Murdoch's efforts to amend his family trust so that son Lachlan would have total control over Murdoch's media businesses upon the elder Murdoch's death, The New York Times reported Monday. Lachlan Murdoch is chairman of News Corp. and CEO of Fox Corp. The Times reported that the court commissioner said the sought-after trust changes were being pursued in bad faith.

The FCC Enforcement Bureau has reached a $1.1 million settlement with Charter Communications over the company's temporary deactivation of several emergency alert system devices for upgrades to comply with new EAS requirements, said an order and consent decree Thursday. Charter took the devices out of service to meet a December 2023 deadline for the upgrades and notified the FCC Public Safety Bureau that EAS devices at three dozen cable headends, covering 1 million Charter viewers, would go out of service for the Oct. 4, 2023, nationwide EAS test. Charter “believed in good faith” that it was in compliance because of FCC rules that give a 60-day period for replacing defective equipment, the order and consent decree said. The Public Safety Bureau maintained that Charter’s devices didn't fall under the defective equipment rules because they weren’t defective, the order and consent decree said. Along with the forfeiture, the decree requires that Charter create a compliance training program and file regular reports with the FCC for one year.

Disagreements between Disney and Comcast over Hulu's value should be resolved in 2025, with Disney then making final payments to Comcast for its 33% ownership stake in the streaming service, S&P said Monday. A worst-case scenario for Disney has it making a $5 billion final payment, the ratings company said. Moreover, Disney's global streaming business, now profitable, should see continued improvement as the company increases subscribers globally, S&P added. Disney's streaming advertising revenue was $3.7 billion in fiscal 2024 -- more than its linear TV ad revenues, excluding ESPN -- and the streaming ad revenue should grow at a double-digit percentage for the next few years. S&P said Disney's linear TV revenue will likely decline at a 9% annual rate. It said while some legacy U.S. media and entertainment companies won't survive the pivot from a linear TV-focused ecosystem to a streaming one, Disney "is the best positioned" among legacy players due to its iconic brands, film and TV studios, theme parks, global distribution footprint and the diversity in its media and entertainment businesses. In addition, S&P raised its issuer credit rating on Disney from A- to A and short-term ratings from A-2 to A-1, based on expectations the company will maintain leverage below 2.5 times and free operating cash flow to debt above 15% long term.

News and sports content could push Comcast's Peacock penetration and usage "into Netflix territory," nScreenMedia's Colin Dixon blogged Sunday. Comcast's planned spinoff of most of its cable networks (see 2411200001) means that rather than trying to balance maintaining cable's popularity with Peacock's growth and usage, Comcast can put its full weight behind Peacock, he wrote. In addition, Comcast can put all its licensed sports content on Peacock and use its production capabilities to make streaming those sports better than watching them on linear TV, added Dixon. Moreover, NBC News also could become more fully integrated with Peacock. He wrote that Peacock's mobile experience should make news more prominent, as people choose smartphones first for breaking news.

Cable programmers could end the lawsuit against their Venu sports streaming partnership if they allowed multichannel video programming distributors to offer more customized programming bundles, LightShed Partners blogged Friday. The source of the Venu suit is that third-party distributors aren't offered "Venu-like bundles," LightShed said. The big bundle's future "is grim at best," and now might be a good time to allow MVPDs to offer smaller bundles and reduce or end minimum penetration requirements, it added. That could slow the demise of linear TV, though it also would hasten the end of non-core non-sports networks like MTV, TLC and USA, LightShed said. DOJ and various states are backing fuboTV in its litigation against Venu and its defense of a preliminary injunction against Venu (see 2408160040). Disney, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery -- the Venu partnership -- is challenging the injunction. In a docket 24-2210 amicus brief last week filed with the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on behalf of fuboTV, 16 states and the District of Columbia said the "no duty to deal" doctrine -- under which businesses aren't liable for unlawful monopolization by refusing to do business with competitors -- doesn't shield those businesses from antitrust scrutiny of anticompetitive joint conduct. Signing the amicus brief were New York, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington. DOJ, in an amicus brief, dismissed the programmers' argument that it's not anticompetitive to stop rivals from getting unbundled sports channels because there's no antitrust duty to deal with distributors. "That argument is a red herring," and the appeal is about creation of Venu as a violation of the Clayton Act, DOJ said. Asked whether the change in administrations and the Donald Trump DOJ might have a different stance, a fubo spokesperson emailed that "we believe our issue is bipartisan."

Comcast's plans for spinning off most of its cable networks (see 2410310013), along with Diamond Sports Group having just four more years of MLB TV rights and the NFL possibly ending its linear TV deals indicate linear TV is in "terminal decline," Macquarie's Tim Nollen noted last week. Nollen said an M&A-friendly government plus lower interest rates could see the Comcast spinoff becoming part of a larger cable network business using its scale to cut costs and negotiate better carriage terms. He said regional sports network Diamond emerges from its Chapter 11 reorganization with rights to at least six MLB teams until 2028 -- the same year national MLB contracts with ESPN, Fox and Turner networks end. He said MLB would like to get rid of RSNs and distribute games at a national rather than a regional level, and companies with strong direct-to-consumer platforms for national distribution, as well as deep pockets, will have the advantage. Nollen said the amounts streamers like Netflix and Comcast's Peacock are bidding for limited NFL rights raise the likelihood the league will exercise its opt-out clause in the 11-year rights deal it signed in 2021 with CBS, Fox, ESPN and NBC.

Rep. Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y., and National Action Network (NAN) President Reverend Al Sharpton are criticizing Paramount Global for using video measurement data from VideoAmp rather than Nielsen. In letters last week to co-CEOs George Cheeks and Chris McCarthy, Torres said VideoAmp's data, which doesn't break out race and ethnicity, "disenfranchises audiences that have long suffered from a lack of representation on television, and are still too easily overlooked by advertisers." He said the move "continues an alarming trend that has seen Paramount disinvest and de-prioritize inclusive programming," and pointed to a lack of inclusive streaming series on Paramount+. Sharpton said in his letter to Cheeks, McCarthy and the third co-CEO, Brian Robbins, "Ensuring that minority viewers are accurately counted has long been an important priority for me and NAN." Sharpton pressed Paramount "to convene a meeting with racially diverse content creators, brands, and marketers to explore and rectify the impact on our communities." The company didn't comment Friday.