HomeSeer users can create cloud-based IFTTT (If This Then That) recipes to control HomeSeer devices as part of a partnership the companies announced Wednesday. HomeSeer users can also launch events using triggers and actions from more than 170 IFTTT channel partners including ESPN, Foursquare, Nest, Philips Hue, Twitter and WeMo, they said. HomeSeer’s software and hardware controllers let users integrate and automate lights, appliances, thermostats, door locks, security systems, audio/video and media content.

Viacom plans to reorganize three of its domestic network groups into two new organizations as a result of a companywide review of its Media Networks, Filmed Entertainment operations and corporate functions, a news release said Monday. In connection with the realignment, Viacom will recognize a pre-tax charge in fiscal Q2 of about $785 million, reflecting the impact of write-downs of underperforming programming, Viacom said. The new structure realigns sales, marketing, creative and support functions, increases efficiencies in program and product development, enhances opportunities to share expertise, and promotes greater cross-marketing and cross channel programming activity, Viacom said. The company is also expanding its capabilities in business areas, including data analysis, technology development and consumer insights, reflecting the rapidly changing media market, shifting consumer behavior and evolving measurement practices, it said.

Roku began rolling out Roku Feed, a new search feature that allows consumers to see when streaming entertainment becomes available and at what price. Roku Feed initially will focus on “Movies Coming Soon,” which a Monday Roku blog post said ends the “guessing game around when a box office hit is available for streaming, which services offer the movie or how much it costs at a given time.” Consumers can search for movies, TV shows, actors and directors, and receive all available results listed by price from 17 top streaming channels, the company said. Roku also added the ability to search within the Roku Channel Store by channel name, allowing quicker searches by channels such as CBS News, HBO GO and Sling TV, it said. On the hardware side, Roku introduced a second-generation Roku 3 player ($99) with voice search and a new remote control incorporating a microphone, voice search button and headphone jack for private listening, a company spokesman told us. Current Roku 3 players will receive a software update including the Roku Feed feature and the ability to search within the Roku Channel Store, the spokesman said. Roku mobile apps are also being updated, and users will be able to search by voice using the iOS and Android apps on a smartphone or tablet, he said.

Cable companies offering broadband will remain strongly positioned over the next few years, despite the growing number of over-the-top options, said a new report, "High Yield Cable's Broadband Still Effective Defense Against Over-the-Top Siege," from Moody's Investor Service. Along with the strength of the broadband business, limited competition and customer inertia would give cable operations time to adapt to the rise of OTT devices, Moody's said. The report also found a shift in the type of content available from current OTT options, with the addition of live content and sports from Dish Network's Sling TV and Sony's Vue, plus Apple's reported pay-TV service.

The American Cable Association opposes NAB and Public Knowledge’s request for more time to file comments on whether effective competition should be a rebuttable presumption, said an ex parte filing Monday. “NAB and PK have failed to demonstrate that good cause exists for their extraordinary and disruptive motion,” ACA said. The time extension would interfere with the FCC’s consideration of “viable options in accordance with Congress’ directive,” ACA said.

Connected home platform supplier iControl Networks -- which powers security and home automation services offered by ADT Pulse, Bell Aliant, Comcast Xfinity, Cox Homelife, Time Warner Cable IntelligentHome and others -- is courting security dealers with its new iControl One home automation platform. On a webcast presented last week by Parks Associates, iControl Vice President-Marketing Greg Roberts encouraged dealers to use the sunsetting of the 2G mobile network -- due in 2016 -- as a means to upsell existing customers to interactive services and home automation. Some 4 million to 5 million security panels in the U.S. are equipped with 2G radios, Roberts said. Regardless of whether the 2G cutoff occurs on schedule, those customers still “need to be upgraded,” he said. The platform includes a Web portal, apps for iOS and Android devices and iControl’s 3D user interface that allows users to control each smart device in their homes by touch screen, he said. To broaden the appeal of smart home features, iControl added Z-Wave and Wi-Fi radios to the 3G radio at a cost that’s below that of stand-alone radios, Roberts said. Connectivity from the panel to the router is over Wi-Fi, and when the system is activated, Wi-Fi and broadband will be the primary communications links out of the home, he said.

Comcast's planned buy of Time Warner Cable threatens competition in ways beyond the scope of the FCC net neutrality order, said Stop Mega Comcast in an ex parte filing posted Friday in docket 14-57. “Neither the 2010 nor the 2014 open Internet rules address Comcast’s core incentive to harm OVDs [online video distributors], and neither can adequately address the numerous ways in which Comcast can act on that incentive,” said the group, composed of Consumers Union, Dish Network, Public Knowledge and other companies and associations. In a recent response to critics of the deal, Comcast disagreed that it has incentive to foreclose OVD competitors, and pointed to conditions from the NBCUniversal deal as constraining it from doing so. Comcast has “shown a propensity” to work around merger conditions and the competitive harms of the deal go beyond the broadband focus of the Open Internet Order, the filing said. “Even for those harms that the open Internet rules are meant to address, Mega-Comcast will have the incentive to design around particular regulations, interpret them narrowly, and litigate them for years, as it has done in the past.”

NBCUniversal said it added TV Everywhere capabilities to its CNBC Android app. The new version of the app allows easier access to live and on-demand CNBC programming and live market data and news, NBCUniversal said. It includes free full-length episodes of CNBC shows like Mad Money with Jim Cramer and Restaurant Startup, NBCUniversal said. “Over the past year alone, we have seen video consumption on our Android app grow by” more than 20 percent, said CNBC Digital General Manager Kevin Krim in a news release.

Wurl’s 1Guide service has been rolled out in WOW cable systems in Indiana, Ohio, Florida, Illinois and Michigan as part of the WOW Streamland service, said Wurl in a news release Wednesday. The platform is integrated with WOW Ultra TV set-tops providing cable subscribers with an HTML5-based user interface for access to streaming video applications and services.

The worldwide pay-TV market grew at a 4 percent rate last year to reach 923.5 million subscribers, ABI Research said, but weak currency exchange rates slowed growth in pay-TV service revenue to $257 billion. Subscriptions are expected to top 1.1 billion in 2020, with $313 billion in service revenue, ABI said. Cable and terrestrial TV markets had weaker growth rates in 2014 compared with satellite and IPTV platforms, ABI said. High definition saw growth across all pay-TV platforms because of the increasing number of HD channels added by operators, it said. In 2014, 44 percent of the worldwide pay-TV subscriber base had access to HD, with the highest HD penetration in Western Europe and North America, the researcher said. HD penetration is expected to reach 60 percent of the pay-TV market in 2020. Pay-TV operators are slowly moving toward 4K Ultra HD service, ABI said, citing Amazon, DirecTV and Netflix in the U.S. Cable companies in the U.S. lost roughly 100,000 subscribers in Q4, although Comcast gained 7,000 subscribers, it said. DirecTV had 149,000 subscriber adds in Q4, its largest net addition since 2012, ABI said.