Forty-one percent of consumers are comfortable going back to movie theaters, including 50% of 18-34-year-olds, said a Tuesday Parks Associates survey of U.S. broadband households. Theaters returned to being the top preference for watching new films, Parks reported, saying most consumers are “neutral or unlikely to subscribe" to an additional over-the-top video service "just to watch a new release.” The pandemic "roiled traditional content windowing" and some consumers are ready to return to theaters, but “the studios will have to continue to experiment with hybrid release strategies,” said analyst Steve Nason. Parks holds a virtual Future of Video conference Wednesday.

FuboTV launched a branded content studio for advertisers at Interactive Advertising Bureau NewFronts Monday, along with a partnership with LiveRamp to boost its addressable ad capabilities and shows from Terrell Owens, Matthew Hatchette and Gilbert Arenas on Fubo Sports Network. Advertisers can work with fuboTV’s creative team on custom-branded content to air on Fubo Sports Network, it said.

Charter Communications won't expand plant capacity to accommodate symmetrical broadband anytime soon, CEO Tom Rutledge said Friday. Some customers use more than 1 Tb of data a month, but most of that is via IPTV, and its capacity is sufficient for current upstream uses, he said. He said Charter is capable of upgrading its network, if needed as new products develop. Comcast indicated last week that symmetrical broadband is a priority (see 2104290009). Rutledge said Charter added more than 7 million internet customers in the five years since it bought Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks, extended its network past 5 million additional homes and businesses, and spent more than $40 billion on infrastructure and technology. He said over the next six years, Charter will spend $5 billion to reach more than a million unserved customer locations, offset by $2 billion in Rural Digital Opportunity Fund money: That could lead to other "white space" areas of potential customers opening up due to federal investing. He said those rural markets are more expensive capital projects, and payback can take 10-plus years, but the cable ISP is confident it can get good penetration. The public money being targeted toward connectivity efforts like E-rate and the emergency broadband benefit program mean "a huge opportunity, [but] our sense is the states don't know how to spend it all," Rutledge said. Revenue in Q1 was $12.5 billion, up $784 million year over year, Charter said Friday. It has 27.4 million residential internet customers, up 1.9 million; 15.5 million residential video subscribers, down 67,000; 9.1 million residential voice customers, down 247,000; and 2.6 million residential mobile lines, up 1.25 million. Chief Financial Officer Chris Winfrey said the mobile business is scaling up to stand-alone profitability. MoffettNathanson's Craig Moffett wrote investors that Comcast showed its mobile business can be profitable even without unloading traffic from its mobile virtual network operator. The analyst said Charter's citizens broadband radio service spectrum is "a clear path for traffic offload" that could reduce costs. He said wireless could eventually pass video as Charter's No. 2 revenue stream.

Vizio and Verizon Media will partner on “cross-platform” and smart TV ad solutions using “unique TV viewership data and premium programmatic inventory access,” said the companies Thursday. The deal gives Verizon exclusive “demand-side platform” access beginning in 2022 to Vizio’s Inscape viewership data from more than 18 million “opted-in” Vizio smart TVs. Vizio's Q1 earnings call May 11 will be its first since going public March 25 (see 2104230001).

Discovery+ drove subscriber growth at Discovery in Q1, with the direct-to-consumer service crossing 13 million subscribers at the end of March, said CEO David Zaslav in a Wednesday report. Discovery has 15 million paying D2C subscribers globally. Q1 revenue grew 4% year on year to $2.8 billion. U.S. ad revenue fell 4% due to lower overall ratings, pay-TV declines and lower inventory, partially offset by higher pricing and the continued monetization of content offerings on discovery+ and TV Everywhere, said the company. Discovery+ recently launched on Comcast Xfinity and Amazon Prime Video.

Maine's governor and attorney general are permanently enjoined from enforcing the state's cable TV a la carte law, U.S. District Judge Nancy Torresen of Bangor said in a final judgment and order Monday (in Pacer, docket 19-cv-00410). That follows the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in February affirming the lower court's preliminary injunction stopping Maine from enforcing the law on First Amendment grounds (see 2102240057). The plaintiffs -- Comcast and a variety of programmers -- and the defendants filed a joint stipulated final judgment (in Pacer), in which they agreed the Maine law is preempted by federal law and violates the First Amendment.

Cox Communications is buying fiber provider Segra and its commercial carrier business as part of its increasing push into broadband infrastructure, the company said Tuesday. It said Segra parent EQT Infrastructure will keep Segra's fiber-to-the-home residential and small business segment in Virginia and North Carolina. Segra CEO Timothy Biltz said the Cox deal will let it scale up operations and accelerate growth. Cox said the Segra brand will remain and operate as a stand-alone business, with Segra's existing management running its enterprise and carrier organization.

Charter Communications plans to appeal a National Advertising Division finding the cable ISP should drop or modify its "fastest overall speeds" nationwide advertising claim about its Spectrum Mobile service, NAD said Tuesday. NAD said AT&T challenged the ad claim, saying Spectrum Mobile is faster only in certain markets or when connected to Spectrum Wi-Fi. NAD said Charter indicated the NAD decision was based on an archaic view of mobile communications, not accounting for how it commonly integrates Wi-Fi and cellular communications. The appeal will go to the Better Business Bureau's National Advertising Review Board. Charter didn't comment.

New Jersey will appeal only the March 23 decision by U.S. District Court in Newark that the state Board of Public Utilities may not require Altice to prorate bills, the attorney general’s office said (in Pacer) Tuesday at the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The state voluntarily dismissed its 2020 appeal of the district court’s earlier ruling denying reconsideration of a temporary injunction. The 3rd Circuit last week consolidated the state’s two appeals (see 2104230051).

Altice unveiled its Smart WiFi 6 home broadband service Monday. It said Smart WiFi 6 is available to new Optimum and Suddenlink 1 Gig broadband customers. It said in some areas, Smart WiFi 6 will be available with the highest speed tier offered where 1 Gig service isn't currently available.