The FCC Media Bureau granted requests for ESPN, Fox and MSNBC exemptions (see 1803120044 and 1803070052) to video description rules covering the top five national nonbroadcast networks. In its order in Friday's Daily Digest, the bureau said the OKs came since the three provide less than 50 hours per quarter of prime-time programming that isn't live or near-live. Given those petitions for exemptions, it said that effective July 1, the top five national nonbroadcast networks will be USA, HGTV, TBS, Discovery and History.

The top 95 percent of pay-TV providers lost roughly 305,000 net video subscribers in 1Q vs. a loss of about 515,000 subscribers in Q1 2017, said Leichtman Research Group Thursday. The top six cable companies lost about 285,000 video subscribers, widening from a loss of 115,000 subscribers; satellite TV service’s lost subscriptions widened to 375,000 from 340,000; but the top phone providers’ losses narrowed to 50,000 from 325,000 (the fewest since Q3 2015). Internet-delivered services including Sling TV and DirecTV Now added 405,000 subscribers, up from 265,000 net adds in the year-ago quarter. The top pay-TV providers now have about 91.9 million subscribers -- with the top six cable companies having 47.8 million video subscribers, satellite TV services 31.1 million subscribers, the top phone companies 9.2 million subscribers and the top Internet-delivered pay-TV services 3.8 million subscribers. Since the industry’s peak, traditional services have lost about 7.2 million subscribers, while the top publicly reporting internet-delivered services gained about 3.8 million customers, said LRG Principal Bruce Leichtman. The internet-delivered category doesn’t include PlayStation Vue, Hulu with Live TV or YouTube TV, which don't publicly report subscribers.

FCC Commissioner Mike O'Rielly met Thursday with Cox Communications about machine-to-machine applications, internet access for kids, smart cities and wireless infrastructure builds, he tweeted during a Phoenix trip. He also said he visited the Phoenix Model Market, a marketwide collaboration on promoting ATSC 3.0 implementation.

RCN and the American Cable Association are wrong about whether behavioral conditions are an appropriate remedy for antitrust concerns raised by AT&T's proposed buy of Time Warner, DOJ said in a docket 17-cv-02511-RJL response (in Pacer) filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. RCN and ACA seek to file an amici brief proposing modified Turner arbitration terms (see 1805150002). Justice said the RCN/ACA proposal does at least give alternative remedies, which the court had requested, and AT&T/TW opposition to it runs contrary to that request. AT&T/TW outside counsel didn't comment Thursday.

Comcast announced a campaign by Internet Essentials, a broadband adoption initiative for low-income households, and members of the Conference of Western Attorneys General to address challenges seniors, parents and children face online. It follows the FTC estimating scammers swindled Americans out of nearly $1 billion last year, with more than $240 million occurring either online or via email, Comcast said. Younger people reported losing money to fraud more often than older people, said the FTC, with adults ages 20-29 making up 40 percent of those who filed FTC complaints reporting losing money to fraud, compared with 18 percent for age 70 and older. Via a Comcast grant, the nonprofit Connectsafely.org developed a multimedia internet safety toolkit for use by attorneys general across the country with up-to-date materials designed to address concerns of seniors, parents with school-age children and students.

DOJ's Office of Information Policy, processing the Protect Democracy Project's Freedom of Information Act requests (see 1803060004), and plaintiff PDP reached an agreement about the scope of PDP's FOIA request about White House communications on Disney's proposed buy of Fox, and OIP's search for potentially responsive records will follow that agreement, DOJ said in a docket 18-cv-00506-APM status report (in Pacer) Friday in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The FOIA office of DOJ's Antitrust Division reached an agreement with PDP for the division to search the emails of relevant staff for communications between the division and the White House about the deal and for emails between staff discussing the directives made by the White House regarding the takeover. DOJ said both searches should be done in August.

The FCC Media Bureau granted Comcast’s request for enhanced confidential treatment of some submissions in the carriage complaint proceeding with BeIN Sports (see 1803180001), said an order in Monday's Daily Digest. Comcast sought extra protection for internal viewership analyses, and BeIN didn’t object, the order said. “Comcast has provided adequate justification.”

The FCC Media Bureau dismissed without prejudice NCTA's 2012 petition for reconsideration related to Implementation of the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation, or Calm, Act, said an order Monday. "Due to the passage of time, NCTA has agreed to withdraw its petition." The association had asked the agency to “limit its rules to ‘commercial advertisements,’ rather than also including promotional material” (see 1208100047).

TiVo, whose stock reached a 52-week low Friday, is exiting the box-building business, said CEO Enrique Rodriguez on the company’s Q1 earnings call Thursday. Shares closed 1.2 percent lower Friday at $13.85. TiVo inked a deal with a “major device manufacturer as our direct-to-consumer box partner” that will take over retail sales, outside of TiVo.com, through Amazon and Best Buy, Rodriguez said. TiVo will continue to sell direct through its own website, fulfilling products through the box manufacturer, he said. Due to the “broad range of potential outcomes for the company,” Chief Financial Officer Peter Halt didn’t provide financial estimates for fiscal 2018. Overall Q1 revenue dropped 7.9 percent to $189.9 million over the year-ago quarter, said the company, driven by declines in legacy TiVo IP licenses, hardware and other products. The operating loss widened to $9 million from $5.3 million. TiVo’s Experience 4 upgrade app, delivered to the retail market in Q4, will become broadly available for MVPDs this quarter, said Rodriguez. The company believes Experience 4’s video discovery capability will be a catalyst for conversions from legacy Rovi guides to the TiVo platform, he said. On consumer electronics, the chief said the company is now focused on IP licensing.

The rate of pay-TV subscriber declines stabilized Q1, but more important is the conversion rate at which virtual MVPD subscriptions offset linear TV declines, MoffettNathanson analyst Craig Moffett wrote investors Thursday. High conversion rates benefit media companies since they get higher per-subscriber affiliate fees from virtual MVPDs and the future looks brighter when more cord cutters are still paying for a streaming video bundle -- even a skinny one -- than being lost to the pay-TV universe altogether, MoffettNathanson said. Since Q1 2016, the conversion has averaged 83 percent, it estimated, saying the figure has varied notably from quarter to quarter. It estimated the Q1 conversion rate was 69 percent, while the Q4 2017 conversion rate was 125 percent. The rate could decline since many counted as virtual MVPD subscribers are still in their free promotional periods. It said password sharing points to likely declines in conversion rates. For the quarter, traditional pay-TV subscriptions declined at 3.4 percent year over year for the second straight quarter. Including virtual MVPDs, that subscriber drop was 0.5 percent. The cumulative number of cord-cutter and cord-never households hit 14.14 million in Q4.