Cox Media's WHIO-TV Dayton, Ohio, by demanding Cincinnati Bell's altafiber pay a per-subscriber retransmission consent fee even for broadband-only subs, will halt or scale back construction of a fiber-to-the-home system to 135,000 Dayton households, altafiber said in a docket 12-1 retransmission consent complaint posted Tuesday. Retrans consent fees on broadband subscribers who aren't getting a retransmission forecloses competition and puts altafiber "at a significant competitive disadvantage" as it tries to enter a new market, since that fee isn't being asked of incumbent providers, it said. Cox Media didn't comment.

Entertainment audiences' consumption patterns are becoming fixed, with a big focus on streaming, but new consumption patterns for news are just starting to form, which is why NBCUniversal is investing heavily in news streaming platforms and product, NBCU News Group Chairman Cesar Conde said Tuesday at an Axios event. Comcast's NBCU and other content producers are moving increasingly to a digital model of distributing content from talent, brands and franchises via all their various platforms, he said. He said MSNBC commentator Rachel Maddow is an example of the company's omnichannel digital strategy, with her becoming part of its streaming platforms, podcast and long-form documentaries, he said. "We are doing that with a lot of talent," he said, citing CNBC host Jim Cramer. He predicted increasing use of subscription services by NBCU and other media outlets, and said MSNBC content will be a paywalled part of its Peacock streaming service, though free news options will remain. He said there's a large hunger for news in the Spanish-language space and Telemundo will invest in alternative platforms. General Motors CEO Mary Barra predicted personal autonomous vehicles will be available as early as 2025. Northrop Grumman CEO Kathy Warden said the U.S. and allies are aware of the need for space norms, and space policies to promote them are under discussion by the White House, but there likely won't be big developments this year. Warden also discussed work with AT&T on a 5G-based DOD data network (see 2204050051).

AppLovin closed on its buy of streaming TV engine Wurl for $430 million in cash and stock, extending AppLovin’s software platform capabilities into the connected TV market, said AppLovin Monday. Combining with Wurl enables AppLovin “to scale our technology beyond mobile with the goal of bringing performance marketing to the CTV market,” said AppLovin CEO Adam Foroughi. AppLovin estimates Wurl “enables content companies to distribute streaming video content to more than 300 million TVs and reach 30 million users globally each month,” it said.

Litigation brought by Kenner, Louisiana, seeking franchise fees from Netflix and Hulu (see 2112230003), is being remanded from federal court to state court. U.S. District Judge Greg Guidry of New Orleans in a docket 2:21-cv-00445 order Thursday said the streaming defendants, in opposing the remand, "seek federal court intervention in matters over which the state of Louisiana and its municipalities have traditionally enjoyed wide regulatory latitude -- specifically, utility regulation and gross revenue fees" -- by asking it to interpret the Louisiana Consumer Choice for Television Act. Multiple such franchise fee suits have been remanded to state courts (see 2203240053).

The “public Internet” exception in Illinois' Cable and Video Competition Law, which exempts ISPs, doesn't apply to streaming services since their sole offering is video programming, East St. Louis said Tuesday in an opposition to streamers seeking dismissal of the city's franchise fees litigation. In the docket 3:21-cv-00561 opposition filed with the U.S. District Court in East St. Louis, the city said the streaming defendants can't reasonably dispute they use public rights of ways, because without them they couldn't deliver video programming. It said the fee isn't a tax and thus doesn't violate the Internet Tax Freedom Act. Counsel for defendants Netflix, Disney, Apple, Hulu, WarnerMedia, Amazon, CBS Interactive, YouTube, Curiosity Stream, Peacock, DirecTV and Dish Network didn't comment. The city is one of an array of localities pursuing franchise fees litigation against streaming services (see 2112230003).

Two legal fights over attempts to charge streaming services local video franchise fees are heading from federal courts to state jurisdictions. U.S. Magistrate Judge Mark Beatty in East St. Louis, Illinois, sided Thursday with Shiloh, Illinois, in its request that its franchise fee suit be remanded to the state Circuit Court in St. Clair County, Illinois. Beatty said in his docket 3:21-CV-807 order that numerous federal courts facing similar streaming franchise fee suits have favored remand to state courts since the litigation involves state taxation regimes. Being sued are DirecTV, Dish Network, Disney, Hulu and Netflix, which had opposed Shiloh's motion. The same defendants dropped their appeal of a U.S. District Court decision to remand a video franchise fees fight to Georgia state court. In a docket 21-13111 order Thursday, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted the appellants' motion to dismiss.

Spotify paid out more than $7 billion to the recording industry last year, more than other services “and more than any single retailer in history in a single year,” blogged CEO Daniel Ek Thursday. Major label streaming services “are healthier than ever,” said Ek, noting publishers earned over $1 billion from Spotify for the second straight year. Some 100 Spotify professional artists protested in Los Angeles this month about the music streaming service's payouts and priorities, the Los Angeles Times reported. Grammy Award-winning songwriter Kennedi Lykken, who has written for Dua Lipa, Ariana Grande and Britney Spears, said her last royalty check from Spotify totaled $432. “I’m not ungrateful, but I can’t live on that," she said. In 2021, over 1,000 artists generated more than $1 million from Spotify alone; 50,000 generated $10,000-plus, Ek said. Spotify generates more than a fifth of global recorded revenue, he said, saying multiplying those amounts by four gives an estimate of “how much the artist is generating beyond just Spotify.” Ek compared the music publishing business to the “hyper-competitive worlds of film or sports,” noting, “it’s difficult to make it in music. I get that." The streaming service's published royalty fixtures "show that Spotify is improving on the music industry of the past, and more and more artists are able to stand out in the streaming era,” Ek said. Among Spotify artists generating $10,000 or more from the service, 28% “self-distribute,” and 34% lived in countries outside the top 10 music markets, he said, noting the industry is “less concentrated” today than in the CD era when a quarter of sales went to the top 50 artists. At Spotify, 12% of sales come from the top 50 artists, he said. The service has paid out over $30 billion since its launch, he said.

The pandemic-fueled surge in subscriptions for over-the-top video services (sub OTT users) is slowing, said eMarketer Wednesday. Over 677.4 million people worldwide, including projections for 2022, will have joined the ranks of sub OTT users in the three years since the pandemic began, but the positive effect of stay-at-home trends fueled by COVID-19 is “fading,” and subscriber adds will shrink to 269.4 million over the next three years, said the company. For 2022, global sub OTT usership will grow by 9.1% -- compared with 26% in 2020 -- with video viewing one of the most common digital activities globally, it said. Over 1.8 billion people will use a sub OTT service at least once a month this year, double that from four years ago; the figure is expected to reach 2.2 billion by 2025, it said. More than 55% of all digital video viewers will pay for at least one service this year; that compares with YouTube viewership at 63.5%, it said.

Social network Gab overhauled its Gab TV video hosting platform with a new video player and backend video processing system to improve speed, it said Thursday. It said it plans to implement Gab Ads into the platform so some creators can monetize content. It said Gab TV uploading is available only to Gab paid subscribers, but it's working on a free version with some storage limits. Gab said it also expanded and improved its cloud infrastructure.

The FCC’s Media and Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureaus will co-host a virtual forum on audio description for online video March 28, at 1 p.m. EDT, said a public notice in docket 21-140. “Consumers currently watch a large volume of video programming online, but the availability of audio description online is inconsistent,” said the PN. The event will include an introduction from Media Bureau Chief Holly Saurer, and executives from Apple, Paramount, NBCUniversal and PBS Kids, plus American Council of the Blind representatives. The forum will focus on the availability of audio description for online video and ways to enhance accessibility, the PN said. The agency had a similar forum on online captioning in December (see 2112020075).