Consolidating the Shiloh, Illinois, litigation seeking franchise fees from streaming services with a similar East St. Louis suit pending in the same court would be more efficient than remanding the Shiloh case to state court, as ordered last month (see 2203240053), defendant Dish Network told the U.S. District Court in East St. Louis Friday in a motion to reconsider (docket 3:21-cv-00807). Shiloh's outside counsel didn't comment.

U.S. consumers are “picking their pets" over the latest "binge-worthy Netflix shows” in deciding which areas of “discretionary spending” to reduce to cope with the biggest rise in inflation in 40 years, reported First Insight Thursday. The analytics firm canvassed 1,000 people by email this month in a sample that was “proportionately balanced” by generation, region and gender, finding 42% plan to reduce spending on dining out to cope with rising prices, and a third saying they will cut back on entertainment, it said. Only 16% said they will reduce spending on pet services, it said. About a quarter (24%) plan to curtail spending on streaming services, putting that in the middle of the pack of about a dozen discretionary spending options.

Twenty-one percent of cable and direct broadcast satellite subscribers expect to cut the cord within the next 12 months, said video advertising services firm Pixability Wednesday. It said cord cutting is particularly pronounced among younger subscribers, with more than 53% of those 18-24 who still subscribe to traditional pay TV expecting to end those services in the next year. It said YouTube has the biggest reach of all streaming platforms in the U.S., with 87% of consumers saying they watch the platform. Among people ages 25-34, that jumps to 97.2%. On average, a U.S. adult watches YouTube about an hour a day, with music and audio the most-popular YouTube content, it said. The Pixability data came from a survey of 703 U.S. adults.

The suspension of the Netflix service in Russia and the “winding-down of all Russian paid memberships" sent Q1 global streaming paid net additions into negative territory, reported the company Tuesday. Paid net subscriber losses were 200,000 compared with the outlook for 2.5 million global streaming paid net additions in the Jan. 20 forecast. Russia caused losses of 700,000 paid net adds. Net additions would have been up by 500,000 globally “excluding this impact,” said Netflix. The Q2 forecast is for paid net losses to worsen to 2 million, compared with nearly 1.54 million paid net additions in 2021's Q2. “Our forecast assumes our current trends persist (such as slow acquisition and the near term impact of price changes) plus typical seasonality.”

Nexstar is violating the 39% broadcast ownership limit by negotiating retransmission consent rates for Mission Broadcasting’s WPIX New York through a local marketing agreement, said Charter Communications in an informal complaint sent to the FCC Media Bureau last week. The complaint makes accusations similar to a Comcast petition from July (see 2107140059). Both complaints argue Nexstar dodged FCC ownership and retransmission consent rules by divesting WPIX to Scripps to buy Tribune but retaining an option to repurchase the station, transferring that option to Mission, and then operating WPIX through an LMA once Mission bought it. Media Bureau Chief Holly Saurer told Comcast in a March letter its petition would be treated as an informal complaint and the bureau was reviewing the matter. Nexstar filed breach of contract lawsuits against Charter and Comcast -- in Delaware and New York, respectively -- that Charter says are an attempt to further evade FCC scrutiny, according to the complaint and filings. Charter sought a stay of the litigation until the FCC rules on Comcast’s petition, but Nexstar opposed the stay, “creating a real risk of inconsistency on the same issue between the Commission and two different courts,” Charter said. “Permitting such forum shopping may embolden Nexstar (and others) to flout Commission directives.” Nexstar declined to comment.

Paramount Global's board is recommending a "no" vote at the annual meeting June 8 on a shareholder proposal to reduce by half the threshold of stock ownership necessary to call a special shareholder meeting. It's the only shareholder proposal on the agenda for the former ViacomCBS, per the company's proxy statement. The board thinks the existing threshold should be retained to prevent the risk of misuse of the special meeting right for interests not supported by a majority of shareholders, said the proxy, while the proponent argues the current bar for calling a special shareholder meeting is too high. The annual meeting will be held virtually beginning at 9:30 a.m. EDT, said the proxy.

Charter Communications and Sinclair signed a renewed carriage agreement covering Sinclair's local stations, Tennis Channel, 19 Bally Sports regional sports networks, Marquee Sports Network, and the YES Network, they said Thursday.

Daily average time spent with TV and digital video, including streaming, will drop next year to 333.6 minutes, about 10 minutes less per day than 2021 when the COVID-19 pandemic fueled a bump in viewing, said a Wednesday eMarketer report. Viewing trends continue to shift "irrevocably" toward digital, it said. Next year, time spent with traditional TV will drop to 171.1 minutes from 196.6 minutes in 2021, eMarketer said. Traditional pay-TV viewership will drop from 149.8 million in 2021 to 135.2 million next year, largely due to rising service prices for “the same or less value of programming,” eMarketer said. Live events, once the domain of traditional pay TV, are being streamed more today, reducing that advantage for legacy TV services, it said. About two-thirds of the U.S. population are connected TV (CTV) users, with 227.6 million forecast for 2023, the report said.

Charter Communications "strongly disagrees" with recommendations that it modify its advertising claims criticizing DirecTV's Stream streaming service but will comply, the Better Business Bureau's National Advertising Division said Wednesday. It said DirecTV challenged the ad, about sports programming available on Stream. NAD said Charter agreed to modify its "no local sports channels claim" to instead inform consumers of channels or networks not available as well as the specific package being compared. Charter didn't comment.

Metaverse entertainment company Infinite Realty will buy esports platform ReKTGlobal in a $470 million all-stock deal, said the buyer Tuesday. The transaction awaits ReKTGlobal shareholder ratification, plus regulatory and other approvals, it said.