The chair of the FCC’s new Communications Equity and Diversity Council will be Heather Gate, formerly vice chair of council predecessor the Advisory Committee on Diversity and Digital Inclusion, said a release Wednesday. Gate is Connected Nation vice president-digital inclusion. The ACDDE’s former chair, Wiley Rein partner Anna Gomez, was designated chair emeritus, and will continue to serve on the CEDC. The CEDC’s new vice chairs will also be ACDDE veterans -- Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Nicol Turner Lee and Susan Au Allen, U.S. Pan Asian American Chamber of Commerce Education Foundation CEO. Turner Lee was chair of the ACDDE’s Diversity in the Tech Sector Working Group, and Allen was on the ACDDE’s Digital Empowerment and Inclusion WG. The council’s first meeting is Nov. 3, and the rest of the group’s membership “will be announced at a later date,” along with the composition of the council’s new WGs: Innovation and Access, Digital Empowerment and Inclusion, and Diversity and Equity.

Netflix finished Q3 with 4.38 million paid net subscriber additions, about 25% better than its July 20 forecast of 3.5 million, said its shareholder letter Tuesday. Net paid adds were up 99.1% from the 2020 quarter. Asia Pacific was the largest regional contributor with about half the Q3 growth. “We compete with a staggeringly large set of activities for consumers’ time and attention like watching linear TV, reading a book, browsing TikTok, or playing Fortnite, to name just a few,” said the letter. “As one example of this dynamic,” when Facebook experienced a global outage for several hours on Oct. 4, “our engagement saw a 14% increase,” it said. Netflix later in the year will shift "to reporting on hours viewed for our titles rather than the number of accounts that choose to watch them," said the letter. "We think engagement as measured by hours viewed is a slightly better indicator of the overall success of our titles and member satisfaction. It also matches how outside services measure TV viewing and gives proper credit to rewatching." Netflix will start to release "title metrics" more regularly outside of its quarterly earnings reports "so our members and the industry can better measure success in the streaming world," it said.

A battle about data sharing is brewing between content owners and distributors and platforms they’re on, said Nick Cicero, Conviva vice president-strategy, on a Parks Associates webinar last week. Cicero noted an uptick in media companies building their own devices, citing Comcast’s Sky Glass TVs unveiled this month by its Sky Group division in London, plus Amazon’s Fire TV and Roku TV platforms. “You have this battle between the TV platform, the device manufacturer and then the application layer on top of it,” Cicero said, “and figuring out what slices are going to own a bunch of the stack.” He contrasted Disney, which owns a large body of content with set makers LG and Vizio that own the operating system and device layers. Parks analyst Paul Erickson said: “If you own the metal, you can control everything upwards from there.” Consumers would prefer data access to be equal across services and devices so they can have the most personalized experience possible, he said.

Tegna's proposed retransmission consent agreement with Dish Network is so rife with contradictions that it's "hard or impossible for DISH to ascertain what it is that Tegna demands," the MVPD said in an FCC docket 12-1 complaint Monday alleging violations of good-faith negotiation rules. It said Tegna is engaged in unilateral, take-it-or-leave-it bargaining by not engaging with Dish's offer or correcting the contradictions in its own, and by insisting Dish retransmit and pay for stations not affiliated with the Big Four networks. Tegna said the complaint "is utterly baseless and without merit [and it] welcomes a chance for the FCC to review DISH’s conduct over the course of this negotiation." It said Dish has used "consistently unproductive tactics and public misrepresentations" in its talks, and the MVPD is "short-changing their customers by serially dropping valued stations." Tegna said it made a proposal to Dish months ago and has modified it numerous times, including a rate cut, but Dish "refused to counter." Backing Dish, the American TV Alliance emailed that Tegna and other broadcasters "have been charging customers egregiously high fees for local programming for nearly two decades." The blackout of stations on Dish's lineup in more than 50 markets went into its 12th day Monday (see 2110060038).

Fubo Sportsbook, a mobile betting experience, became an authorized gaming operator of NASCAR, it said Thursday: This includes a multichannel marketing campaign with at-track assets, in-app use of NASCAR-owned track, series and event marks and logos, plus distribution across NASCAR’s platforms and events. Fubo Sportsbook is expected to launch in Q4.

The law doesn’t support charging tech companies regulatory fees for the benefits they receive from unlicensed devices operating in the TV white spaces, said Public Knowledge Senior Vice President Harold Feld in calls with aides to FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks and acting Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel this week, said filings posted Thursday in docket 21-190. NAB argues the FCC should expand the payer base for reg fees. Microsoft and other companies “at best” benefit from white spaces indirectly through third-party networks and third-party devices, said Feld. “This benefit is far too attenuated to pass constitutional muster, and nothing in the RAY BAUM’s Act supports assessing fees for such an indirect benefit.” If the FCC did use that benefit as a reason to charge fees, it would have to do the same to broadcaster-owned over-the-top services such as Hulu and Paramount+, Feld said. “These entities, and any commercial broadcast licensee that streams internet content, enjoy a similar benefit from Project Airband as Microsoft in being able to reach new rural customers.” The issue would be "better resolved as part of the USF contribution reform discussions rather than as part of this proceeding,” Feld said.

Discovery+ is available on LG's U.S. smart TVs, said the TV maker Wednesday: Users can access the streaming service through LG's webOS platform via app or by voice using the LG Magic Remote. Discovery+ is $4.99 monthly with advertisements, $6.99 ad-free.

About four in 10 over-the-top video watchers access services based on specific content that’s available, said Parks Associates Tuesday. "Content is key to OTT success," and a perceptive and intelligent content discovery strategy is a key differentiator in attracting, engaging and retaining subscribers, said analyst Paul Erickson. The inability to find relevant content is a top reason consumers leave a service, Erickson said.

A blackout of Tegna stations for Dish customers in 53 markets is “another example of broadcast conglomerates prioritizing profit over people,” said the American TV Alliance in a release (see 2110060038). “This weekend, millions of football fans across the country will be disappointed when they settle in to watch the game and realize it’s unavailable,” said ATVA. "DISH is purposefully misleading customers and inconvenienced its own subscribers by proactively removing TEGNA stations before the deadline," emailed a Tegna spokesperson. "Rather than using service disruptions as a business strategy, we call upon DISH to return to the negotiating table and work with us to restore our channels." Dish didn't comment, but issued a release on the blackout Wednesday. "We made a fair offer to keep Tegna stations available to our customers, but Tegna rejected it, forcing the removal of its channels," said Dish in the release. "Tegna is looking to sell its stations to the highest bidder and is simply trying to exploit DISH customers as a way to get the maximum price and further fatten their wallets."

Dish Network and Tegna blamed each other for a possible blackout of stations in 52 markets on Dish that was to have started Wednesday night. Claiming Tegna “prioritizes greed,” Dish said Tuesday it's “demanding a massive increase to nearly a billion dollars in fees for its programming.” Tegna emailed that it started alerting Dish subscribers about the possible blackout “due to Dish's refusal to reach a fair, market-based agreement to continue carriage of those stations.” Tegna said it's “committed to reaching a fair, market-based agreement with DISH based on the competitive terms we’ve used to reach deals with numerous other providers.”