The FCC is closing the St. Louis post office box used for accepting manual payments of various Media Bureau filing fees and will require electronic payments, said an order Thursday. It said use of the lockbox has become rare and will end 90 days after the order appears in the Federal Register.

CNN should be excluded from the list of the top five national nonbroadcast networks subject to audio description rules, since it doesn't average at least 50 hours per quarter of prime-time nonexempt programming, AT&T's Warner Media said in a docket 11-43 posting Thursday. Disney is seeking a similar exemption for ESPN (see 2012090050).

Facebook’s Oversight Board should allow a post containing a purported quote from a Nazi Germany official to stand, Stand Together commented in the company’s review of the case (see 2012010036). In case 2020-005-FB-UA, Facebook removed a post of content that was previously shared two years prior, containing an alleged quote from Joseph Goebbels. The company cited violation of its dangerous individuals and organizations policy. Stand Together said suppressing the speech wouldn’t “prevent and disrupt real-world harm” or achieve other Oversight Board goals: The policy “is unnecessarily broad in a way that provides Facebook discretion to ban wide arrays of legitimate expression.” It questioned whether the company would remove content related to the Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong and Julius Caesar regimes, all three of which were allegedly responsible for mass killings: “Should quotes by them or by senior officials in their regimes be banned?” The Oversight Board didn’t comment. Further public comments are expected to be published up to 90 days from the board’s decision in each of the six cases up for review.

SiriusXM’s signing of Howard Stern to a five-year contract extension, announced Tuesday, likely will stand as CEO Jim Meyer’s final high-profile action before he transitions to executive chairman Jan. 1 and relinquishes the top post to Jennifer Witz. The agreement gives SiriusXM license to the Stern audio and video catalog through 2032. A little more than three weeks before Stern’s contract was due to expire, this was a cliffhanger Meyer apparently didn’t foresee when he told investors Oct. 22 that a deal was close (see 2010220019).

Global shipments of advanced TVs are expected to rise at a 22% compound annual growth rate, reaching 32.5 million sets in 2025, reported Display Supply Chain Consultants Monday. Stay-at-home orders drove a “massive” 71% increase in Q3 advanced TV shipments, and they're expected to rise in Q4 by a “more modest” 22% from the 2019 quarter, to 4.7 million units.

With nothing new filed since 2015 regarding the mandatory carriage complaint brought by KSQA Topeka, Kansas, against DirecTV, the FCC should reject KSQA's petition for reconsideration of that docket's termination, said AT&T, DirecTV's parent company, in a docket 20-158 posting Thursday. It said KSQA's complaint became moot at the end of 2017, which was the end of the complaint's election cycle. It said a Media Bureau ruling on the complaint would be over "a stale set of facts that will have no practical effect" since KSQA at the time wasn't audio streaming in AC-3, which is why DirecTV wouldn't carry it, but now is doing so. KSQA in its recon petition said its complaint wasn't rendered moot by the end of the previous must-carry election cycle, it's still not being carried, and AT&T has never told it what equipment would be needed for audio signal conversion. It said ending an adjudicatory proceeding without notifying a party to the adjudication is an Administrative Procedure Act violation.

Warner’s decision to release 2021 blockbuster titles simultaneously in theaters and with a one-month window on its HBO Max streaming service is “a very costly one for everyone involved,” MoffettNathanson’s Craig Moffett wrote investors Friday. “We have a hard time believing the messaging that this is only a temporary 2021 plan,” said the analyst, “even if that might be the current plan today. Once the windows change, it will be hard to go back.” It’s “hard to find any winners here,” he said, ticking off AT&T, participants/rights holders and U.S. theater owners who will suffer “another unexpected big hit.” Despite growing consensus that coming COVID-19 vaccines should help return the U.S. to some normalcy by mid-2021, the Warner Bros. decision “puts a damper on those expectations for movie attendance,” he said. It’s unclear whether U.S. exhibitors will agree to play the upcoming Warner 2021 movie slate, “given the unattractive terms of running films that are simultaneously available for ‘free’ on HBO Max,” though given the difficult position most theater owners are in today, it will be hard for them to hold the line on an exclusive theatrical window, he said. The Warner announcement is ahead of any expected update from Disney this week “of likely plans to alter their own traditional theatrical windowing strategy,” Moffett said. While studios have been pressuring exhibitors to shrink the theatrical window for some time, WarnerMedia is the first to “blow up the model by skipping an exclusive theatrical window altogether.” The Pay 1 window -- where studios typically break even on their original investment -- is now the HBO Max release, which “no longer generates cash; instead, it merely shifts content between WarnerMedia segments,” he said. Going all in on the biggest blockbusters seems “overly aggressive vs. a simple window change.” The move will likely spur new subscriptions to HBO Max, which until now “has simply not been all that differentiated" from HBO, which has "floated at a penetration rate of 1/3 of US Pay TV homes for many, many years," he said. “But at what cost?” Warner didn’t comment Friday.

Advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning will spur better-informed data gleaned from free streaming video service trials, resulting in improved user experience and content offerings, said Parks Associates analyst Steve Nason Friday. Free trials are important drivers to paid subscriptions, he said, noting 40% of U.S. broadband households trialed at least one over-the-top video service during the COVID-19 pandemic. By leveraging data on viewer activities and preferences, providers can personalize services to improve subscriber “stickiness,” he said. Some 42% of households subscribing to an OTT service during the pandemic cited a free trial as a key driver for the new subscription, Parks said. Average monthly spending on OTT video service subscriptions was $16 in Q1. Parks is holding a virtual Future of Video conference Dec. 14-16.

Warner Pictures will release its full 2021 film slate on its HBO Max service in a one-month streaming exclusive at the same time it releases the titles theatrically worldwide, said the studio Thursday. The hybrid model is a “strategic response” to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly in the U.S. After the one-month HBO Max access period, each film will leave the platform and continue in theaters and international territories under customary distribution windows. All films will be available in 4K Ultra HD and HDR on HBO Max. “The “one-year plan” will allow the studio to support its theater partners with “a steady pipeline of world-class films, while also giving moviegoers who may not have access to theaters or aren’t quite ready to go back to the movies” the chance to see its 2021 films, a “win-win,” said Ann Sarnoff, CEO of WarnerMedia Studios and Networks.

Dish Network and Nexstar pointed fingers at each other over a blackout of Nexstar programming on Dish's lineup affecting more than 100 markets in 42 states and Washington, D.C. Nexstar "forced the largest broadcast affiliate station blackout in TV history" and rejected Dish's request for a contract extension, the DBS operator said Wednesday. Nexstar said Dish has a "documented long-term practice of putting its paying subscribers in the middle, rather than reaching agreements with broadcasters and content providers at fair market rates."