SiriusXM is “now easily available in the home and on the go on a growing number of connected CE devices,” said CEO Jim Meyer on a Q3 call Thursday: “Subscriber growth" contributions "from these areas are small today but have plenty of room to grow.” SiriusXM programming is coming to Google Assistant devices (see report, Oct. 31). SiriusXM “moved very quickly” since buying the streaming service in February (see 1901300019), said Meyer. “We have moved the business to profitability through cost efficiencies, and we are continuing to make strides in monetization.” Advertising-supported Pandora listening hours fell 7.5 percent from a year earlier, “an improvement from declines of 9.6 percent" in Q2 and Q1's 11.2 percent, said Meyer. “We have a lot of heavy lifting ahead.” SiriusXM close up 3.9 percent at $6.72.

SiriusXM programming will be available over the next week on Google Assistant-enabled devices such as Google Nest speakers and displays, allowing subscribers to request channels by voice, said the companies Wednesday. Promotions include SiriusXM Select, All Access and Premier streaming subscriptions bundled with a Google Nest Hub.

IEEE has "initiated" 500 new standards and revised 360 existing ones, the group told DOJ and FTC in National Cooperative Research and Production Act notifications Sept. 10, says Wednesday's Federal Register. Philips, meanwhile, withdrew from the UHD Alliance, the association reported Oct. 15, per Tuesday’s FR. HiSilicon Technologies withdrew, while Westinghouse joined. UHDA President Mike Fidler confirmed Philips departed. As UHDA "is focused from a hardware perspective on TV manufacturers, we decided the best representation for the global Philips TV brand would be TP Vision," emailed a Philips spokesperson.

Podcasts are driving listener engagement at Spotify and likely “significantly increased conversion of free to paid users,” said Monday's Q3 letter. Shares closed up 16 percent at $140.20 after better-than-expected results. Monthly average users jumped 30 percent year on year to 248 million, beating company guidance. Increased podcast engagement among music listeners is leading to increased conversion from ad-supported to Premium, said the company, calling increases “extraordinary, almost too good to be true.” It's working to “clean up the data to prove causality,” and believes the data is “more right than wrong.” Spotify partnered with AT&T on Premium. On upcoming music label talks, CEO Daniel Ek said it will be the sixth major renegotiation in the company's 13 years, and there’s nothing different: “We don’t expect any material differences with the exception of the introduction of the marketplace strategy,” which Spotify is rolling out this quarter with sponsored playlists. Spotify estimated it's adding about twice as many subscribers monthly as Apple and more users than Amazon's music service. Revenue grew to $1.56 billion from $1.22 billion. Outgoing finance chief (see personals section) Barry McCarthy compared early days of Spotify as a public company to those during his tenure at Netflix, saying “there were long periods" before the stock market "figured out Netflix, just like it will eventually figure out Spotify.” Streaming was to Netflix as podcasting is to Spotify, he said. “There was a time when Netflix increased spending on streaming at the expense of profit." The question for music streaming generally is “how big will it be and will it be a winner-take-all-marketplace?” McCarthy said. "It’s our game to lose.” Pivotal Research Group's Jeffrey Wlodarczak's monitoring the number of senior executives leaving Spotify, including the chief accounting officer and head of music last month, saying he doesn’t view significant management exits positively. He attributed Spotify’s 18 percent jump Monday morning to “massive short covering” and said Spotify shares have underperformed the Nasdaq exchange since the analyst downgraded the stock in July.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' decision that "but-for" causation doesn't apply to Section 1981 of federal anti-discrimination law (see 1811190023) goes completely against repeated Supreme Court rulings, Comcast said in a docket 18-1171 reply brief last week. It said plaintiffs Entertainment Studios Networks and National Association of African American Owned Media "are playing a shell game" with irrelevant case law. And when but-for causation to the original complaint that Comcast didn't carry ESN content, there's nothing suggesting Comcast was motivated by race. ESN counsel didn't comment Friday.

Among online holiday shoppers, 65 percent plan to use a mobile device and 33 percent plan to shop using a voice assistant, CTA forecast Thursday. Streaming service subscriptions and videogames will be popular tech gifts, it said, with 71 percent of U.S. adults planning to buy a content-related gift this year, including videogame discs (43 percent) and streaming services (39 percent). New video streaming services, more 4K Ultra HD content, and larger screens on TVs and smartphones are driving interest in entertainment as gifts, with laptops, smartphones, TVs, tablets and wearables expected to be leading category sellers, said Lesley Rohrbaugh, market research director.

WVUX-LD Fairmont, West Virginia, misunderstands the law with its petition for a declaratory ruling regarding mandatory satellite carriage of a qualified low-power TV station and its demand for carriage against Dish Network and AT&T's DirecTV, the FCC Media Bureau said Thursday, denying both. An LPTV station isn't entitled to mandatory carriage on direct broadcast satellite under the Communications Act, and Congress explicitly excluded LPTV stations from a satellite carrier’s mandatory carriage obligation, it said. Since there's no genuine controversy or uncertainty about that, the FCC can't declare that exclusion doesn't apply to qualified LPTV stations, as WVUX asked, the bureau said. WVUX outside counsel didn't comment.

The FCC shouldn’t weaken the dual network rule, said Writer’s Guild of America West in a meeting Tuesday with Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel at WGAW's Los Angeles office, per a filing posted Thursday in docket 17-108. “The FCC has an obligation to uphold the public interest in an open and pluralistic broadcast system, and should support this obligation by retaining the Dual Network Rule." The agency sought comment on the dual network rule as part of the currently stalled 2018 quadrennial review. WGAW also opposes T-Mobile buying Sprint deal. “Reduction from four to three major wireless carriers in an already highly concentrated market poses significant harm to consumers and content creators,” said the union. Include “retrospective reviews” for media deals that have “significant anticompetitive effects,” WGAW asked. Rosenworcel attended Mobile World Congress in Los Angeles a day after the meeting (see 1910230060).

Roku will buy the “demand-side” advertising platform dataxu for $150 million in cash and stock and it’s expected to close this quarter, said Roku Tuesday. It will “complement” Roku's over-the-top ads and enable it to offer marketers “a single, data-driven software solution to plan, buy, and optimize their ad spend across TV and OTT providers,” it said. Roku considers its “data-driven ecosystem ... essential to the success of OTT advertising,” said Scott Rosenberg, general manager-platform business, on a Q2 call in August. Roku in Q2 more than doubled its year-over-year “video ad impressions.”

Fox and Charter Communications renewed their distribution agreement that includes cooperation on tackling piracy and password sharing, the cable operator said Monday. The agreement covers Fox TV stations, Fox News, Fox Business Network, FS1, FS2, BTN and Fox Deportes, including VOD and TV Everywhere rights for those networks.