Amazon Prime Video, Hulu and Netflix lead over-the-top video amid an OTT shift, with a rising “middle class,” some offering live TV, said Parks Associates researcher Brandon Riney. CBS All-Access, WWE Network and Acorn.TV have gained “millions of subscribers,” benefiting from “service-stacking,” he said. That's where customers pile additional video streaming services on top of a primary sub to one of the big three. OTT on-demand video is well-established, so live services are extending the reach further into the mainstream, he told a Thursday webcast. On virtual MVPDs, Riney cited YouTube TV and Sling TV and their appeal of no annual contracts and lower pricing than pay TV.

Parties to St. Joseph TV License selling full-power KQTV St. Joseph, Missouri, to News-Press TV (see 1910170070) voluntarily withdrew the transaction, in a brief letter posted Friday. That's why an FCC Media Bureau page about the station shows the transaction as dismissed. This information comes from parties to the deal and the agency. Previously, NCTA and the American TV Alliance informally opposed the deal, bureau records show (see here and here) and their representatives now confirm. America’s Communications Association -- a member of ATVA -- emailed reporters Thursday that the commission dismissed the deal. ACA and ATVA didn't comment further Friday.

Dish Network's "questionable track record" on diversity should be accounted for as the FCC considers T-Mobile/Sprint and Dish's buy of Sprint's prepaid wireless business, Urban One CEO Alfred Liggins told FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, per a docket 18-197 filing posted Thursday. Many Boost Mobile customers are minorities and the agency should ensure their interests aren't harmed, Liggins said. Dish didn't comment Friday.

Sinclair and AT&T signed a multiyear carriage agreement that includes the broadcaster's forthcoming Marquee Sports Network regional sports network (RSN) featuring Chicago Cubs games, launching in 2020, Sinclair said Thursday. The deal, covering AT&T's DirecTV, AT&T TV Now and U-verse, also includes the 21 RSNs Sinclair recently acquired, the YES Network in which it is a joint venture and Sinclair's owned local broadcast stations and Tennis Channel, it said.

The FCC Media Bureau won't review News-Press TV's proposed acquisition of KQTV St. Joseph, Missouri, from Heartland Media, according to a consolidated database system update. NCTA and American TV Alliance (ATVA) opposed the deal, saying News-Press' ownership of low-power stations transmitting CBS, Fox and NBC would give it a quadropoly in the market (see here and here). News-Press and Heartland had said ABC programming's available from another significantly viewed station in the market, eliminating any incentive to withhold KQTV programming. America’s Communications Association -- a member of ATVA -- emailed the item to reporters Thursday. The parties to the deal have pulled it voluntarily.

AMC Theatres' digital movie rental and sales operation, AMC Theatres on Demand, isn't likely to make a big splash in the online movie market, nScreenMedia analyst Colin Dixon blogged Tuesday. Amazon and Apple are better options for most consumers, given AMC's lack of device support and its lack of "movies anywhere" integration, he said. AMC announced the streaming service this week. It didn't comment Wednesday.

Lack of generally accepted metrics for judging quality of closed-captioned live events means imposing such metrics -- as some consumer groups petitioned the FCC (see 1908140037) -- is a mistake, cable and broadcast interests said in RM-11848 comments posted this week. Captioning interests urged FCC action. NCTA said it backs the goal of good captioning for live programming, but rules already "are ensuring the presence of quality captions" and the petitioners haven't shown evidence warranting reconsideration. It said using caption quality metrics on live programming could be unfair given the challenges of captioning in real time, and perfect synchronicity is "nearly impossible." It said since petitioners are in the midst of a multiyear study of caption quality metrics, it could be years before they can propose specific metrics. NAB said the petition didn't show why the FCC should change its approach to caption quality standards and best practices: "The Commission's approach is working," and caption quality metrics are unnecessary and premature. The association said an automatic speech recognition declaratory ruling is premature given how young the technology is, but if there's a look at ASR and best practices, that should be done by the Disability Advisory Committee rather than through a rulemaking. Meredith, which also owns Dynamic Captioning, said the proposed rules overlook human elements. Because mistakes happen, "a punitive 'big Brother' monitoring and enforcement mechanism" will discourage creating accessible content. ASR technology company AppTek said live captioning is rife with quality problems and the FCC should encourage ASR use, as it often is better than live captioning by humans. It said the agency should appoint ASR providers to the DAC. The 21st Century Captioning Disability and Rehabilitation Research Project submitted a survey on local news captioning by the Hearing Loss Association of America, and said consumer perceptions of caption providers, stations and broadcasters were generally negative. It said future caption quality standards and metrics might need to account for punctuation, with experimental results showing human captions with punctuation scored highest, but ASR captions with punctuation were preferred over ASR or human captions without punctuation. Closed captioner Ai-Media said the FCC should consider adopting the "number, edition, recognition" method -- which some states and numerous countries use for assessing captioning quality -- as its captioning quality metric.

Sony announced commercial availability of its immersive audio ecosystem. Based on object-based spatial audio technology, 360 Reality Audio will be available on 1,000 songs late this year and via streaming services including Amazon Music HD, Deezer, nugs.net and Tidal. The company's working with Napster to develop a 360 Reality Audio streaming solution for service providers, it said Tuesday. For labels, it’s working with Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group, plus Live Nation and other music organizations.

Antitrust agencies cleared Hasbro’s buy of Entertainment One, said a new FTC early termination notice. Hasbro values the deal at $4 billion.

There's “significant progress” in types and amount of video-described programming available, and “consumers would benefit from continued increases,” the FCC Media Bureau reported to Congress, as required by the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act. The report was in Wednesday’s Daily Digest. Developments “should improve the availability of accurate information” about what content includes video description and address “the current tension between whether Spanish-language programming or video description” should be on secondary audio streams, the report said. Though it shows an increased amount of available described programming, consumer commenters expressed “frustration with the lack of video-described programming on certain networks or shows that they would like to view,” the bureau said. “They would like to see continued expansion in the amount of video-described programming.” There’s not enough information in the record about whether expanding video description requirements outside the top 60 designated market areas would be cost effective, and most VOD and streaming video doesn’t include video description, staff said on docket 11-43.