The FCC Diversity and Digital Empowerment Committee meets Nov. 19, said Thursday's Federal Register. The meeting will include reports from subcommittees on improving diversity in hiring and contracts, the broadcast incubator program, and improving broadband access for minority communities.

Assuming 2.5 viewers per subscription, eMarketer projects Amazon Prime Video will have 88.7 million U.S. viewers this year, up 12 percent over 2017. Amazon's share is 44 percent of the streaming video market, said the analytics firm, vs. 74 percent for Netflix. Google’s YouTube leads over-the-top video service providers with 192 million viewers, followed by Netflix with 147.5 million. Hulu has 55 million viewers, HBO Now 17.1 million and Sling TV 6.8 million. Nearly 49 million consumers will use an Amazon Fire TV in 2018, a 21 percent bump, giving Amazon 27 percent share of connected TV users. Pay-TV viewership is projected to fall 4 percent to 186.7 million users.

Eleven percent of U.S. broadband households plan to buy a smart speaker in the next 12 months, Parks Associates blogged Monday. Voice control for security systems “promises to be a UX differentiator,” said analyst Dina Abdelrazik. Voice control of TV and lights also appeal to consumers for convenience and simple operation, she said.

AT&T and DOJ repeated their well-trod arguments in dueling final briefs filed Thursday with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (see here and here, in Pacer, docket 18-5214) in DOJ's challenge of AT&T buying Time Warner. The briefs only added page numbers, otherwise, they were the same. AT&T said DOJ wrongly paints a caricature of the U.S. District Court decision allowing the deal when the lower court "well understood" the economics underlying Justice's hypothetical bargaining theory. The department said the appeal "will shape the future of the media and telecommunications industries for decades to come," setting the standard for determining whether to allow vertical combinations that end up controlling valuable programming content and distribution routes. The FCC, the American Cable Association and an array of antitrust scholars -- all of which previously filed amicus briefs (see 1808140001) -- recapped their arguments in final amicus briefs (see here, here and here).

Many U.S. and European homes subscribe to subscription VOD and pay TV, making managing those different TV services an opportunity for pay-TV operators, though it's "much more complex" to aggregate SVOD services than TV channels, nScreenMedia analyst Colin Dixon blogged Thursday. Pay-TV operators are best situated to combine the two services via the set-top box, but aggregating SVOD requires a robust app platform with full app lifecycle management, Dixon said: It's time pay TV and SVOD begin cohabiting on the set-top instead of coexisting.

Despite sailing past Q3 subscriber expectations (see 1810160066), Netflix faces “clouds on the horizon,” Wedbush Securities' Michael Pachter wrote investors Wednesday. “Impressive subscriber growth” of 1.1 million in the U.S. and 5.87 million internationally topped guidance and the analyst’s estimate of 650,000 domestic subscription adds and 4.35 million overseas -- but it faces potential slowing subscriber growth as Disney and Fox likely migrate content licensed to Netflix to a “Disney-sponsored standalone service" next year, he said. Pachter rated Netflix “underperform” on content acquisition costs that cause “substantial cash burn.” A “silver lining” of Disney's service is that “Netflix will have less content available to it, resulting in more stable cash burn,” he said. Netflix subscriber growth could lag if its original programs “fail to achieve the quality and quantity of the lost content,” he wrote. The shares closed up 5.3 percent to $364.70.

Paid music streaming subscriptions are on track to reach 235 million globally by the end of 2018, said Futuresource Tuesday. Streaming subscriptions generated more than half of global spending on music last year, and “the upward trend has continued,” it said. Service competition, growth in family plans and higher smart-speaker penetration fuel expansion, as is “wider, steadily growing acceptance of streaming media in all its forms,” it said. “This growth isn’t restricted to any particular world territory.”

TVEyes' petition for writ of certiorari "is exceptionally important" because the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision (see 1802270025) it seeks to overturn runs contrary to fair use principles needed for media commentary and would let copyright owners stifle criticism, said tech, civil liberties and media critic interests in a Supreme Court docket 18-321 amicus brief Friday. They said the 2nd Circuit decision is contrary to the Supreme Court's 1994 Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music that commercial use by a defendant without a licensing fee doesn't preclude a fair use defense. Signing the amicus brief were Electronic Frontier Foundation, Internet Archive, Organization for Transformative Works, Wikimedia Foundation and media critics including Fair and Accuracy in Reporting. Respondent Fox News Network didn't comment Monday.

DOJ should make clear it won't approve Fox regional sports networks -- to be sold by Disney as part of Disney/Fox (see 1806270016) -- being bought by a same-market big four broadcaster or MVPD, the American Cable Association said in a letter to the agency Monday. It said a broadcaster buying a Fox RSN would let a single firm threaten to withhold two sets of must-have programming, leading to higher MVPD licensing fees, while a pay-TV company purchase would create a vertical integration problem of higher MVPD licensing fees due to the increased leverage to threaten to withhold RSN content from rival subscription video providers. Disney didn't comment.

Pivotal Research is more bullish on Spotify, now recommending investors buy the relatively new stock. Shares “materially underperformed” broader markets, but it remains the “clear global leader” in music streaming, said Jeff Wlodarczak, “in the 3rd inning of a very healthy growth trajectory.” The analyst expects most consumers to move to “all you can eat” for music consumption over time. Apple and Google pose risks to Spotify, but the market is still in early days, he said, and Spotify operates “the most attractive streaming service with a heavy investment in discovery.” Risks include concentration of power at companies that control Spotify’s music content; larger, well-funded competitors’ ability to use their other businesses to subsidize music; and Google and Apple controlling “virtually all" smartphones. Spotify closed up Friday 6.2 percent to $158.49.