Virtual MVPD YouTube TV is now available via Roku devices and Roku TVs, Roku said Thursday.

Pandora will cut 5 percent of its workforce in a $45 million cost restructuring, said an SEC filing Wednesday. Shifting resources to advertising technology and audience development is designed to prioritize growth initiatives, said the company. Pandora cut 7 percent of its workforce a year ago, said an earlier filing. It reported 2,488 employees in its most recent annual report, Dec. 31, 2016; the company wouldn't comment further. Growth initiatives include ad and marketing tech, non-music content and device integration. The audio market soon will reach "a major inflection point,” said CEO Roger Lynch. With the company planning to use its savings in other ways, “there will be no near-term boost to profitability," noted Dougherty & Co. analyst Steven Frankel. Shares closed up 7.4 percent Thursday at $5.13.

NBCUniversal and three Comcast regional sports networks rely on procedural defenses and are barely trying to justify their conduct in Wave's carriage and streaming complaint, the smaller operator said in an FCC docket 17-361 reply posted Thursday. That they wrongly argue Wave's petition should be treated as an untimely filed program access complaint (see 1801230036) highlights how important it is to address the merits, since such inaction "would green-light egregious and illegal conduct" by cable-affiliated programmers that wait at least a year before signing their programming deals, Wave said. It said the increased distribution of the RSN content via online streaming undercuts NBCU justification of strict enforcement of the minimum distribution requirements in the programming agreements with Wave. Comcast didn't comment.

The boards of CBS and Viacom set up a special committees of independent directors to evaluate a possible deal, they said (see here and here) Thursday. The companies also looked at combining in 2016, though talks went nowhere (see 1612120060).

Meredith completed the takeover of Time Inc. in a $2.8 billion deal, the buyer announced Wednesday. The FTC had cleared the takeover (see 1801160012 and 1801120053).

Communications and media company services firm Amdocs is buying Vubiquity, the buyer said Tuesday. Amdocs said the acquisition will mean increased digital content capabilities aimed at over-the-top, video distribution and content production customers. The $224 million cash deal is expected to close before the end of Q2, it said.

Ericsson will sell 51 percent of its Media Solutions business -- which specializes in TV video processing and delivery services -- to One Equity Partners as part of its strategic review of its media business, it said. Ericsson said the deal is expected to close in Q3 and that it and OEP will form an independent company to which Media Solutions employees, assets and contractors will transfer. Ericsson said it's focusing on a turnaround for its other media business, media services company Red Bee Media. Also Wednesday, the telecom gearmaker reshuffled executives (see the personals section of this publication's issue).

Gormally Broadcasting and Charter Communications settled their legal fight over retransmission agreement terms for Charter carrying Gormally station signals outside that station's designated market area, said a docket 3:16-cv-30152 stipulation of dismissal (in Pacer) last week in U.S. District Court in Springfield, Massachusetts.

Amazon has invested heavily in Super Bowl advertising for Sunday’s game, according to Ad Age, which reported Tuesday the tech giant took a 60-second spot just after halftime to promote its original series Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan due to debut Labor Day weekend. The ad industry publication also teased a Q4 commercial with Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos centered on Alexa losing her voice. The 30-second teaser -- from the 90-second commercial -- has Alexa going quiet, after a brief cough, while giving a weather forecast, which is followed by a TV news report covering Alexa’s voice loss as breaking news. The teaser cuts off with the promise of a fix for Alexa with undisclosed “replacements in the works.” Hulu, meanwhile, is running an ad for the second consecutive year, it said. As announced at CES, Monster is appearing in its first Super Bowl ad, which features rapper Iggy Azalea pushing the company’s new AirLinks Elements wireless headphones. NBC sought $5 million for a 30-second commercial during the Super Bowl, according to reports.

Balloting concluded last week on revisions to the CTA-2037 standard on measuring TV power consumption, Brian Markwalter, CTA senior vice president-research and standards, told us Monday. “The revised standard, called CTA-2037-B, should publish this week,” said Markwalter. Working group members tasked with revising CTA-2037 wanted to be sure the revised standard measures TV power in the way consumers typically watch TV, meaning not only the content, but also the TV settings that consumers typically use, said Markwalter in September when work began (see 1709250043). How to measure TV energy use by up-to-date standards became a hotbed of discussion during the EPA’s effort to draft its Energy Star Version 8.0 TV spec in a proceeding that remains open and unresolved 18 months after it began (see 1801010001).