The FCC should impose a merger condition on the Standard/Tegna deal that would bar all employees of the combined company involved in retransmission consent from viewing or accessing “in any form” any retrans agreement to which a Cox Media Group station is a party, said the American Television Alliance in calls Friday and Monday with Media Bureau Chief Holly Saurer, an aide to Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, and Media Bureau staff, according to an ex parte filing in docket 22-162. Cox Media is owned by Apollo Global Management, which is also one of the deal's financiers. The condition’s language comes from a consent decree reached with Deerfield Media and other broadcasters associated with Sinclair Broadcast over retrans negotiations, ATVA said (see 2107280068). Along with the prohibition on accessing Cox retrans agreements, ATVA wants the FCC to require the combined company to designate a compliance officer and create a compliance plan, and be subject to regular reporting requirements. “These conditions should last so long as Cox/Apollo holds a financial interest (attributable or not) in New TEGNA,” ATVA said. A representative for ATVA member Altice also had a call with Saurer Monday, said another ex parte filing. Altice urged the Media Bureau to request additional information from Standard to “better explain the structure of the proposed transaction with respect to use of the applicants’ ‘after-acquired’ and ‘divested’ station clauses."

Citing a nationwide class being certified in a Telephone Consumer Protection Act against it (see 2208020038), DirecTV asked U.S. District Court in Wheeling, West Virginia, to let it amend its answer to the complaint. In a docket 5:17-cv-00179 motion for leave to amend Monday, the company said it wants to add one affirmative defense: the court lacks personal jurisdiction over claims brought by out-of-state class members. It said the argument "is nothing new" to the plaintiffs, who have responded to the personal jurisdiction argument in opposing the motion to dismiss and in briefing for their class certification motion. It said the amendment would conform the pleadings to the arguments already raised, DirecTV said, adding it will continue to raise the arguments in the case. Counsel for the plaintiffs didn't comment.

DirecTV can't force arbitration on plaintiffs suing it for alleged vicarious liability over violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (see 2207050002), a federal judge ruled Thursday. U.S. District Judge John Bailey in Wheeling, West Virginia, denied DirecTV's motion to compel arbitration (docket 5:17-cv-00179), saying DirecTV "unquestionably waived arbitration" by litigating for months against one of the named plaintiffs in the telemarketing suit before filing its motion. DirecTV didn't comment Friday.

The MPA hired TMT Insights to build, implement and support a new “security assessment platform” for MPA's “trusted partner network,” the association’s global, industrywide film and TV content protection initiative, said the services and software development company on Wednesday. The TPN program helps companies prevent leaks, breaches and hacks of their customers' movies and TV shows before their intended release, “and seeks to raise security awareness, preparedness, and capabilities within the industry,” said TMT.

Some 59% of U.S. adults watch video on non-TV devices, including smartphones, computers and tablets, led by smartphone users at 50%, reported Leichtman Research Group Wednesday. That’s up from 55% in 2020 and 43% in 2017. By age group, 83% of those 18-34 watch TV on a non-TV device daily vs. 64% of ages 35-54, and 35% of those 55 and above, said LRG. Half of adults watch YouTube on a non-TV device daily, followed by news clips at 35%, said the report. Though portable devices enable users to watch video nearly anywhere, 82% of consumers who watch video on a mobile phone, and 85% of those who watch video on a tablet, “do so at home,” said LRG President Bruce Leichtman.

Netflix executives and board members made “materially false” and misleading statements about the health of the company’s “business, operations, and prospects” until mid-April, influencing its plunging stock price, alleged a shareholder derivative complaint Aug. 16 in U.S. District Court in San Francisco. Unlike the two direct class-action lawsuits filed this spring in which shareholders alleged they suffered financial harm when top Netflix executives breached their fiduciary duties by failing to disclose to investors that account sharing and increased competition from other streaming services were creating significant challenges (see 2206020049), a shareholder derivative complaint seeks to protect a company’s financial well-being and reputation from the improper actions of its officers and board members. Plaintiff Judith Ormerod, a Pennsylvania resident, owns Netflix shares and will continue to hold them “throughout the pendency of this action,” said her complaint. Ormerod will “fairly and adequately represent the interests of the shareholders in enforcing the rights of the corporation,” it said. Netflix didn’t comment Monday.

Amazon and Nielsen signed a three-year measurement deal for Prime Video’s exclusive NFL Thursday Night Football (TNF) telecasts, saying it’s the first deal of its kind where a streaming service will be included in Nielsen’s national TV measurement service. Starting with the 2022 NFL season, measurement will include pregame, in-game and postgame programming on Prime Video and Twitch, over-the-air stations in teams’ local markets and out-of-home viewing, they said. According to Nielsen’s ratings, NFL games and shoulder programming, such as pregame and postgame, accounted for the top 27 live telecasts in 2021, and 47 of the top 50. The collaboration will allow Amazon to provide advertisers with “familiar campaign measurement to make apples-to-apples comparisons across their multi-channel media investments,” said Srishti Gupta, Amazon Ads director-media measurement. Nielsen is to begin measuring TNF on Amazon starting Aug. 25 with a preseason game between the San Francisco 49ers and Houston Texans.

The largest pay-TV providers, covering about 92% of the market, lost 1.93 million video subscribers in Q2, up from 1.24 million lost the same quarter a year earlier, Leichtman Research Group said Friday. Those providers combined have about 72.2 million subs, including 39.5 million among the largest cable companies, 25.5 million among other traditional pay-TV services, and the top publicly reporting virtual MVPDs have about 7.2 million, it said. It said the cable providers lost about 950,000 subs in the most-recent quarter, compared with a year-over-year loss of 590,000, while vMVPDs lost about 265,000 subs compared to a gain of about 55,000 a year earlier. It said telco and DBS losses for the most-recent quarter were about 710,000, about the same as they were in Q2 2021.

U.S. consumer spending on home entertainment content topped $17.9 billion in 2022's first half, an 11.3% increase from January-June in 2021, reported the Digital Entertainment Group Wednesday. Subscription VOD spending led all categories, rising 17.3% to $14.56 billion, said DEG. Sell-through of packaged media fell 16.3% to $793.2 million, it said. “The surge in theatrical new releases” did benefit 4K Blu-ray, where spending increased 33%, said DEG. “High-profile catalog classics,” including The Godfather trilogy, also contributed to 4K Blu-ray’s better performance in the half, it said.

Pirating of live sports streaming is booming, with major and lesser sports franchises entering over-the-top licensing deals they might once have avoided just to protect traditional TV exclusivity, Intertrust said Tuesday. As more sports producers more to live streaming, there's a growing threat of increased losses to thriving, sophisticated online piracy operations, it said. The onus is on streaming sports licensees to have a broad-based anti-piracy strategy that includes multiple digital rights management operations, identification of pirate sources and disruption of their operations in real time without adding latency to live viewing, it said.