Charter Communications and Sinclair signed a renewed carriage agreement covering Sinclair's local stations, Tennis Channel, 19 Bally Sports regional sports networks, Marquee Sports Network, and the YES Network, they said Thursday.

Daily average time spent with TV and digital video, including streaming, will drop next year to 333.6 minutes, about 10 minutes less per day than 2021 when the COVID-19 pandemic fueled a bump in viewing, said a Wednesday eMarketer report. Viewing trends continue to shift "irrevocably" toward digital, it said. Next year, time spent with traditional TV will drop to 171.1 minutes from 196.6 minutes in 2021, eMarketer said. Traditional pay-TV viewership will drop from 149.8 million in 2021 to 135.2 million next year, largely due to rising service prices for “the same or less value of programming,” eMarketer said. Live events, once the domain of traditional pay TV, are being streamed more today, reducing that advantage for legacy TV services, it said. About two-thirds of the U.S. population are connected TV (CTV) users, with 227.6 million forecast for 2023, the report said.

Charter Communications "strongly disagrees" with recommendations that it modify its advertising claims criticizing DirecTV's Stream streaming service but will comply, the Better Business Bureau's National Advertising Division said Wednesday. It said DirecTV challenged the ad, about sports programming available on Stream. NAD said Charter agreed to modify its "no local sports channels claim" to instead inform consumers of channels or networks not available as well as the specific package being compared. Charter didn't comment.

FIFA launched a free streaming service Tuesday, FIFA+, for matches, original content and “global storytelling.” By the end of 2022, FIFA+ will be streaming the equivalent of 40,000 live games per year from 100 member associations across all six confederations, including 11,000 women’s matches, it said. FIFA+ will be available on web and mobile devices at launch, plus connected devices “soon,” in five language editions: English, French, German, Portuguese and Spanish. Six more languages will be added in June, it said.

Metaverse entertainment company Infinite Realty will buy esports platform ReKTGlobal in a $470 million all-stock deal, said the buyer Tuesday. The transaction awaits ReKTGlobal shareholder ratification, plus regulatory and other approvals, it said.

Of the 215 million American adults who use streaming video subscription services, 25% are using account logins from people who don’t live under their roof, said a Monday Cordcutting.com report. The average “moocher,” defined as someone who uses the account of someone in another household without paying for it, borrows logins for 1.6 accounts, resulting in almost 86 million accounts that aren’t paid for, it said. Streaming platforms are missing out on an estimated $2.3 billion in subscription feeds from those who don’t use their own accounts but would pay for one if they had to, it said. The most borrowed accounts this year are HBO Max and Disney+ at 16% of streamers. Peacock and Paramount+, the newest platforms in the Cordcutting.com analysis, are being borrowed as much as Amazon Prime, it said. Nine in 10 U.S. adults use streaming services, about steady from the 2021 analysis. Some 92% of streamers use Netflix, followed by Amazon Prime at 76%, Hulu (66%), Disney+ (54%), HBO Max (45%), Peacock (36%) and Paramount+ (29%). About 11% of Netflix streamers borrowed other accounts, down from 14% last year, after Netflix began sending security messages about account sharing outside the home, said Cordcutter. Cost is a top reason for sharing logins, it said, saying the cheapest tiers of the seven services included in the study have a combined monthly fee of $54. The 2022 survey was fielded among 790 U.S. adults.

Cincinnati Bell's retransmission consent complaint against Cox Media and one of its local TV stations (see 2204050005) is "patently false" in alleging Cox is demanding it be paid for all broadband-only subscribers, Cox said Tuesday. It said Cincinnati Bell is using "blatant theatrics ... to create business leverage through the regulatory process" rather than actually negotiate.

A Nov. 19 complaint alleging Amazon dupes the public by purporting to sell consumers digital movies it owns when it only licenses them temporarily from content owners was transferred Wednesday to U.S. District Court in Seattle and assigned a new docket (2:22-cv-446, in Pacer). The complaint, which seeks class-action status, was originally filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan because lead plaintiff Mary Baron is a Bronx resident. Amazon and the plaintiffs mutually agreed to transfer the case to Seattle, where Amazon is headquartered, and where it was assigned to U.S. District Judge John Coughenour, the docket shows. When Amazon’s licensing agreement with the content owner terminates for whatever reason, Amazon is required to pull the movie from a consumer’s “purchased folder,” which it does “without prior warning, and without providing any type of refund or remuneration,” alleged the complaint. Amazon hasn't filed an answer in the case, and didn’t respond to questions Wednesday seeking comment.

Cox Media's WHIO-TV Dayton, Ohio, by demanding Cincinnati Bell's altafiber pay a per-subscriber retransmission consent fee even for broadband-only subs, will halt or scale back construction of a fiber-to-the-home system to 135,000 Dayton households, altafiber said in a docket 12-1 retransmission consent complaint posted Tuesday. Retrans consent fees on broadband subscribers who aren't getting a retransmission forecloses competition and puts altafiber "at a significant competitive disadvantage" as it tries to enter a new market, since that fee isn't being asked of incumbent providers, it said. Cox Media didn't comment.

Entertainment audiences' consumption patterns are becoming fixed, with a big focus on streaming, but new consumption patterns for news are just starting to form, which is why NBCUniversal is investing heavily in news streaming platforms and product, NBCU News Group Chairman Cesar Conde said Tuesday at an Axios event. Comcast's NBCU and other content producers are moving increasingly to a digital model of distributing content from talent, brands and franchises via all their various platforms, he said. He said MSNBC commentator Rachel Maddow is an example of the company's omnichannel digital strategy, with her becoming part of its streaming platforms, podcast and long-form documentaries, he said. "We are doing that with a lot of talent," he said, citing CNBC host Jim Cramer. He predicted increasing use of subscription services by NBCU and other media outlets, and said MSNBC content will be a paywalled part of its Peacock streaming service, though free news options will remain. He said there's a large hunger for news in the Spanish-language space and Telemundo will invest in alternative platforms. General Motors CEO Mary Barra predicted personal autonomous vehicles will be available as early as 2025. Northrop Grumman CEO Kathy Warden said the U.S. and allies are aware of the need for space norms, and space policies to promote them are under discussion by the White House, but there likely won't be big developments this year. Warden also discussed work with AT&T on a 5G-based DOD data network (see 2204050051).