Dish Network's application for review of an FCC Media Bureau order (see 1704200045) is procedurally defective since it's not a party in the proceeding, and is trying for "bootstrap party status" since the bureau sent it a letter, OpticalTel said in an opposition Friday in docket 14-258. Dish failed to show it was aggrieved by the bureau's March reconsideration order, OpticalTel said. It dismissed Dish's argument it's aggrieved by the order since it could be read as saying direct broadcast satellite operators like Dish always hold themselves as MVPDs, with OpticalTel saying the order doesn't do that. OpticalTel said Dish's new factual and legal arguments are meritless. The DBS provider didn't comment Friday. The order followed an OpticalTel petition for reconsideration of a 2016 order that said OpticalTel had retransmitted a Florida broadcaster's signal without retransmission consent.

U.S. consumer spending on home entertainment content inched up by 1.9 percent in Q1 to $4.68 billion, the Digital Entertainment Group reported Thursday. Subscription streaming rose 26 percent to $1.79 billion, DEG said. Overall spending on digital delivery jumped 16 percent to $2.93 billion, it said.

Q1 is usually strong for pay TV, but not this year, with subscriber numbers "suggest[ing] a litany of worst-evers" as cord-cutting is coming in full force, MoffettNathanson analyst Craig Moffett wrote investors Wednesday. Citing publicly traded MVPDs that have reported results, he said linear video subscriber losses are setting a new record for the rate of decline and for acceleration in rate of decline. Moffett said even adding in virtual MVPD subscribers, subscriber growth still declined. The cumulative number of households not subscribing to pay TV "is much too big to ignore, and it's only getting bigger," the analyst said, saying password sharing is potentially one large issue. "Perhaps the most obvious takeaway of all is that the [virtual MVPD] business looks like a truly awful one ... if the goal is to, say, make money," said the note. Time will tell which approach to dealing with declining video subscriber numbers -- Dish Network's or Charter Communications' -- will win out, said nScreenMedia analyst Colin Dixon in a blog post Tuesday. The two approaches are markedly different, he said, with Dish hoping to recapture cord-cutters through its cheaper, lower-margin Sling TV and Charter banking on exclusive content to slow the decline. "The attitude to change" is at the heart of the difference between the two, he said. Charter sees the decline as part of a long-term but orderly decline in MVPD subscribers, while Dish -- seeing the same trend -- "also sees an opportunity to take advantage of the change, and maybe even drive it," he said. The companies reported Q1 subscriber and other results this week (see 1705020053 and 1705010041).

Among Generation Z -- born between 1996 and 2011 -- 71 percent of entertainment consumption is in the form video streaming, with YouTube the most popular streaming site, followed by Netflix, live TV and then on-demand TV, streaming media company Awesomeness reported Monday. Seventy-nine percent of teens have a YouTube account. The report was based on surveys of 1,504 teens.

SiriusXM CEO Jim Meyer used his company’s quarterly earnings call Thursday to announce the acquisition of Automatic Labs, a supplier of connected vehicle products and services for consumers and businesses. SiriusXM’s 10-Q report filed Thursday at the SEC said Automatic was acquired April 18 for about $115 million cash. Automatic’s connected car adapter will enable SiriusXM “to target the vast majority of cars on the road today that have no connectivity,” Meyers said. “We think Automatic is a great fit with SiriusXM and furthers our capabilities in connected vehicles, as we open up new business opportunities in this space.”

Comcast continues to look into offering its Xfinity Mobile service outside its footprint, but the mobile service won't go beyond the footprint anytime soon, CEO Brian Roberts said. The company hasn't found a business model that works beyond the footprint, since its competitive advantage is in bundling mobile with other services, he told analysts during an earnings call Thursday. The company didn't take questions about spectrum or the broadcast incentive auction, in which it spent $1.7 billion for 73 licenses (see 1704130056). In a note to investors, MoffettNathanson analyst Craig Moffett said despite speculation Comcast's relatively slim spectrum buy was a sign it plans to buy a wireless operator, it very likely points to Comcast knowing it needs to get heavily into mobile wireless but not seeing an attractive takeover target in the near future. He also said a Comcast-Charter Communications deal is unlikely given the antitrust hurdles it would face and the risk it raises of prompting further regulation of the broadband marketplace. Asked during the call about the competitive threat of 5G, Comcast Cable CEO Dave Watson said, "It's early," especially given the time it will take 5G to scale, so it doesn't yet pose a significant threat. He also said Comcast is doing fixed and mobile 5G testing. Pointing to NBC being the top-rated prime-time network by a wider margin than it has enjoyed in more than a decade, plus next year's Super Bowl and Winter Olympics, NBCUniversal CEO Stephen Burke said he expects that to translate into notable leverage going into the ad sales upfronts. He said the company already is in discussions with big ad-buying groups. Roberts also said May will bring the launch of Comcast's cloud-based home networking Wi-Fi gateway, xFi.

The first live 4K stream from space, shown Wednesday at the NAB Show and online, appeared to go off without any hitches, but with some limitations due to the unique nature of the broadcast. There was a several-second delay among transmissions from the keynote room at the show and U.S. astronauts aboard the International Space Station. To us, the quality of the picture appeared better on our laptop via the re-stream at the show's website than on the very large screen showing the stream to the audience. The feed from about 250 miles above Earth was to have been encoded with Amazon Web Services Elemental software on board the space station and at the Johnson Space Center, said a previous NAB news release. Amazon didn't reply to our queries for comment. "The broadcast in the session room utilized the most state-of-art 4K technology," an NAB spokeswoman emailed us. "I'm sure the image was also splendid on small screens." The crowd in Las Vegas reacted with obvious pleasure during the stream, which featured astronauts Jack Fischer and Peggy Whitson playing table tennis with what appeared to have been water, their mic turning around in the air. "Peggy, Jack, I don’t know if you are hearing the oohs and ahs here," said Sam Blackman, CEO of Elemental Technologies, who did a Q&A with them. "This has been one of the most remarkable exchanges I’ve ever had." With Ultra HD/4K, astronauts can "get high resolution, higher frame rates, to capture different science for some of our experiments, ultra slow motion for some of the effects that are slow-lived yet are very important," said Fischer. "Even more important ... is the inspirational aspect."

The international Screen-Free Week -- featuring a variety of school, library and community events aimed at helping people eschew entertainment screen media -- will be Monday through May 7, said organizer Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC) in a news release Tuesday. "It’s time to move beyond questions of whether screen media is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ and acknowledge a simple truth: far too many children -- and adults -- are spending far too much time with screens,” said CCFC Executive Director Josh Golin.

Sling TV added Apple TV to the device compatibility roster for its First Look cloud DVR service, joining Roku and Android devices and PCs, it said in a Monday blog post. Customers with a Sling TV-supported Apple TV can add 50 hours of cloud DVR service to their subscription for $5 per month, said Chief Product Officer Ben Weinberger, and additional device support will be announced in coming weeks. The service allows users to record Sling TV content and watch it later, but functionality isn’t available on all channels. Subscribers can record multiple programs simultaneously, said Weinberger. Recordings won’t expire for subscribers who maintain a current account, but the service will delete older recordings as necessary to make room for new ones, he said.

The percentage of consumers who prefer to watch television shows on a TV plunged from 52 percent to 23 percent in 2016, said a global Accenture report Monday, tracking a four-year trend. Consumers in 26 countries indicated a preference for watching television shows on non-TV devices, with 42 percent saying they would rather view TV shows on a PC, up from 32 percent the prior year, and 13 percent said they prefer watching shows on a smartphone, up from 10 percent, said the study. In 2014, two-thirds of consumers preferred watching shows on a TV, it said. Just 19 percent of consumers prefer to watch sports on a TV, down from 38 percent in the 2015 survey, said the report. Driving the rapid shift in consumer preferences is the “growing convenience, availability and quality of more personalized and compelling content on laptop and desktop personal computers and smartphones,” said analyst Gavin Mann. The report showed a particularly steep decline in India, where consumers preferring to watch programs on TV sets fell from 47 percent to 10 percent. In the U.S., the number dropped from 59 percent to 25 percent, it said. The online survey was done between October and November with about 26,000 consumers ages 14 to 55 and over.