Warner Bros. Discovery's direct-to-consumer business was "roughly breakeven" in Q2 and should reach profitability this year, David Zaslav said Thursday as the company announced Q2 results. Chief Financial Officer Gunnar Wiedenfels said D2C advertising is "a massive opportunity." Customer churn of several hundred thousand due to overlapping HBO Max and Discovery+ subscribers was lower than expected, said Wiedenfels. Zaslav said the company had "some good success" in international markets layering sports into streaming, which could guide its U.S. plans for its sports rights. The company said it had "modest cash savings" of around $100 million during the quarter due to the actors' and writers' strikes. Wiedenfels said the company is assuming an end to the strikes early next month.

YouTube TV is now available throughout WideOpenWest's footprint as its live TV offering, the cable company said Wednesday. WOW said this spring it was dropping its traditional video service for the virtual MVPD service (see 2305150027).

The CW Network and Hearst signed an extended and expanded network affiliation agreement, The CW said Tuesday. Under the multiyear agreement, Hearst will continue carrying CW programming in six markets, and launch The CW on Hearst's KQCA Stockton, California, Sept. 1.

The FCC should classify streaming services as MVPDs to prevent discrimination in their carriage of local TV stations, said One Ministries in an ex parte filing posted in docket 14-261 Friday. Streaming services should be treated similarly to satellite MVPDs such as Dish “where if the provider chooses to offer local-into-local service ... it is required to provide subscribers with all the local broadcast TV signals that are assigned to that [designated market area] DMA, as long as they ask to be carried on the system and are otherwise eligible,” One Ministries said. The broadcaster said it had found that local full-power stations that aren’t carried by streamers “are more likely to have non English programming, be a local independent station, or be a religious station.”

Changes to the FCC’s current definition of an MVPD to include streaming services “would create an inefficient market and decrease the number of local stations” carried by such services, said streaming service FuboTV in a call with FCC Media Bureau staff last week, according to an ex parte filing posted in docket 14-261 Monday. In the years since the FCC last sought comment in that docket ”competition and consumer access to local stations has increased through the carriage of such local stations by vMVPDs,” FuboTV said. Broadcasters and lawmakers pushed the agency to refresh the record on classifying streaming services as MVPDs (see 2307180058).

The FCC's all-in pricing proposal for cable and direct broadcast satellite providers (see 2306200042) should expand and draw a similar line against bundled and related service fees such as for internet and voice service, false advertising consumer advocacy group Truth in Advertising said Monday in 23-203. Unexpected fees being levied by cable and DBS providers "are a serious, widespread and insidious problem," it said.

A blackout of five Nexstar broadcast channels and one cable network on Hawaiian Telcom's channel lineup is ending as the two reached a multiyear distribution agreement, HT said last week. Despite the agreement, HT "will not drop our complaint at the FCC asserting that Nexstar violated federal law with its negotiating tactics, including using our customers as pawns," said Filifotu Vaai, vice president-consumer product sales.

The FCC should disregard DirecTV’s “specious filing” seeking “to bootstrap a vMVPD copyright licensing issue into the retransmission consent regime,” said Nexstar in an ex parte letter posted Friday to virtual MVPD proceeding docket 14-261. A DirecTV filing Tuesday (see 2307180058) argued Nexstar’s conduct in an ongoing retrans dispute with DirecTV showed the FCC shouldn’t revisit the streaming issue. In a separate ex parte filing Friday, NAB told an aide to Commissioner Geoffrey Starks that an FCC refresh of the virtual MVPD docket would gather far more information “about vMVPDs’ growth and impact on the video marketplace and on local television viewers” than the 2014 NPRM did when streaming was in “its infancy.” The satellite company “seeks to embroil the Commission in a private dispute concerning The CW’s copyrights” and use the docket as “a vehicle in its continuing campaign to disparage Nexstar,” the broadcaster filing said. A blackout of the Nexstar-owned CW network against DirecTV by multiple broadcasters stems from the direct broadcast satellite company carrying the network for several months without permission from Nexstar, said Nexstar. “That is a matter of copyright law, and any remedies related to DIRECTV’s infringement would need to be addressed in the appropriate judicial venue. DIRECTV is not the wronged party here -- it is the lawbreaker,” Nexstar said. “Dragging that copyright dispute into other proceedings is the same tactic DIRECTV is employing in other venues,” Nexstar said. DirecTV is pursuing an antitrust complaint against Nexstar in U.S. District Court for Southern New York in Manhattan (see 2307140034) and the two companies are embroiled in further retrans litigation in front of the New York Supreme Court. Dragging unrelated proceedings into the retrans dispute is “an abuse of process,” Nexstar said. "Nexstar’s behavior underscores the widely adopted position that the Commission should not extend the retransmission consent regime to online providers," emailed a DirecTV spokesperson. "DIRECTV was carrying those CWs through our valid agreement with that station group, an agreement that pre-dated Nexstar’s acquisition of the national CW network."

The four network affiliate associations are backing a new advocacy group to push the FCC and lawmakers to classify streaming services as MVPDs, said a news release and new website Tuesday from a newly formed coalition. “The Coalition for Local News is dedicated to the belief that local news is essential to the well-being of local communities across the nation and is a vital pillar of American democracy,” said the release, which discusses the disparity between retransmission consent rules for MVPDs versus streaming services. "The market has evolved dramatically and it's time for lawmakers and regulators to act to protect local broadcast news," the release said. The affiliate groups and other broadcasters -- with the support of some lawmakers -- have long called for the FCC to reopen a 2014 proceeding on classifying streaming services as MVPDs (see 2306230062). The FCC’s recent announcement it will refresh the record on carriage rules (see 2307120072) is “an acknowledgment of the need to modernize video regulations in light of a changing marketplace,” the release said. The coalition “will be engaged in an array of advocacy efforts, including working with groups that recognize the vital importance of local news and urging them to get involved in this debate,” the release said. DirecTV pushed back on calls to reopen the virtual MVPD proceeding in an ex parte filing posted Tuesday in docket 14-261. DirecTV is in the midst of a transmission consent dispute with Nexstar, and in the filing condemned the broadcaster for blacking out CW Network programming for DirecTV on both its own and Sinclair-owned stations. “Nexstar’s conduct shows that affiliates’ attempt to regulate online providers has never really been about 'preserving local broadcasting' or anything else of the sort," DirecTV said. “Affiliates simply want the government to give them leverage against the networks.” The “very last thing anybody should want to do is extend today’s dysfunctional retransmission consent market -- one whose dysfunction is caused largely by Nexstar -- into the online marketplace,” DirecTV said. "Nexstar is and always has been in full compliance with FCC regulations, and the allegations raised by DIRECTV in today’s filing are without merit," said a Nexstar spokesperson.

Nexstar last week sprung new issues on Hawaiian Telcom after the two had resolved retransmission consent issues that led to a blackout and subsequent filing of a bad faith negotiation complaint earlier this month (see 2307060017), HT said Tuesday in docket 23-228 in an amended retrans complaint. Nexstar's new demands were that HT withdraw its initial complaint and waive the right to file future actions against Nexstar, HT said. "Nexstar’s continued assertion of these requirements is inconsistent with its obligation to negotiate in good faith," HT said, urging FCC action to end the blackout of Nexstar channels on HT's channel lineup. "No one would seriously suggest that a person who robs a bank did not commit a crime because they returned the money after being charged but before being found guilty at trial," it said. Nexstar didn't comment.