About 17 percent of U.S. broadband homes are likely to subscribe to HBO’s Go OTT service, said Parks Associates research. Nine in 10 of likely subscribers currently subscribe to a pay-TV service and half would cancel their current service after subscribing to HBO’s streaming service, Parks said. The percentage of subscribers interested in over-the-top video services is “trending upward,” and more industry players are planning to launch their own OTT services, said Brett Sappington, research director, citing Dish Network’s Sling TV OTT service announced at CES (see 1501050037), which includes sports programming from channels including ESPN, TBS and TNT. Sports programming could be a major incentive for consumers to switch to stand-alone OTT services “as sports is one of the primary reasons consumers elect to keep pay-TV services,” said Sappington. He said Rogers Communications and Shaw Communications in Canada unveiled their shomi online video service in November, while in Europe, players are bringing OTT services as a hedge against Netflix’s arrival into their markets. Sappington called 2015 “the year of OTT.”

No set of conditions can alleviate the harms of the Comcast/Time Warner Cable deal, representatives of the companies that make up the Stop Mega Comcast Coalition said in meetings last week with FCC Commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Ajit Pai, according to an ex parte filing. The coalition is made up of 27 companies, associations and public interest organizations, including Dish Network, NTCA, Public Knowledge and Writers Guild of America, West. “A combined Comcast/TWC would have unprecedented power as the gatekeeper to more than half of the high-speed broadband homes in the nation,” the coalition told the commissioners.

Rule changes that would direct consumers to contact video programmers about problems with closed captioning would lead to “confusion and delay,” QVC said in a comment posted in docket 05-231 Tuesday. Video programming distributors (VPDs), not programmers, have “a direct relationship” with their subscribers, QVC said. Programmers don’t have access to VPD equipment information and can’t determine if a caption problem is caused by a pass-through of captions or by the VPD equipment, QVC said. Since programmers would need to know what VPD the consumer subscribes to and the precise equipment used, dealing with caption issues through programmers would be time consuming, QVC said. A VPD dealing with the same issue would have the required information at its fingertips, QVC said. Programmers shouldn't be required to file contact information with the commission or make such information public in connection with closed captioning issues, QVC said.

While short-form video and user-generated content have gone viral among users and companies, TV and movies remain key players in the online video market, said an ABI Research news release Friday. The industry research firm estimated that by 2019, short-form video revenue will be about $13 billion and the online video market as a whole will reach about $56 billion. Short-form video’s share of the market isn't growing as quickly as other segments, said analyst Michael Inouye in an email. Its popularity leaves “less room for it to grow, unless you expect customers to forgo watching TV shows and movies and simply watch shorts, advertisements and user-generated content, which we don’t believe will happen,” he said. But he said viral videos and ad campaigns won’t be going away. The lines between pay TV and over-the-top video will continue blurring, Inouye said. “Short-form video has already become part of the premium content market,” with viral ads and TV shows producing “webisodes” or behind-the-scenes shorts, he said. Customers still watch TV shows and movies, but increasingly through digital distribution, including TV Everywhere, OTT services and electronic sell-through, he said. Original programming remains a big driver for TV and movies, and long-form videos generate significantly higher revenue per view, he said. “A longer video allows for more advertisements per engagement. Advertising on streamed episodes of a popular TV show is more predictable than signing with a multi-channel network or a particular YouTube celebrity.”

Twitch created an online library of “free-to-use” music, it said in a news release. The music is intended for Twitch users creating their own videos, it said Thursday. The Twitch Music Library has more than 500 songs “provided by established and burgeoning labels,” Twitch said. “Twitch will be continually adding to this library as more music industry partners become part of the system.” The tracks in the library “will not be flagged by the audio recognition system implemented in 2014 to protect audio copyright holders,” Twitch said. Along with the library, Twitch has created a new video category for user-created and -performed music, said the company.

Comments on the FCC rulemaking on classifying some online video distributors as multichannel video programming distributors are due Feb. 17, replies March 2, the Media Bureau said in a public notice Thursday.

Synacor and Verizon partnered to offer a “seamless” start page and search feature to FiOS customers using Verizon's TV Everywhere offering, Synacor said in a news release Wednesday. It said the partnership expands FiOS viewers' search functions and integrates watching Verizon's content on a TV with watching it on a mobile device.

Cox Communications and Gray Television reached a retransmission consent deal, and the broadcaster's programming returned to the operator, the cable company said in a news release Sunday. The blackout lasted six days and affected customers in Florida, Kansas and Nebraska. Cox's agreement with Gray TV expired Jan. 6.

The FCC extended the deadlines for comments on its incentive auction rulemaking to allow commenters to incorporate “lessons learned” from the AWS-3 auction, said a public notice released Wednesday. Comment deadlines are extended to Feb. 13, and replies to March 13, the notice said. The extension was requested by CEA, CTIA and TIA. Commissioner Ajit Pai's Chief of Staff Matthew Berry said the deadline extension is an “example of how the Commission is being run in a partisan manner.” Pai asked for an extension of the comment deadline before the commission vote on the item but was “told 'no' in no uncertain terms,” Berry said. “This is just more evidence that the Chairman's office dismisses good ideas out of hand simply because they are offered by Republicans.” Chairman Tom Wheeler's office declined to comment.

A series of webinars on the details of the incentive auction has been rescheduled, the FCC Incentive Auction Task Force and Wireless Bureau said in a public notice Wednesday. The webinar on the forward auction phase will be Jan. 15 at 10:30 a.m., the webinar on the reverse auction phase will be Jan. 20 at 10:30 a.m., and the webinar on the integration of the two phases of the incentive auction will be Jan. 23 at 10:30 a.m. “Additional details about the webinars, including how interested parties can attend, will be released soon,” the PN said.