RCN launched a free app, RCN2Go, that allows customers to watch on-demand and live video content via their Android devices, it said Thursday. The app follows a similar RCN iOS app for watching on Apple devices, RCN said.

Pandora said Wednesday that its all-time royalties payments total more than $1.5 billion, which it called a “major milestone for ad-supported music streaming." The milestone shows Pandora is “achieving significant momentum,” CEO Brian McAndrews said in a news release. “It took us nearly nine years to generate the first billion dollars in royalties, and just over a year to increase that total by 50 percent. We are partnering with music makers to fully tap into Pandora's people, data and technology to unleash the music industry's full potential.” Pandora said the rise in royalty payments stems from its combined income from ad-supported and subscriber-supported versions of its streaming service.

Many people are “betting on television over the Internet, and we’re betting on television over the Internet,” Starz CEO Chris Albrecht told a Goldman Sachs investor conference in New York when asked about his company’s ambitions in over-the-top video delivery. “We think the premium channels -- Starz being one of only a few -- are really well positioned to thrive in that changing landscape,” Albrecht said. “We see more opportunities than we see challenges.” But it’s unlikely Starz would introduce a Netflix-style service anytime soon, he said. “I don’t really see in any near future that I can foresee a direct-to-consumer product” from Starz, he said. “To just go out and put together a marketing plan to start to sell a stand-alone video service” is very expensive, he said. “Netflix built it on the back of their DVD business, and I don’t know what would have happened had they just gone out and licensed a ton of rights” to launch a stand-alone OTT service cold, he said.

Disney is perhaps the only cable network that wouldn't suffer hugely as purely an over-the-top business, Citi said in a report Thursday. "In a pure OTT world, most firms would see their equity value fall." The rates of decline vary widely in Citi's analysis, from a 58 percent decline in Viacom's equity; to a 10-25 percent drop for Comcast, Fox, Scripps and Time Warner; to a less-than-10 percent drop for CBS. "Virtually every media firm will have difficulty generating as much revenue as they do today by shifting to a la carte," Citi said. However, Disney would see its equity up about 10 percent "even with $1.5 billion in incremental OTT costs," Citi said. The Citi analysis used a model plotting demand curves for various channels, with ESPN topping the list for Disney. Under that same model, Citi said, NBC, USA and SyFy are Comcast's most popular channels, while HBO and TNT have the highest modeled demand at Time Warner, Fox News is tops at 21st Century Fox, Nick and TV Land win out at Viacom, Discovery Channel and Animal Planet at Discovery, and HGTV and Food at Scripps. The Citi model then focused on finding the profit-maximizing retail price for each of those channels. And then with those estimates, Citi was able to compare current revenue with theoretical a la carte revenue; operating as online video distributors Disney would generate the most revenue at $12.2 billion, and do better than it does today, while most other content companies would be worse off financially -- though Discovery would be near parity, Citi said. "We expect most media companies to preserve the status quo and [perhaps] limit the content they sell" to subscription VOD providers, Citi said. Disney hasn't made that switch, likely because it would be then competing against a number of companies that also distribute ESPN, Disney Channel and ABC; it would not be able to raise affiliate fees at the same rate; and costs of selling direct to consumers would go up, such as marketing and billing expenses, Citi said. "But if Disney ever faced an existential crisis, investors can be fairly certain ... that each of these potential hurdles could be overcome."

The full FCC unanimously rejected two petitions for reconsideration filed by the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) against Media Bureau decisions that led to the approval of online radio service Pandora’s buy of KXMZ(FM) Box Elder, South Dakota (see 1506020035), said a recon order approved Thursday as part of the commission’s consent agenda. “None of ASCAP’s arguments on the merits warrants reconsideration or review of the Bureau’s order,” the FCC said. ASCAP appealed both a declaratory ruling that allowed Pandora to buy the station without establishing that it was less than 25 percent foreign owned, and the FCC approval of the transfer of license. The buy of KXMZ was intended to allow Pandora to qualify for music rights at the same rates enjoyed by broadcasters, and that is why ASCAP objected to the rulings. The FCC upheld the bureau’s decision that ASCAP doesn’t have the standing to object to Pandora’s purchase of the station, and rejected ASCAP's argument that the declaratory ruling on foreign ownership hadn’t considered the public interest ramifications of allowing Pandora to buy the station. “The future of the collective music licensing system is not a relevant public interest factor” to the FCC’s analysis of Pandora as a prospective licensee, the order said, and, “in any case, is a question that is more appropriately resolved by Congress, the courts, and government agencies with expertise in this area."

Government involvement in the set-top box market "is backward looking and puts undue faith in industrial planning over naturally occurring innovation," NCTA CEO Michael Powell said in a counterpoint editorial Monday in USA Today. Powell's piece was in response to an editorial in USA Today backing FCC intervention in the set-top box market. "Nothing prevents any company from making and selling a cable box," Powell wrote. "Buying a cable box is just not that compelling for most consumers." Meanwhile, Powell said, the set-top is becoming somewhat superfluous as pay-TV companies make services available through apps. "Just last week, Apple CEO Tim Cook declared, 'The future of TV is apps.' And several cable providers offer Netflix on the same box with cable content," Powell said.

Comcast Wholesale is getting into live streaming offerings as it unveiled its Live Linear Streaming service Thursday at the IBC show in Amsterdam. The service includes such offerings as seamless content ingest, comprehensive encoding and packaging, the Platform’s mpx video management system, playback, and delivery through a number content delivery networks, including Comcast's, the company said.

Netflix will launch in Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan early next year, after starting service in Japan earlier this month, it said Tuesday. The video service said it plans to finish a global rollout by the end of 2016.

Tagging the date to Apple’s new product news, Jumptuit TV planned live demonstrations Wednesday of its multiplatform cloud service on Sony 4K smart TVs at CTIA Super Mobility Wednesday in Las Vegas. “The Jumptuit TV software cloud solution at CTIA Super Mobility defines a new open era of multiplatform data connectivity in contrast with proprietary smart devices being unveiled in San Francisco later today,” said the company. The multiplatform service is designed for consumers whose devices span several platforms including Android, iOS, OS X and Windows along with cloud services including Amazon Cloud Drive, Dropbox, Google Driver and Microsoft OneDrive, it said. Jumptuit links a smart TV with Android, iOS and Windows mobile devices and cloud service accounts to make media accessible on the big screen, it said. Jumptuit TV is initially available as a native Android Lollipop App on 2015 Philips, Sharp, Sony and Vizio smart TVs through the Google Play Store, said Jumptuit. Owners of other smart TVs can install the Jumptuit TV app on a set-top box such as the Google Nexus player, Jumptuit said.

Given what it sees as the booming and competitive over-the-top market, the case for expanding the multichannel video programming distributor (MVPD) umbrella to cover some forms of OTT services is questionable, Amazon said in an FCC ex parte filing posted Wednesday in docket 14-261. "The rules proposed by the commission would inhibit innovation by imposing on over the top services regulatory burdens created long ago that are neither relevant to nor tailored to address this new vibrant industry, without any of the competitive benefits [including the attendant statutory copyright licensing] that were envisioned when the rules were originally drafted decades ago." The filing recapped meetings between such Amazon executives as General Counsel David Zapolsky and Public Policy Director Brian Huseman with Commissioners Mike O'Rielly and Ajit Pai. Amazon said it warned in those meetings of unintended consequences from an expanded definition of MVPD, such as its Twitch.tv live streaming videogaming service being subsequently considered an MVPD. The resulting regulatory burdens would "distort a new and alternative video segment that is growing and flourishing without any government intervention," Amazon said. In a separate ex parte filing in docket 14-261 posted Tuesday, NATOA said cable operators offering online video services to ISP customers should be subject to the same franchise fees and public interest obligations they would otherwise be for any IP cable service. In the filing reporting on a phone conversation between NATOA General Counsel Stephen Traylor and Media Bureau Deputy Chief Michelle Carey, NATOA said a line also should be drawn between delivery of online video services over what it called "the 'public' Internet rather than via the providers' own transmission path."