U.S. consumer spending on home entertainment content rose only 0.23 percent in Q1 to $4.6 billion from the year-ago quarter as double-digit increases in electronic sell-through and subscription streaming helped negate a double-digit decline in sell-through of packaged goods, the Digital Entertainment Group said Wednesday. Subscription VOD was Q1's big winner, rising 22.9 percent to $1.14 billion, while electronic sell-through jumped 22.3 percent to $430.9 million, DEG said. “Consumers electronically purchased significantly more catalog and family films, underscoring their preference for enjoying and collecting filmed entertainment digitally,” DEG said. Sell-through of physical media declined 13.3 percent to $1.58 billion, DEG said, though it accentuated the finding that Blu-ray players, including set-tops and game consoles, are installed in more than 90 million U.S. homes. It said HDTV penetration has grown to nearly 105 million U.S. homes. Wednesday's release of DEG’s report on the rapid rise of SVOD consumer spending in Q1 happened to coincide with Hulu's announcement Wednesday that within the first 90 days of 2015, total streams on its service increased 77 percent over the year-ago period. Viewers year to date have streamed more than 700 million hours of premium content on Hulu, it said. On average, each Hulu viewer is watching at least 30 percent more content on the service than a year ago, it said. “Every category of measurement including hours watched and hours streamed is up dramatically year over year,” Hulu CEO Mike Hopkins said in a statement.

Spotify is now available on Play-Fi wireless music systems, but multiroom playback via Android and iOS apps won’t be available until later in the year, said DTS Tuesday. Dannie Lau, general manager-Play-Fi, called Spotify a “significant addition” to Play-Fi’s roster of streaming music services, which includes Pandora, SiriusXM and Songza. Spotify Connect support for Play-Fi will let Spotify Premium subscribers see all connected Play-Fi-enabled speakers from within the Spotify app, and users will be able to launch and stream music from the app by tapping a Play-Fi speaker, said DTS. At launch, DTS partner products from Definitive Technology, Phorus, Polk Audio and Wren will support streaming from Spotify Premium accounts to any one Play-Fi speaker on a Wi-Fi network using Spotify Connect, with multiroom playback of Spotify via Android and iOS apps coming later this year, said DTS. The $14.95 Play-Fi HD Windows app, meanwhile, lets listeners listen to Spotify in multiple rooms on multiple speakers, the company said.

The “attention” that has ensued as new competitors such as HBO Now and Sony Vue enter the over-the-top space “is only creating a bigger ecosystem, drawing more and more people into thinking, ‘Hey I’ve got to check that out and try this Internet TV thing,'” Netflix CEO Reed Hastings said Wednesday in the company’s quarterly online interview. Though “linear TV” has had an “amazing 50-year run,” Internet TV is starting to grow now, and “clearly over the next 20 years Internet TV is going to replace linear TV,” Hastings said. “And so I think everyone is scrambling to figure out how do they do great apps.” The ecosystem “will just keep getting built up and so it's a transition into figuring out the Internet,” Hastings said. “And the way people do that is to get involved with us, with our competitors, to try to start to learn what are the new patterns and modalities because Internet TV is the way that people will consume video in the future.” Netflix is “super-happy right where we are” on its pricing plans relative to the new competition, Hastings aid. “We’ve got a great mix of pricing plans and options for those who get a new 4K television and they are excited about 4K content. We are the leading service in the world for 4K and that plan is a little more expensive at $11.99. So as more 4K TV is sold, we will get people to upgrade to the $11.99 plan.” Of the company’s “total pricing structure,” Hastings said: “We couldn't be happier with the way it creates an incredible value for the consumers. It feels fair to them and it's propelling our growth.” Netflix has seen smart TVs “just continuing to grow and grow in usage and sales,” Hastings said. “Virtually every new TV sold now is a smart TV, at least at the middle and high-end, and it's natural for people to use. Now, do they also watch on tablets? Yes, and on phones. So really all those categories are experiencing absolute hours growth, but on a percentage basis, smart TV is one of our fastest-growing categories.” Netflix is “very encouraged” with the “general consumer perspective” at the FCC that “broadband access is so important that it is a utility,” Hastings said, of the commission's decision reclassifying broadband as a Communications Act Title II service. “It is like power distribution where it's a natural monopoly in the last mile. There should be one fiber or one cable going to a home with super high speed and that's the architecture of the future. So everything around it being a utility is great for Internet companies like ourselves and it's great for consumers.”

Dish expanded delivery of Netflix to its Joey clients, including Joey, Super Joey and Wireless Joey, Dish said in a news release Tuesday. Dish also added a Vevo app to its Hopper platform, it said. Netflix is available on Hopper's accompanying Joey units for second-, third- and fourth-room viewing, it said. Dish launched a Netflix app on its second-generation Hopper digital video recorder in December.

Amazon told customers in an email Tuesday that the Fire TV Stick received an automatic software update with new features based on customer feedback. The update enables users to connect to Wi-Fi networks at “most major hotels” and some universities with captive portal support, allowing users to take along favorite movies, TV shows and games and to connect to Wi-Fi networks that require Web authentication, Amazon said. The update added IMDb’s X-Ray for Movies & TV feature that brings up information on TV allowing users to identify actors and songs in a current scene, and to read actor bios by clicking the Up button on the Fire TV Stick remote, Amazon said. Amazon Prime members can play Prime Music playlists from the Fire TV Stick as part of the update, it said. A new feature lets parents enter a personal identification number to confirm a purchase without kids being able to see the code, and a new shortcut enables display mirroring mode with the press and hold of the Home button, Amazon said.

CBS reached agreement with the CBS affiliate board for its digital subscription service, All Access, the network said Thursday. In a news release, CBS said it has secured early deals with a number of affiliate partners, including Dispatch, Graham Media, Gray, Hearst, Lilly Broadcasting, Meredith, Morgan Murphy, Morris Network, Neuhoff Media, Nexstar, Raycom and Withers, with more expected. The live linear feeds in many of the 12 affiliate groups' markets will begin rolling out this month, CBS said. The new option is a VOD and Nielsen-measured live streaming service, CBS said. It said the ability to live stream local CBS stations through CBS All Access is provided by Syncbak, in which CBS has a minority investment.

Pandora said it began offering a digital mixtape of Rolling Stones songs in the lead-up to the band’s upcoming “ZIP Code” tour, which begins May 24. The digital mixtape’s release coincided with a joint Pandora-AEG Live’s Concerts West presale Thursday of the Rolling Stones tour, four days before the Monday start of the tour’s general sale. Pandora said Thursday it will also release on Monday an interview of the Rolling Stones conducted by journalist Anthony DeCurtis. A preview of the interview is available on Pandora’s blog.

Sling TV added HBO to its programming for $15 a month, Sling TV said in a news release Thursday. Subscribers to Sling TV's Best of Live TV core package and select Sling International programming packages can now watch HBO, it said. HBO's main live channel, a VOD library and three streams of HBO are available for Sling TV customers, it said.

HBO Now is available to Apple and Optimum Online subscribers, giving audiences instant access to HBO’s programming, Time Warner Inc. said in a Tuesday news release. HBO Now is available directly through Apple or Cablevision's Optimum Online broadband service for a monthly subscription of $14.99. Customers who sign up this month for HBO Now will get a 30-day introductory free trial period. Similar to HBO Go, HBO Now will offer more than 2,000 titles online, including current series such as Game of Thrones, True Detective, Silicon Valley, Girls, The Wire and Deadwood. HBO Now subscribers will also have access to Hollywood movies such as Divergent, X-Men: Days of Future Past, Neighbors and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.

Roku began rolling out Roku Feed, a new search feature that allows consumers to see when streaming entertainment becomes available and at what price. Roku Feed initially will focus on “Movies Coming Soon,” which a Monday Roku blog post said ends the “guessing game around when a box office hit is available for streaming, which services offer the movie or how much it costs at a given time.” Consumers can search for movies, TV shows, actors and directors, and receive all available results listed by price from 17 top streaming channels, the company said. Roku also added the ability to search within the Roku Channel Store by channel name, allowing quicker searches by channels such as CBS News, HBO GO and Sling TV, it said. On the hardware side, Roku introduced a second-generation Roku 3 player ($99) with voice search and a new remote control incorporating a microphone, voice search button and headphone jack for private listening, a company spokesman told us. Current Roku 3 players will receive a software update including the Roku Feed feature and the ability to search within the Roku Channel Store, the spokesman said. Roku mobile apps are also being updated, and users will be able to search by voice using the iOS and Android apps on a smartphone or tablet, he said.