Turner Classic Movies’ FilmStruck streaming video service said Friday it’s shutting down Nov. 29 and no longer enrolling subscribers. Current FilmStruck subscribers will receive an email with details about their accounts and the refund process, said the website. FilmStruck, owned by AT&T, said this month (see 1810100038) it plans to launch a streaming service in Q4 2019, after its June acquisition of Time Warner. An SEC filing with few details said the service would be "a new choice for entertainment with the WarnerMedia collection of films, television series, libraries, documentaries and animation." FilmStruck, which streams international cinema, indie movies and film classics, is available on Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV and Chromecast devices, and via Android and iOS apps.

Dish Network, which had sought $1.95 million in damages from the creator of the ZemTV streaming service (see 1809070059), was awarded $650,000 -- $50,000 for each of 13 copyrighted works that ZemTV willfully infringed by retransmitting without authorization -- U.S. District Judge Vanessa Gilmore of Houston ordered Wednesday in docket 17-cv-01618 (see here, in Pacer). She also enjoined defendant Shahjahan Durrani, doing business as ZemTV, from retransmitting a list of channels to which Dish has copyright. Durrani didn't comment Friday.

More than a third of Spotify users pay for Premium subscriptions, up slightly at the end of September from the June quarter when the streaming music service reportedly began verifying Family Plan members lived in the same household, Consumer Intelligence Research Partners reported Thursday. That tactic has started to move paid subscribers to individual membership plans, CIRP said. Among U.S. Spotify listeners in Q3, 13 percent of ad-supported users trialed a Premium subscription vs. 11 percent in Q2, and 71 percent of trial Premium subscribers converted to a paid Premium sub, down from 74 percent in the June quarter, CIRP said. Some 14 percent of Premium subscribers ended a paid subscription in June and either reverted to a free, ad-supported account or stopped using Spotify, said the researcher. The service added about the same number of new Premium subscribers, who either began with a trial or bought a Premium subscription without a trial, as it lost in lapsed or canceled Premium subscriptions, it said. CIRP surveyed 500 U.S. users July-September.

Many U.S. and European homes subscribe to subscription VOD and pay TV, making managing those different TV services an opportunity for pay-TV operators, though it's "much more complex" to aggregate SVOD services than TV channels, nScreenMedia analyst Colin Dixon blogged Thursday. Pay-TV operators are best situated to combine the two services via the set-top box, but aggregating SVOD requires a robust app platform with full app lifecycle management, Dixon said: It's time pay TV and SVOD begin cohabiting on the set-top instead of coexisting.

Despite sailing past Q3 subscriber expectations (see 1810160066), Netflix faces “clouds on the horizon,” Wedbush Securities' Michael Pachter wrote investors Wednesday. “Impressive subscriber growth” of 1.1 million in the U.S. and 5.87 million internationally topped guidance and the analyst’s estimate of 650,000 domestic subscription adds and 4.35 million overseas -- but it faces potential slowing subscriber growth as Disney and Fox likely migrate content licensed to Netflix to a “Disney-sponsored standalone service" next year, he said. Pachter rated Netflix “underperform” on content acquisition costs that cause “substantial cash burn.” A “silver lining” of Disney's service is that “Netflix will have less content available to it, resulting in more stable cash burn,” he said. Netflix subscriber growth could lag if its original programs “fail to achieve the quality and quantity of the lost content,” he wrote. The shares closed up 5.3 percent to $364.70.

Despite growth in over-the-top platforms, nearly 20 percent of "cable keepers" who watch TV through a cable or satellite provider don't know how to access live TV without an MVPD subscription, Telaria and Adobe Advertising Cloud reported Tuesday. Forty-two percent of cable keepers said access to live programming is the reason they keep a cable connection, and 55 percent find cord-cutting options confusing. Seventy-three percent of cord cutters cited cost for axing their linear TV connection, and 48 percent of cable keepers are mulling canceling their cable service. Thirty percent of cable keepers said they would be cord cutters if they knew they could livestream their preferred sports, news and events programming. The national online survey was done in April and May, with 750 adults ages 21-54.

Paid music streaming subscriptions are on track to reach 235 million globally by the end of 2018, said Futuresource Tuesday. Streaming subscriptions generated more than half of global spending on music last year, and “the upward trend has continued,” it said. Service competition, growth in family plans and higher smart-speaker penetration fuel expansion, as is “wider, steadily growing acceptance of streaming media in all its forms,” it said. “This growth isn’t restricted to any particular world territory.”

Netflix in Q3 outperformed its subscription forecasts, said the company's quarterly shareholder letter Tuesday. The service had 6.96 million net subscriber additions, above the 5 million it forecast in July. It added 1.09 million U.S. subscribers compared with the 650,000 forecast. Globally, it added 5.87 million, vs. an expected 4.35 million. In Q2, Netflix missed targets (see 1807160066). “As internet entertainment grows, more companies see the large opportunity,” said Netflix. “Within linear TV, New Fox appears to have a great strategy, which is to focus on large simultaneous-viewing sports and news,” it said. “These content areas are not transformed by on-demand viewing and personalization in the way that TV series and movies are, so they are more resistant to the rise of the internet. Other linear networks are likely to follow this model.” After regular-hours U.S. trading, the stock rose 12 percent to $386.28 by our deadline.

After cutting its year-end price target for Spotify by $10 to $190, Pivotal Research financial analyst Jeffrey Wlodarczak updated its rating for the streaming music service from “hold” to “buy,” in a research note to investors Friday. Spotify stock “materially underperformed” broader markets, but it remains the “clear global leader” in music streaming, said Wlodarczak, positioning the company “in the 3rd inning of a very healthy growth trajectory.” Pivotal expects most consumers to move to subscription streaming in “all you can eat” models for their music consumption over time. The analyst left forecasts in place for a “relatively conservative” three million new premium monthly average users (MAU) in Q3, which compared to the company’s guidance of 2 to 5 million. Google trend data, it said, points to closer to 4 million-plus premium user adds in the quarter. For Q4, Pivotal held to its forecast of 9 million net new premium MAUs. The music streamer’s value could rise materially from current levels as long as subscriber growth remains strong, customer usage increases and churn declines, and there’s not a significant change in the competitive environment, Wlodarczak said. Apple and Google pose risks to Spotify, but the market is still in early days, he said, and Spotify operates “the most attractive streaming service with a heavy investment in discovery differentiating the service.” Pivotal expects “alternative ancillary revenue streams will emerge” as Spotify leverages its “increasingly large" global pay platform. Other risks include potential subscriber misses causing stock volatility; a concentration of power at companies that control Spotify’s music content; larger, well-funded competitors’ ability to use their other businesses to subsidize music and drive penetration; and Google’s and Apple’s control of “virtually all smart phones in the world.” Spotify shares closed up 6.2 percent Friday at $158.49.

Hulu's claims it's not regulated under Missouri's Video Service Providers Act ignore "clear language" showing the definition applies to programming delivered via IP technology, which is how the streaming service works, the city of Creve Coeur said in a docket 18-cv-01495-SNLJ opposition (in Pacer) Thursday in U.S. District Court in St. Louis. It responded to a Hulu motion to dismiss the city's litigation against it and Netflix (see 1809170004). Hulu didn't comment.