BBC R&D is using the International Broadcasting Convention show this week in Amsterdam to demonstrate how “new innovations” can eliminate the latency between an internet-delivered livestream and live over-the-air broadcast TV, said the broadcaster Wednesday. Fans watching World Cup livestreams this summer on the BBC iPlayer experienced lags of 30 seconds or more behind the live TV broadcasts, “with some complaining of hearing neighbours cheering goals that they hadn’t seen happen yet,” it said. Latency is prevalent with “vast majority of live video delivered over the internet” because it takes longer to send video over the net reliably than to broadcast it, it said. Though still in prototype, the low-latency techniques on display at IBC “work by either reducing the duration of each segment” of video, or by creating the segments “progressively as a series of chunks that can be passed through the chain immediately as they become available,” said BBC. “In the future, live streaming viewers watching over the internet will be able to see the action at the same time as they would see it if they were watching on TV.” Rolling out the technology commercially “will take time, and it needs coordination with the whole industry, so viewers shouldn’t expect the lag to disappear imminently,” it said. “Perhaps by the time they’re watching the next World Cup, viewers will be cheering at the same time, regardless of how they’re watching the match.”

Subscription VOD penetration in the U.S. is slowing, but TV brands getting into the direct-to-consumer SVOD market over the next two years could gin up that growth, nScreenMedia's Colin Dixon blogged Monday. Disney's entry into streaming in 2019 could snag a sizable portion of U.S. population that hasn't subscribed to SVOD, and AT&T also appears to be looking to make HBO the anchor of a direct-to-consumer platform, the analyst said: Such entries "could be just the kick the industry needs" to push SVOD penetration past pay TV's current 77 percent.

A stipulated permanent injunction against streaming media player company TickBox is "an important milestone for ... the global effort to reduce online piracy," MPAA said Tuesday. TickBox -- being sued by a variety of content companies for abetting video piracy (see 1712290026) -- and the plaintiff group Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment said in a U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, Los Angeles, stipulation (in Pacer, docket 17-cv-7496) they agreed to the stipulated $25 million judgment in favor of the plaintiffs and the proposed permanent injunction barring TickBox from being a party to add-on software that links to third-party pirate cyberlockers or streaming sites.

Netflix may see India as a big potential growth opportunity, but to sizably expand its customer base there it must move to an ad-supported business model or line up a significant wholesale partnership, Barclays' Kannan Venkateshwar wrote investors Friday. India is one of the fastest growing online video markets, with 2017 consumption up four to five times year over year and there's a big push toward fiber-based broadband connectivity across major population centers, the analyst said. But India's media market carries challenges, like cultural heterogeneity, demographics, competitive intensity and the structure of broadband and TV markets, Venkateshwar said, adding that India could represent 6 million to 11 million subscribers to Netflix over five years.

Dish Network is seeking default judgment against the creator of the ZemTV streaming service and $1.95 million in damages and a court order that third-party service providers stop providing service that supports ZemTV's copyright infringement. In a motion (in Pacer, docket 17-cv-01618) for default judgment Friday in U.S. District Court in Houston, Dish said since defendant Shahjahan Durrani's motion to dismiss was denied in April, he hasn't replied to Dish's complaint or defended himself. Durrani didn't comment. Dish sued Durrani and another defendant in 2017, claiming they abetted video piracy through retransmission of channels exclusively licensed to Dish through the ZemTV add-on, downloadable at TVAddons websites, for the Kodi media player (see 1801090012). Dish reached a voluntary settlement (in Pacer) with the other defendant.

Consumer "loyalty" often “trumps content” or price as the determining factor in over-the-top subscriber churn or retention, David Browne, Comcast Technology Solutions senior director-product management, told a Parks Associates webinar Thursday. “There really is no silver bullet for countering churn,” said Browne. “If you consider churn part of the natural ebb and flow of your business, you come to the conclusion that some consumers, you will never win back. It doesn’t matter how many dollars you throw at that win-back campaign.” There’s the “inverse conclusion” some customers “will come back anyway” when an OTT service streams content they are interested in, he said. “If you’re a stackable service” that specializes in “short-form” content that’s “topical,” there's a much different “churn profile” than more “general” OTT entertainment services, he said.

Redbox can no longer individually sell download codes from Disney DVD and Blu-ray combo packs since it didn't get ownership rights to the digital content when it bought the combo packs, said U.S. District Judge Dean Pregerson of Los Angeles in a docket 17-cv-08655-DDP-AGR order (in Pacer) entered Thursday, granting Disney's motion for preliminary injunction (see 1804100002). Pregerson dismissed as wrong Redbox's argument it can be liable for contributory copyright infringement only if it had the subjective intent to be an infringer. Redbox outside counsel didn't comment.

Hulu's advertising and subscriber growth likely won't be enough to make the streaming service profitable by 2020, but it's still valuable to Disney, nScreenMedia analyst Colin Dixon blogged Tuesday. He said paid subscribers likely are 17 percent of Hulu's customer base, with the rest watching the ad-supported version, meaning last year it likely had $1.6 billion in subscriber revenue and just shy of $1 billion from ad sales. Even if its projections for results of 30 million subscribers, 40 percent watching ad-free and generating $5.6 billion in sub revenue in 2020 doesn't have Hulu in the black, the service provides value for Disney by being a bridge for viewers to the direct-to-consumer future. Hulu didn't comment Wednesday.

U.S. households with subscription VOD service from Amazon Prime, Hulu or Netflix grew to 69 percent, from 52 percent in 2015, said a Monday Leichtman Research Group June-July survey of 1,153 adults. Among those with SVOD, 63 percent have more than one vs. 38 percent before. Overall, 43 percent of U.S. households have more than one vs. 20 percent earlier. Thirty percent of adults stream an SVOD daily, and 52 percent of viewers of ages 18-34 stream one service daily compared with 31 percent of viewers 35-54 and 11 percent of viewers above 55. Twenty-eight percent of respondents said their Netflix subscription is shared outside their household vs. 22 percent with Hulu and 10 percent with Amazon Prime. Some 53 percent of TV households said they subscribe both to a pay-TV service and an SVOD service, 25 percent subscribe only to a pay-TV service, 16 percent get only get an SVOD service and 6 get neither.

Dish Network is prodding a U.S. District judge about a pending motion to dismiss its suit against Univision. A letter (in Pacer) last week to Judge Alison Nathan of Manhattan in docket 17-cv-05148-AJN reminded her that Univision filed a motion Oct. 13 to dismiss the complaint alleging the broadcaster breached a distribution agreement by streaming some Mexican soccer matches via Facebook Live without also providing rights to Dish. The MVPD opposed the motion and said it has been 270 days since the motion was fully briefed.