Encouraged by Pandora’s recent management changes and a renewed focus on its core ad business and profitability, Wedbush Securities repeated an “outperform” rating on the streaming music service in a Friday investor note before a Wednesday earnings call. Revenue from Pandora's ad-supported service should continue to grow as users migrate to in-car listening, as the household penetration rate for connected devices increases and as ad loads and rates rise. But “meaningful changes are necessary to reinvigorate profitable growth,” said analyst Michael Pachter. Pandora’s current valuation “heavily discounts the size of Pandora's user base and the potential for an acquisition,” he said. Wedbush projects a Q4 ad revenue decline of 5.5 percent year on year on a 7.4 percent decline in active users and a 1 percent slip in listener hours, partially offset by the introductions of play-to-unlock premium video ads in late Q4 and programmatic video ads in Q3.

VidAngel's complaint of collusion among content companies -- backed by detailed circumstantial evidence and its interpretation of a written agreement among the studios -- should have satisfied the obligation of showing sufficient factual allegations to make its claim plausible, the appellant told the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in a docket 17-56665 opening brief (in Pacer) posted Monday. The streaming service is appealing a federal court's 2017 rejection of antitrust claims against the studios for refusing to deal with it (see 1708110038). Counsel for appellee studios didn't comment Wednesday.

Struggles of Verizon’s go90 mobile video service to find audience might be due to its "singular focus" on mobile devices, since 79 percent of U.S. internet users have at least two connected devices and most watch video on them, nScreenMedia analyst Colin Dixon blogged Wednesday. Video services need to be available on all the their customers' screens, he said. Meanwhile, Verizon indicated it will start incorporating go90-exclusive content into other digital content properties, he said. Verizon didn't comment.

U.S. District Judge Michael Fitzgerald of Los Angeles ordered streaming media player company TickBox not to provide links to any addons or other software it believes link to pirate streaming sites and to issue a software update that will delete such addons previously downloaded onto the boxes. A docket 17-cv-7496 preliminary injunction (in Pacer) issued Tuesday also ordered that within 24 hours of getting a written notice from a plaintiff that any such addon available through TickBox devices leads to pirate sites, the company remove or disable access through its menus. TickBox was fighting the preliminary injunction sought by Universal Columbia Disney, Fox, Paramount, Warner Bros., Amazon and Netflix (see 1712290026). TickBox outside counsel didn't comment Wednesday.

Traditionally, consumers of pirated content sacrificed high quality and easy access at no charge, but illicit streaming services increasingly "look a lot like the legitimate ones," Digital Tech Consulting President Myra Moore blogged Sunday. Their increasing similarity to legit services, and opaqueness to how pirate services function, help users rationalize their behavior, she said: Pirate services' advantage is they provide abundant, high-quality programming and convenient access to content with no advertisements and at low cost.

The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals' BMG v. Cox is of limited relevance to issues before U.S. District Court in Austin and doesn't support a variety of music labels in their opposition to Grande Communications' pending motions to dismiss, Grande said in a docket 17-cv-365 response (in Pacer) last week, replying to the labels' filing of supplemental authority pointing to the decision (see 1802080001). The cable operator said Cox doesn't address a "fatal" deficiency in the plaintiffs' claims -- the failure to allege facts showing specific instances of underlying direct copyright infringement by any Grande subscribers. Grande said even under the "willful blindness" intent standard allowed in Cox, labels didn't state a claim for contributory infringement and don't show a willful blindness to any actual instance of infringement.

Driven by video content and gaming, the virtual reality market in China is projected to grow at a 46 percent compound annual growth rate, reaching 20.5 million units by 2022, said a Monday ABI Research report. Consumers bought nearly 60 percent of VR headsets sold in China last year, it said. As competition among Chinese video streaming services heats up, VR is being used as a differentiator with video, gaming and live concert streaming content, said the report. The market research firm also sees a VR opportunity in e-commerce, it said.

Viacom has been limiting its content licensing to third-party subscription VOD services in anticipation of the direct-to-consumer streaming service it plans to launch later this year, CEO Bob Bakish said on an earnings call Thursday. Chief Financial Officer Wade Davis said it will be “fundamentally different” from what it offers MVPDs, with at least one such provider looking to incorporate it into its offerings. Bakish said Viacom continues to have conversations about deals with streaming MVPD services, with it currently on DirecTV Now, Sling and Philo. Bakish said the company is in content licensing talks with mobile carriers. "This is the point that upends the whole argument of the decline of pay TV,” given the ubiquity of mobile subscribers and carriers looking for content differentiation, Bakish said. The programmer reported revenue in the quarter ended Dec. 31 was $3.07 billion, down 8 percent, due largely to lower TV affiliate revenue and motion picture performance. Barclays analyst Kannan Venkateshwar emailed investors that results reinforce that Viacom needs "an inorganic path out of its problems" and that possibly combining with CBS (see 1802010056) would buy it time but won't solve core performance issues. Eventually, he said, CBS/Viacom would need to look at other partnerships to get scale needed to survive. Viacom stock closed Thursday up 7.2 percent to $32.71.

Hulu losses likely amounted to $920 million last year, and could get close to $1.7 billion this year, BTIG Research analyst Rich Greenfield emailed investors Thursday. He said it's not clear why Disney's forecast of Hulu losses (see 1802070015) increased so quickly, jumping in three months from $100 million in FY 2018 to $250 million. Hulu, owned jointly by Disney, Comcast, Fox and Time Warner, didn't comment.

At least 4 million watched Sunday's Super Bowl via a streaming service, nScreenMedia estimates. Analyst Colin Dixon blogged Tuesday that the Yahoo Sports feed lagged behind the TV feed but never stuttered, stalled or pixelated, and the advertising load was frequently different from the TV ad lineup. He said reports indicated the Sling TV, DirecTV Now, Fubo TV and YouTube TV feeds had no reported problems, while Hulu Live's automatic program extension algorithm caused some customers to lose the feed with three minutes remaining and PlayStation Vue also reported problems.