The cord-cutting trend took a slight dip in Q3, with 20 percent of respondents ending pay-TV service in the past 12 months -- the first dip since Q3 2016 in what were upward-trending numbers, TiVo reported. Churn was down, with 7.5 percent of survey respondents switching pay-TV providers in the past three months -- the lowest since Q2 2014. The media tech company said Wednesday 82 percent say they want to pay only for the channels they watch, the highest in the survey's history. It said consumers indicated they're willing to pay on average $1.42 per channel per month for self-selected channel packages, with 22 channels on average ideal. TiVo said the most in-demand channels for that package would include HBO, Revolt, Cinemax, AXS TV, Starz and Telemundo. It said 91 percent watch live TV daily, up 5.2 percentage points year over year, while 67 percent watch previously recorded or DVR'd content daily and 62 percent over-the-top or streaming content daily. Some 65 percent use a monthly subscription VOD service, but recent quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year SVOD growth is slowing -- raising questions of whether the market is saturating or whether skinny bundle virtual MVPD services will again accelerate growth. The survey of 3,013 U.S. and Canadian adults was done in Q3 by a third-party survey service, TiVo said.

Redbox launched Redbox On Demand, offering movie and TV content via VOD and electronic sell-through, it said Wednesday. The service is available via the Redbox website and app, plus Apple TV, Chromecast, LG and Samsung smart TVs and Roku, it said.

T-Mobile said Wednesday it will launch its own TV service in 2018, buying IP-based TV and internet provider Layer3. “People love their TV, but they hate their TV providers,” said T-Mobile CEO John Legere. “The crappy customer service, clunky technology and outrageous bills loaded with fees! ... We’re gonna fix the pain points and bring real choice to consumers.” Legere told analysts he wants to take on cable and satellite TV operators, and the move into TV coincides with the launch of 5G. T-Mobile officials expect the deal to close in weeks. Craig Moffett, analyst at MoffettNathanson, questioned the investment. “When the world seemed to want skinny bundles, Layer3 TV went fat,” he wrote investors. “When the world seemed to be going purely virtual, Layer3 bet on proprietary infrastructure (the middle mile). At a time when everyone seemed to be trying to rid themselves of hardware, Layer3 bet on set-top boxes.” Many details are unknown, said Wells Fargo’s Jennifer Fritzsche. “Near-term revenue and profitability outlook will be more muted as [T-Mobile] scales the product and integrates it with their wireless customer base.” BTIG’s Walter Piecyk said the deal provides “technology expertise, existing and broad content relationships, and a technology platform for T-Mobile to enter the living room.”

Amazon Music Unlimited is now available in 28 additional countries, where listeners also will have access to the Echo, Dot and Tap smart speakers, said Amazon Friday. The on-demand premium music service, previously available in the U.S., U.K., Germany, Austria and Japan, is now available in Belgium, Bolivia, Bulgaria, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Panama, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Sweden and Uruguay, Amazon said. Amazon Music Unlimited is available at three tier options, with prices varying per country. In the U.S., plans are $3.99 monthly attached to a single Echo, Dot or Tap speaker; $7.99 for Prime members on one account for up to 10 devices; and a $14.99-per-month family plan for up to six members of a household.

Increased professionalism of video pirates means consumers sometimes don't realize they bought illicit streaming devices, Irdeto Senior Director-Cyber Services and Investigations Mark Mulready blogged Thursday. He said Rokus, Amazon Firesticks and Kodis have been popular devices for pirates, and Android TVs are gaining traction, with all those boxes' open nature helping in designing and installing illegal applications or add-ons. Pirates employ "slick looking websites" with access to legions of channels and movie titles with full support, some offering money-back guarantees, Mulready said: Such sites increasingly are moving from annual subscriptions to six-month offers allowing them to amend prices more regularly and ensure regular touch points with customers.

Public Knowledge joined others in slamming Google for blocking access to YouTube on Amazon’s Echo Show and Fire TV (see 1712060058, 1712050057 and 1712060013) while Amazon said the other company is potentially setting a bad precedent. A spokeswoman for that company noted its Echo Show and Fire TV now display a standard web view of YouTube.com and point to YouTube’s website, and the company hopes to resolve the spat as soon as possible: "Google is setting a disappointing precedent by selectively blocking customer access to an open website." Amazon and Google "are putting consumers in the middle of a corporate battle between the two technology giants," PK said Wednesday. "Both companies should live up to their stated values and end this standoff," Senior Counsel John Bergmayer said of Google's mission to "organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful," and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos calling Amazon "the everything store." Though "responsibilities of platform companies" "are (and should be) different than those of telecommunications carriers like broadband providers, they are still very real," Bergmayer said. Google again said Thursday it's trying to reach a pact and hopes to get one soon, but "Amazon doesn't carry Google products like Chromecast and Google Home, doesn't make Prime Video available for Google Cast users, and last month stopped selling some of Nest's latest products." It didn't comment further, and the Internet Association continued not commenting.

Amid squabbling between Amazon and Google over whose content is available on the other’s platform (see 1712050065), Amazon announced Wednesday its Prime Video app is available on Apple TVs in more than 100 countries. It gave Amazon a chance to tout its latest original movies and Prime original shows, including The Grand Tour, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and The Tick -- and upcoming premieres of Jean-Claude Van Johnson and Phillip K.

The American Cable Association's chief criticized Google for blocking access to YouTube on Amazon’s Echo Show and FireTV because Amazon won't carry Google's Chromecast and Google Home (see 1712050065), but Google defended the move. Reacting to a report on the blocking, ACA's Matt Polka noted "the #TitleII#NetNeutrality crowd ... wants heavy regulation on #broadband#ISPs because of the THREAT that ISPs could block or throttle." His tweet continued that such pro-Title II Communications Act advocates "say NOTHING about actual blocking and throttling by the @Google-Machine and other #EdgeProviders! Can’t make this stuff up, Folks!" Polka's tweet was retweeted by Nathan Leamer, policy adviser to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai. Polka emailed us he's not "suggesting there should be ANY regulation either, because Congress would have to provide the authority." It’s "incredibly ironic" backers of "heavy-handed regulations on ISPs for the THREAT of what ISPs MIGHT do say NOTHING when Google, Amazon, Twitter, Facebook, etc., ACTUALLY and IN FACT block, discriminate, throttle and give themselves and their networks preferential treatment," the ACA CEO emailed Wednesday. "It’s not intellectually consistent for those who say they want the net to be NEUTRAL." The Internet Association didn't comment. A Google representative said it has "been trying to reach agreement with Amazon to give consumers access to each other's products and services. But Amazon doesn't carry" some Google products, doesn't make Prime Video available for Google Cast users and last month "stopped selling some of Nest's latest products. We hope we can reach an agreement to resolve these issues soon.”

Along with luring cord cutters and cord nevers, AT&T's DirecTV Now over-the-top service also is helping it snag customers from rival MVPDs, which make up about half its customer base, Chief Financial Officer John Stephens told investors Tuesday. AT&T said DirecTV Now subscribers surpassed 1 million. The company is beta testing its second-generation platform that will include a cloud DVR and 4K capabilities, pay-per-view events and movies, digital advertising inserts and data insight capabilities, Stephens said. He said DirecTV Now profitability "will get up into very acceptable levels," and though it isn't the same fat profit margin opportunity the traditional linear TV business was, it requires much lower capital expenditures. On FirstNet, any states that don't make a choice automatically will be opted in when the opt-in window closes this month, and many states may go that route, he said. He said the work orders to build the FirstNet network over the next five years will start to be issued in January, with the engineering work already complete. He said FirstNet is "a very good revenue opportunity for us," with the potential of new products and services targeting markets like first responders and smart city initiatives, targeting perhaps 10 million users. Stephens said the company expects to finish this year with 7 million homes passed with fiber, and instead of an earlier prediction of 12.5 million by mid-2019, it's on track to pass more than 14 million homes with fiber by then. Stephens said customers should see "no change" from a rollback of Communications Act Title II regulation of ISPs, with the company continuing its policies of no blocking or advantaging some websites over others. House Communications Subcommittee ranking member Mike Doyle,​ D-Pa., and Chairman Ajit Pai were at odds Tuesday about the likely ramifications of Pai's net neutrality proposal (see 1712050057). Clarity on net neutrality "will bring back an opportunity for more investment," Stephens said. He said the company "look[s] forward to trial" and prevailing in the DOJ lawsuit seeking to block its buy of Time Warner (see 1711200064).

Google's plans to increase employees monitoring problematic YouTube content is "a great first step," the Parents Television Council said Tuesday. It said its own research finding that offensive content often comes up when searching using "child-friendly" search terms shows the site "needs constant monitoring," and Google's increased efforts should help meet that goal. PTC said Google's YouTube should extend increased monitoring to its YouTube Kids app and content. YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki blogged Monday that the company has more people reviewing more content "to stay one step ahead of bad actors." She said its trust and safety teams have manually reviewed nearly 2 million videos for violent extremist content since June, helping train its machine-learning technology to identify similar videos. She said the goal is to have more than 10,000 people working at Google next year on content that might violate YouTube policies. She said YouTube regularly will report more aggregate data about the flags it receives and the actions it takes to remove videos and comments that violate its content policies starting next year, and is looking to develop other tools. She said the company plans to apply stricter criteria, do more manual curation and add to its team of advertising reviewers.