Anticipating piracy of its pay-per-view broadcast of the Aug. 26 boxing match between Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor, Showtime is suing an array of John Doe defendants who allegedly operate livestreaming site LiveStreamHDQ and 41 affiliated websites that apparently plan to pirate the broadcast. In a lawsuit (in Pacer) filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, Showtime asked for a temporary restraining order and injunctions prohibiting the sites from making the fight available for streaming. Mayweathervsmcgregor.livestreamhdq.com on Thursday had a disclaimer that it existed for information purposes only and that it "will not stream any videos live here."

Sinclair ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC affiliates and its Tennis Channel will be carried on YouTube TV in their markets, the broadcaster announced. YouTube TV is expected to expand to eventually include Sinclair’s CW and MyNetworkTV stations, and science-fiction channel Comet TV, it said. “Our viewers want the ability to access content on any screen and having this relationship with YouTube will provide value to not only our viewers, but our advertising relationships as well,” said Barry Faber, Sinclair executive vice president-distribution and network relations.

Nielsen -- which will start crediting videos distributed via Facebook, Hulu and YouTube in its digital content ratings -- is helping validate those companies in advertisers' eyes as the companies seek to tap into the TV advertising market with new products and services aimed at connected TVs, nScreenMedia's Colin Dixon blogged Tuesday. "The digital assault on television ad revenue is in full swing," he said, pointing to Hulu's and YouTube's virtual MVPD services and to Facebook's new video tab, Watch, and its paying providers to create Watch content. The analyst said advertisers haven't trusted the data they get from digital video companies, but the Nielsen move should help alleviate those concerns. Nielsen, which announced the move Wednesday, said enabled digital publisher clients will get credit for video distributed on Facebook and YouTube in Nielsen’s Digital Content Ratings, and Hulu will give select media partners credit for current series content distributed on the platform, with data evaluation to begin this month.

Legacy MVPDs lost a record number of subscribers in Q2, short of the symbolic 1 million threshold, but this year's trajectory is pointing to "an unprecedented annual decline," Kagan announced Tuesday evening. Traditional MVPD subscriptions dipped below 96.1 million in Q2, down 1.8 million since the end of 2016, though the addition of virtual MVPDs DirecTV Now and Sling TV affiliated with legacy MVPDs lifts the combined total subscriptions to live linear channel/on-demand content packages to 85 million, Kagan said. The 246,000 Q2 subs losses reported by cable operators, plus Q1 losses, mean total losses at mid-year are up 56 percent year over year, it said, saying DBS losses of 443,000 in Q2 put them below 33 million subs for the first time since 2010. The researcher said telco video subs dropped 10.9 million, with most of it attributable to AT&T's U-verse. The firm said, based on Census Bureau data, 76 percent of the potential subscriber universe had a legacy MVPD product.

The relatively few subscribers to nascent virtual MVPD services overwhelmingly give the service value high marks, The Diffusion Group said in a news release Tuesday. TDG said a survey of more than 2,000 U.S. adult broadband users showed fewer than 5 percent were using a livestreaming pay-TV service, but 86 percent of that group rated the value of their service as "good" or "very good." Users "seem okay without the 'full Monty' of legacy pay-TV channels, and to be fairly tolerant of the shortcomings that haunt live streaming video, such as buffering, pixilation, and screen freezing," said President Michael Greeson.

Sling TV launched a beta version of an in-browser player on Google Chrome Tuesday, enabling customers to watch live and on-demand TV in a web browser, with no app download required, it said Tuesday. Users can start live and on-demand TV “with a click of their mouse” and without having to download plug-ins or log into another device, it said. The player, offering “My TV,” the “Continue Watching” ribbon and access to account settings and parental controls, will roll out additional features on Google Chrome, including DVR and a grid guide, it said.

Chalk up over-the-top services from Disney, ESPN and other programmers in part to the FCC net neutrality order, since it blocks cable ISPs from denying, degrading or deprioritizing Disney access even when it competes with their cable services, former Chairman Tom Wheeler blogged for the Brookings Institution Tuesday. He said AT&T, one of the biggest champions of the Communications Act Title II regulation rollback, benefits since its DirecTV, which competes with cable, can't be discriminated against on a cable system's broadband capacity. AT&T didn't comment. Wheeler also said reports the GOP House leadership warned edge providers that net neutrality activism could hurt them in other policy issues (see 1708110054) was akin to mob extortion. He likened the open internet rule, including general conduct language, to Disney's Jiminy Cricket character in Pinocchio, "sit[ting] on the shoulder of broadband providers to make sure they do the right thing."

Binge viewing is becoming a norm, with nearly nine in 10 adult broadband users binge viewing at least occasionally, though younger adults partake far more frequently, The Diffusion Group said in a news release Wednesday. TDG said heavy bingers, who binge-watch -- or view multiple episodes of a series back to back -- daily, comprise 14 percent of adult broadband users; 51 percent are medium bingers, who binge monthly but not daily; 21 percent of adult broadband users binge less than once a month; and 14 percent don't at all. TDG said 58 percent of heavy bingers are between the ages of 18 and 34, while 56 percent of light or non-bingers are ages 45 and up.

Comcast comedy streaming service Seeso is shutting down later this year, it said in a Facebook post Wednesday. It said some of the original content moved to over-the-top service VRV.

Spotify launched on Xbox One in 34 global markets Tuesday, said an Xbox blog post by Spotify, which said Xbox gamers have been telling the music streaming service they’d like to be able to "soundtrack" their own gaming sessions using Spotify to customize the experience. Users download the Spotify app from the Xbox Store, where they can choose from their saved music or Spotify’s 30 million-track catalog, it said. Users can also browse precurated gaming playlists in the “Gaming” hub, it said. Free and Premium Spotify users can play music on demand via the Xbox One controller or from a smartphone app using Spotify Connect, it said.