Aereo is pushing out its inventory of TiVo Roamio DVRs that combine an over-the-air TV antenna and streaming player in a set-top box. The bankrupt Aereo told its customer base Thursday that the units, which work only with HD antennas and broadband, are available for $19.99 per month with a two-year commitment, compared with TiVo’s $49 price with a $14.99 monthly fee, albeit with a one-year commitment. Aereo’s trademarks, Internet domain and customer lists to TiVo were sold for $1 million as part of its settlement agreement with broadcasters (see 1504220068) following the Supreme Court's ruling that Aereo was the equivalent of a cable company and must pay retransmission fees. The letter to Aereo customers was signed by the "Aereo Transition Officer" and contained a link to a welcome page at the TiVo website.

Showtime will start streaming its programming online in July, first through Apple. The Showtime streaming service will be available initially via Apple products for $10.99 a month, the company said Wednesday, saying it expects to announce further providers later. The Showtime move comes on the heels of HBO's partnering with Apple to start a similar streaming service in April.

Amazon said it added more than 600 channels, apps and games to the Amazon Fire TV platform in the past three months, including Popcornflix, Funny or Die, Candy Crush Saga and Fox News. Amazon also added the GameFly streaming service that includes PC gaming titles with packs starting at $6.99 per month, it said Tuesday. Other streaming TV channels on Amazon Instant Video and Prime Instant Video include HBO Go, Hulu Plus, Netflix, Showtime Anytime, Sling TV and WatchESPN, Amazon said.

Netflix continues to slowly increase its domination of North American fixed networks, generating 38.5 percent of downstream traffic in the peak evening hours, said a Sandvine report Thursday on North America and Latin America. In Latin America, Facebook and Google control more than 60 percent of total mobile traffic, said the provider of broadband monitoring services to ISPs. The release of Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare -- Ascendance DLC caused a significant spike in bandwidth usage, and generated 12 percent of traffic on one North American fixed network on its release date, said the report, based on data from a selection of Sandvine’s 250-plus communications service provider customers.

Mediacom subscribers will continue to be able to watch Viacom's BET, CMT and MTV because they renewed their comprehensive carriage agreement, they said in a news release Wednesday. Along with Viacom’s cable networks and its network/VOD hybrid EPIX, the multiyear deal opens the door to Mediacom customers having more access to Viacom content on mobile devices outside the home, said Mediacom Vice President-Legal and Public Affairs Tom Larsen in an interview.

Comcast customers can use Amazon Fire TV and Fire TV Sticks to access HBO and Showtime TV Everywhere apps, Comcast said in a blog post. Subscribers can download the network’s app, and watch the TVE content after signing in with Xfinity credentials, Comcast said. “We now authenticate more than 90 networks across 18 devices and those numbers will continue to grow as new technologies and platforms emerge.”

Roku shaved $10 off the price of all of its media players Wednesday for what it designated “National Streaming Day.” The deal brought the price of Roku starter models -- the Streaming Stick and Roku 1 -- to $39 while the Roku 2 and 3 players were $59 and $89, according to ads. A footnote at the Roku site detailing terms of the promotion apparently was a misprint, announcing that the deal began at 9 p.m. Pacific, which would give a sale window of just under three hours for the deal that expired at 11:59 p.m. PDT. We selected a model at 9:42 a.m. Eastern and the sale price showed in the cart.

Ahead of its June 2 launch of summer programming, ABC Family said it's making all its new series available for sampling across social, digital and physical platforms. The series included in the sampling are Becoming Us, Kevin From Work, Job or No Job, Monica the Medium, Startup U, Stitchers and Next Step Realty: NYC, said the unit of Disney in a Monday news release.

Both sides in a dispute over how much Pandora should pay a performing rights organization said the PRO won. Judge Louis Stanton of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York was said to have awarded Broadcast Music Inc. a royalty rate of 2.5 percent of Pandora's annual revenue, up from the current rate of 1.75 percent. Pandora vowed an appeal to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, also in New York. "After a nearly two-year legal battle over the value of the BMI repertoire to the Pandora digital music service, the Rate Court ruled resoundingly in BMI’s favor and concluded that our proposed rate of 2.5 percent of revenue was 'reasonable, and indeed at the low end of the range of fees of recent licenses,'" BMI said in a Thursday news release. "The decision also establishes that existing marketplace agreements can be taken into account when determining rates, a key factor for us, and the industry. This is an important step forward in valuing music in the digital age." The ruling in docket 1:13-cv-04037-LLS on BMI v. Pandora wasn't available on the court's online filing service. It may be released this week, a court official said. Earlier this month, the 2nd Circuit ruled for Pandora on a case involving American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, upholding a 1.85 percent rate in March 2014 for the company to pay from its annual revenue for ASCAP works (see 1505060072). The benchmarks cited by Stanton "don't provide an appropriate competitive foundation for a market rate," Pandora Government Affairs Director Dave Grimaldi said Friday. "We anticipated a range of potential outcomes in this case and remain confident in our ability to grow and thrive. Pending the outcome of the appeal, this ruling could increase our content costs as a percent of revenue by up to 80 basis points." ASCAP cheered Stanton's decision, though it wasn't a direct party to it. Stanton's decision "cited market benchmarks ASCAP has long argued are relevant in rate court proceedings," an ASCAP spokeswoman noted Friday. "This decision is welcome news for music creators, but make no mistake, Pandora will stop at nothing in their ongoing effort to shortchange songwriters. ASCAP and the music community must continue to fight for the urgent reforms needed to enable all songwriters, composers and music publishers to obtain fair compensation for the use of our music.”

Account-sharing, a “lingering challenge" for the over-the-top category, will be a panel topic at Parks Associates Connections conference, Tuesday-Thursday, in San Francisco. Some 57 percent of U.S. broadband households access an OTT video subscription, Parks said in a Friday news release, citing Q3 2014 data, but 8 percent are using a subscription OTT video account held by someone outside of their home. Six percent of viewers are exclusively using shared accounts to access subscription OTT video content, the industry researcher said. That equates to 11 percent of all households that are relying exclusively on shared accounts when using subscription OTT services, Parks said. Eleven percent of Netflix subscribers, 10 percent of Hulu Plus subscribers and 5 percent of those using Amazon Prime Instant Video are using an account paid for by someone else, Parks said. It said that account sharing is highest among younger households, where 22 percent of those 18-24 years old who use an OTT service used one paid for by someone outside of their household. "OTT video accounts for a disproportionate amount of content consumed when compared to expenditure,” Research Director Brett Sappington said. More than a third of video consumed per week is OTT, but it's only 9 percent of the household video budget, Sappington said. "Account sharing is part of the larger problem in monetizing the strong consumer demand for OTT content.” While the all-you-can-eat subscription model is “very popular,” several OTT services are experimenting with models that blend advertising, subscription and transactional options, Sappington said. "Pay TV providers will have to quickly move up the OTT learning curve, which is very different from the traditional pay TV environment."