Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and other lawmakers emphasized the importance of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy's role in implementing pending “Chips+” U.S. semiconductor manufacturing incentives and a U.S. competitiveness package, during a Wednesday confirmation hearing for OSTP director nominee Arati Prabhakar. The substitute measure that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., filed Tuesday as an amendment to shell bill HR-4346, would supplant conference committee negotiations to marry elements of the dueling America Creating Opportunities for Manufacturing, Pre-Eminence in Technology and Economic Strength Act (HR-4521) and U.S. Innovation and Competition Act (S-1260).

If there was a “single thing” in Q2 that spared Netflix half the 2 million net subscriber losses it projected in April (see 2207190077), it was May's debut of the fourth season of the science fiction horror series Stranger Things, said co-CEO Reed Hastings on a quarterly earnings webcast Tuesday. “We're talking about losing 1 million instead of losing 2 million, so our excitement is tempered by the less-bad results,” he said.

Consumer tech products imported from China bore more than $32 billion in Section 301 tariff exposure between July 2018, when the first of the tariffs took effect, and December 2021, without dissuading most U.S. importers to abandon Chinese sourcing, said a newly released CTA report produced with Trade Partnership Worldwide. A CTA spokesperson said Wednesday the association released the report to coincide with this week's International Trade Commission public hearing as part of its Tariff Act Section 332 investigation (332-591) into the economic impact of the Section 301 and Section 232 tariffs on U.S. industries.

Vizio is still evaluating 8K TV and ATSC 3.0, focusing instead on improvements to 4K TV, said John Schindler, senior vice president-product management, on a recent webinar briefing that was embargoed until Tuesday. “There’s still a lot of innovation left in 4K,” he said.

Cable operators are moving increasingly toward acting as over-the-top video service aggregators, often as a way of replacing the lost customer stickiness due to ongoing cord-cutting of traditional linear video packages. Cable executives, analysts and others tell us that probably will someday replace the linear programming bundle, though not soon.

Netflix Q2 paid net subscriber losses reached 970,000, roughly half of the 2 million losses it had forecast in April (see 2204190066), reported the company in its quarterly shareholder letter Tuesday. The Q2 losses were up 385% from the 200,000 losses it sustained in Q1.

The Senate planned to vote Tuesday evening on moving forward with a chips package that has broad bipartisan support. Sens. Todd Young, R-Ind., and Rob Portman, R-Ohio, helped negotiate with Republicans, and House leadership and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo remained in close contact with negotiators, members of Congress said.

FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr's staff is scheduling a meeting with TikTok representatives after the popular Chinese social media app requested the appointment amid scrutiny over the company’s ties to Beijing. Carr said in an interview Thursday he remains focused on TikTok’s data practices and will push for the federal government to take action.

Netflix’s choice of Microsoft as technology and sales partner for its ad-supported VOD subscription tier (see 2207130048) “will go a long way to steady the waters” for the upcoming offering “while helping Microsoft solidify its position as a major player in digital advertising,” blogged eMarketer analyst Daniel Konstantinovic Thursday.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., is telling senators to expect a floor vote as early as Tuesday to start moving a smaller chips package that would include, at a minimum, emergency chips funding and an investment tax credit for semiconductor manufacturing (see 2207130053), a source familiar with discussions told us Thursday.