The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged AT&T and three of the company’s investor relations executives with violations of federal Regulation FD, the rule that governs the full disclosure of material financial information, for selectively releasing smartphone sales data to certain research analysts back in 2016. AT&T has denied the charges.

According  to the SEC, AT&T learned in March 2016 that a steeper than expected decline in smartphone sales would cause its overall revenue to fall short of forecasts. The complaint, filed in federal district court in Manhattan, alleges that in order not to fall short of consensus revenue estimates for the third straight quarter, AT&T investor relations executives Christopher Womack, Michael Black, and Kent Evans made private, one-on-one phone calls to analysts at about 20 different firms.  

Also Read: AT&T Loses 'Best Network' 5G Ad Appeal

“On these calls, the AT&T executives allegedly disclosed AT&T's internal smartphone sales data and the impact of that data on internal revenue metrics, despite the fact that internal documents specifically informed Investor Relations personnel that AT&T's revenue and sales of smartphones were types of information generally considered 'material' to AT&T investors, and therefore prohibited from selective disclosure under Regulation FD,” the SEC said in the complaint. 

The SEC claims that as a result of the calls the analysts reduced their revenue forecasts for the company, leading the overall consensus estimates to fall below what AT&T reported to the public on April 26, 2016. 

Also Read: AT&T and TPG: There Is No Why

"Regulation FD levels the playing field by requiring that issuers disclosing material information do so broadly to the investing public, not just to select analysts," said Richard R. Best, Director of the SEC's New York Regional Office, in a press release. "AT&T's alleged selective disclosure of material information in private phone calls with analysts is precisely the type of conduct Regulation FD was designed to prevent."

The SEC's complaint alleges that AT&T violated Regulation FD and reporting provisions of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and that Womack, Evans, and Black aided and abetted those violations. The complaint seeks permanent injunctive relief and civil monetary penalties against each defendant.

In a statement, AT&T denied the allegations, adding that the SEC does not cite any witnesses involved in any of the analyst calls that believe they received nonpublic information, even after a four-year investigation. 

“The information discussed during these March and April 2016 conversations concerned the widely reported, industry-wide phase-out of subsidy programs for new smartphone purchases and the impact of this trend on smartphone upgrade rates and equipment revenue," AT&T said in the statement. “Not surprisingly, without device subsidies, customers upgraded their smartphones less frequently, leading to a reduction in equipment revenue.”

AT&T said it disclosed the trend on several occasions before the analyst calls, while also making it clear it had no material impact on earnings.  

“The evidence could not be clearer – and the lack of any market reaction to AT&T's first quarter 2016 results confirms – there was no disclosure of material nonpublic information and no violation of Regulation FD,” AT&T continued. “The SEC's pursuit of this matter will not protect investors and instead will only serve to chill productive communications between companies and analysts, something the SEC was worried about when it adopted Regulation FD some 20 years ago. Unfortunately, this case will only create a climate of uncertainty among public companies and the analysts who cover them.”

The telco said it was looking forward to its “day in court.”

The SEC's investigation was conducted by George N. Stepaniuk, Thomas Peirce, and David Zetlin-Jones of the SEC's New York Regional Office. The SEC's litigation will be conducted by Alexander M. Vasilescu, Victor Suthammanont, and Mr. Zetlin-Jones. The case is being supervised by Sanjay Wadhwa.

Parents are worried about their kids' screen time, according to a new Pew Research poll, and a majority have gone so far as to get advice from the medical community about it. 

That was even before the pandemic's stay-at-home orders turned the nation into a binge-watch-from-home cohort. 

And the Apple iPhone doesn't fall far from the tree. More than half of respondents with a minor child said they themselves spend too much time on their smartphones and 68% said they are sometimes distracted by those phones when spending time with their kids. 

A majority (71%) of parents of said they are concerned that their kids might spend too much time in front of video screens, and 31% are very concerned. But they are also doing something about it. The vast majority of parents of kids 5-11 (86%) said they limit screen time--time of day, length of time used, while 80% said they impose digital "grounding" as punishment. A strong majority (75%) said they check the websites their child visits or mobile apps they use and 72% said they use some kind of screen controls. 

And when they do check the websites, YouTube is likely to be on the screen. The survey found that 80% of parents of young kids said their children watch YouTube videos and half of the parents said their kids watch those videos daily. 

The majority (61%) of parents with a child 11 years old or younger said they have gotten advice or information about screen time from a doctor or other health professional and 45% said they have talked to a teacher about it. 

The survey was conducted March 2-15 among 3.654 parents with at least one child age 17 or younger. The margin of error is plus or minus 2.2 percentage points. 

Parents clearly have concerns about screen time on smartphones. The survey found that 71% with kids under 12 said they think using smartphones will hurt their ability to learn effective social skills and 68% said they think it will hurt their ability to develop "healthy" friendships.

The popularity of online video edged up in 2019, according to a new global survey from Limelight Networks.

On average viewers surveyed said the spent 6.8 hours per week watching online video, up 0.7% from 6.75 hours in the 2018 study.

Younger viewers--in the 18 to 35 age bracket--watched the most at 8.4 hours a week, with 14% viewing for more than 20 hours per week.

Of the nine countries involved in the study, viewers in the U.S. watched the most online video, with respondents saying they watched for 8.55 hours per week.

Limelight said that online video viewing was coming at the expense of broadcast, cable and satellite TV, which was down 10% from last year.

The most popular online video content was movies, followed by TV shows, news and sports. Those types of programming were all watched more than professional produced video on social media sites, user-generated content and watching people play video games online.

This year, for the first time, smartphones were the device used most for viewing online video at 2.08 hours, eclipsing computers. The U.S. is among the countries where the smart phone is the top device for viewing online video.

Watching online video on smart TVs and devices grew to 1.64 hours per week from 1.44 hours per week a year ago. The most popular devices were Amazon Fire TV and Google Chromecast globally and Roku in the U.S.

Limelight said  that 70.4% of online viewers now subscribe to one or more SVOD service. The highest rate is in the U.S., with an average of 1.7 subscriptions, compared to 1.2% globally.

Not surprisingly, price is the primary reason people said they canceled an SVOD service. The second most popular reason was that the content available on that service was not interesting.

Limelight found that 60.6% of the people who watch online video also subscribe to a cable or satellite TV service. Like SVOD services, price is the top reason why people cancel cable.

As streaming increases, so does binge-watching, which was up 18% last year. Binge-watching sessions lasted on average 2 hours and 40 minutes. In the U.S. viewers binge-watch for 3 hours and 11 minutes a pop.

Pre-roll advertising, if its interesting to them, is not opposed by 74% of online viewers. Viewers are even more accepting of ads when they have the ability to skip them. The survey found that when it comes to AVOD, 87% of people are OK with short ads before a video if the content is free.

Resistance to advertising is stronger when the commercials appear in the middle of content, however.

The most frustrating part of watching video online is rebuffering, the survey found. While most viewers will keep watching after a first rebuffering, 66.3% of those surveyed said they would stop watching if it happens a second time.

Based on the survey, Limelight recommends that online video providers make content available on any devices, ensure high-quality mobile viewing experiences and deliver live content in real time.

The study was conducted for Limelight in early August by a company with access to consumer panels in France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, the U.K. and the U.S. About 500 responses were collected from each country with a total of 5,000 global responses.

Linear TV and digital content viewership is looking more similar than ever before, according to a recent report from advanced advertising company FreeWheel, with advertisers buying across both platforms at an increased rate.

According FreeWheel's  Video Marketplace Report, which surveyed more than 200 advertisers and agencies, more than half (52%) of agencies are already combining the buying of digital and linear TV today, with 91% saying they will do so by 2021. In addition, 74% of the advertisers surveyed said it is important or very important to have integrated digital video and linear TV/data technology solutions.

According to FreeWheel, a unit of cable operator Comcast, the data set used for the VMR report is one of the largest available on the usage of professional, rights-managed video content worldwide, and is based off of census-level advertising data collected through the FreeWheel platform.

The VMR -- formerly the Video Monetization Report -- also looked closely at convergence trends in the industry, adding that tentpole sporting events like the PyeongChang Winter Olympics, FIFA World Cup and Super Bowl LII were viewed increasingly online. According to the VMR, NBC Sports digital coverage of the Winter Olympic Games set a new record in 2018, with 2.17 billion streaming minutes and an 11% lift in its linear only audience.

That increasing comfort with digitally delivered content helped fuel 86% growth in live content ad views during the year, said the VMR. Premium video was shared across multiple day parts, not just primetime -- 23% of all connected TV ad views were in the 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. time slots, while 18% of desktop views were between 12 p.m and 3 p.m., according to the VMR.

Total video views were up 25% in 2018, while ad view growth was 27% for the year. That compares to the prior year when video views rose 26% and ad views were up 22%.

The report added that full-episode content remains the most widely-viewed segment, particularly in the fall viewing season, and made up 61% of ad views in Q4 2018. About 95% of those ad views occurred on entertainment content, the report said.

Still, live TV was the biggest driver of growth -- up 51% year-over-year in Q4 2018. Sports content dominated, accounting for 57% of total live ad views, followed by news (up 46%)and entertainment (up 102%) ad views.

“A halo effect from viewers streaming second quarter tentpole events, such as the Winter Olympics, likely supported the persistence of live viewing throughout the year,” the report said.

The VMR data seemed to jibe with TV ratings measurement giant Nielsen’s Content Ratings Benchmarks report, which noticed a growing trend by consumers, especially younger ones, to watch programming first on their digital devices.

When younger viewers are watching broadcast and cable networks, they are mainly watching live TV. According to Nielsen, within the 18-34 demographic, 66% of the time they spend watching content from the four major broadcasters is done live. For cable networks, the same group spends 81% of its time viewing this content on live TV.

“Understanding how people are spending their time and where they are viewing is essential to monetizing content and creating value for media owners and buyers alike,” Nielsen said in its report.

Nielsen also found that when younger consumers are watching digital content, it is most likely on the go, via their smartphones or tablets. According to the Content Ratings Benchmark report, when 18-34 year- olds watch broadcast-originated content digitally, 71% of that viewing is spent on smartphones and tablets instead of computers. About 55%, when watching cable network originated content digitally, do so on mobile devices. The number spikes with content originated from digital-first publishers, with 91% of the time spent on a digital device by the 18-34 demographic occurring on mobile devices. 

African-Americans -- already voracious consumers of video content -- also over index in their use of apps on their smartphones, according to a new Nielsen Media Pulse report.

African-Americans, Hispanics and Asian American adults spend more than 2 hours and 20 minutes per day using apps or accessing the web on their smartphones, above the 2 hours and 19 minutes generated by the total U.S. population, according to Nielsen. African-Americans however, are driving the trend, averaging 2 hours and 47 minutes on smartphones -- more than any other individual group, said Nielsen.

The high use smartphones by African-Americans to access apps and the web isn’t surprising given the group’s overall consumption of media across all platforms. 

African-Americans dwarf all other groups in per day usage across all media -- including live TV viewing, radio listening, and use of TV connected devices and smartphones -- averaging nearly 12 hours and 50 minutes of media consumption. That’s 23% more time than the average adult, according to Nielsen’s most recent Total Audience report for second quarter 2018.

Further, African-Americans spend more than seven and a half hours per day viewing video across all platforms, two hours more than the average viewer, reported Nielsen.

In other Nielsen’s Media Pulse report findings, Asian-Americans are more proficient when it comes to tablet use. The group spends at least 45 minutes per day using a tablet, outpacing all other groups as well as the total U.S. population.

Also, adult women spend 6% more time using handheld platforms for apps and accessing the web than men, according to the Nielsen report.

Google said it has closed its $1.1 billion acquisition for a part of HTC, including the group that worked closely with Google on its Android-powered Pixel smartphones.

RELATED: Pixel Power: Google Buys a Piece of HTC for $1.1B 

As announced last fall, the agreement, which sees more than 2,000 HTC employees joining Google, also gives Google a non-exclusive license for HTC intellectual property.

The deal enters play as Google’s hardware business, which recently introduced products such as the Google Home Mini, enters its third year.

“These new colleagues [from HTC] bring decades of experience achieving a series of  ‘firsts’ particularly in the smartphone industry—including bringing to market the first 3G smartphone in 2005, the first touch-centric phone in 2007, and the first all-metal unibody phone in 2013,” Rick Osterloh, SVP of hardware at Google, explained in this blog post. “This is also the same team we’ve been working closely with on the development of the Pixel and Pixel 2.”

With the deal done, Google will also be expanding its footprint in the Asia Pacific region, with Taipei, Taiwan, becoming the largest Google engineering site in that region, Osterloh added.

Comcast confirmed that Xfinity Mobile, a service that leans on an MVNO deal with Verizon and the MSO’s WiFi network, will offer the iPhone X, Apple’s new pricey, high-end smartphone that starts at $999.

Comcast said its customers can pre-order the iPhone X starting October 27 at XfinityMobile.com and at Xfinity Stores. The product will become available in Xfinity Stores across the country at 8 a.m. local time on November 3, the company said.

Xfinity Mobile also offers Apple’s recently introduced iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus models.

Comcast, like other mobile service providers, will be looking for Apple's new device to give its sub base a boost.

Comcast launched Xfinity Mobile in May, but hasn’t announced sub figures. An industry source confirmed a Bloomberg report earlier this month that Comcast has amassed more than 200,000 Xfinity Mobile customers. Comcast is scheduled to release Q3 results on Thursday, Oct. 26.

RELATED: Comcast Has About 200K Xfinity Mobile Subs: Report

Comcast also announced that, through December 3, new customers who switch to Xfinity and buy an X1 triple-play with internet, TV and mobile service will receive a $500 gift card.

Google on Thursday announced a $1.1 billion agreement under which certain HTC employees, including many working with Google on its Android-powered Pixel smartphones, will join Google.

Tied in, Google is also getting a non-exclusive license for HTC intellectual property. They expect to close the agreement by early 2018.

A deal between HTC and Google has been rumored for weeks, but earlier speculation held that Google would buy a bigger part of HTC, including a virtual reality business that’s led off by the Vive headset/platform.

RELATED: HTC Might Sell Its VR Business: Report

HTC said it is working on a new flagship phone that would follow the launch of the HTC U11 earlier this year, and that it would continue to invest in and grow its Vive business while also pursuing strategies around the IoT, augmented reality and artificial intelligence.

For Google, the deal gives it more control over the future of Pixel, a smartphone brand/product that was introduced last October. Google is expected to announce the latest in that line next month. Google is set to announce two new smartphone models, the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL, along with a miniaturized smart home device, The Guardian reported.

While the deal makes Taiwan a “key innovation and technology hub” for Google, it’s also less ambitious than Google’s $12.5 billion play for Motorola Mobility that also includes key intellectual property and later led to Google’s sale of Motorola Home to Arris for $2.35 billion.  

“HTC has been a longtime partner of Google and has created some of the most beautiful, premium devices on the market,” said Rick Osterloh, Senior Vice President of Hardware at Google.

“We're excited and can't wait to welcome members of the HTC team who will be joining Google to fuel further innovation and future product development in consumer hardware,” Rick Osterloh, SVP of hardware at Google, said in a statement.

Television viewers who use smartphones while watching the big screen are apt to get distracted, Facebook has found in a new study of how people use the devices to multitask in front of the TV.

The social network said those viewers’ eyes were off the TV screen about 47% of the time during an in-home eye-tracking study it conducted. Overall the study found that 94% of the 100 people participating kept a smartphone on hand while watching TV.

Facebook said the biggest reason people stop looking at their TV sets is to do household chores. But many use their phones as well.

Of those using their phones while watching TV, 70% said they were trying to stay connected with friends; others said to avert boredom (51%), to take a break (44%) and to avoid missing out on other things going on (40%).

Among 1 million Facebook users whose status updates indicated they were watching the premiere of a popular cable show last fall, Facebook activity went up by as much as 300% during commercial breaks.

In the eye-tracking study, 58 people watched ad-supported TV content, according to a post on the company’s blog. On average, those people “disengaged” during a third of the commercial breaks. Viewers would stop watching breaks about 2.5 seconds into the first ad. And of those who stopped watching commercials, three-quarters started looking at their phones.

Facebook said the findings reinforce its pitch that marketers should bolster TV campaigns with mobile video ads on Facebook and Instagram. Those digital ads will also extend a campaign’s reach, the company said.

It also urged marketers to optimize the audio during TV commercials.

”Our analysis of Facebook data showed that TV viewers often use Facebook during TV commercial breaks,” a company spokesperson said. "But even when people aren't looking at your TV ads, they can still hear them. Ensure your TV ads break through by making the audio engaging and memorable."

Despite the growing number of ways people can watch video content, 92% of all viewing by U.S. adults is done on a TV screen, according to Nielsen.

Nielsen’s fourth-quarter "Comparable Metrics Report" found that adults spent 509 billion minutes viewing on TVs in the quarter and another 63.6 billion minutes viewing on TV-connected devices. Viewing video on PCs accounted for 31.7 billion minutes, smartphone video for 10.9 billion minutes and tablets for 4.4 billion minutes, for a combined share of viewing of 7.6%.

TV has a weekly reach of 89% of all adults, but only 79% of millennials (adults 18-34). TV-connected devices reach 44% of all adults and 54% of those 18-34.

Those young adults spent more time on their phones — 19 hours, 39 minutes per week — than watching the tube, at 19:18, according to Nielsen. Among all adults, 34 hours, 32 minutes per week were spent watching TV, with another 4:18 on TV-connected devices. They spent 17:48 per week on their phones.

Nielsen said its "Comparable Metrics Report" is an in-depth study of users and usage — averaged across the U.S. population — designed to provide an “apples to apples” view of consumption across TV, radio, TV-connected devices, PCs, smartphones and tablets.

“The fact of the matter is that viewers use the TV screen for the bulk of their viewing and spend more time doing so than all the other platforms combined,” said Tom Ziangas, SVP Research at AMC Networks. “Sure, viewers have more options today, but when looking at platforms in a comparative fashion, it’s clear that consumers choose the television as the primary vehicle for content,” he added.

FreedomPop, the company behind a WiFi-first voice and data products, has introduced its own full-featured, low-cost phone for £59 (US$69.77) that will initially be offered in the U.K. and Spain, with plans to introduce it in the U.S. later this year.

RELATED: FreedomPop Raises Global Stakes

FreedomPop has previously relied on refurbished Android smartphones. The new device, called the V7, will give the company more control of its service, gain access to a higher-quality product, and will help FreedomPop deal with supply issues for refurbished Android devices, said FreedomPop CEO Stephen Stokols.

RELATED: Intel Capital Splashes Cash on FreedomPop, Sckipio

He said FreedomPop, which tends to operate in the lower end of the market, has run into supply problems by leaning on refurbished devices that, on occasion, has caused the company to stop promotions prematurely and created a backorder issue.

“There are only so many devices in the market,” he said, noting that FreedomPop’s issue with supply has been ongoing for about 18 months.

By going with its own smartphone, FreedomPop will also get more control of the service and the overall experience, which uses a WiFi-first model that falls back on cellular networks through MVNO deals with carriers, Stokols said.

FreedomPop isn’t naming its initial supplier for the V7, but the company could eventually work with multiple OEM partners, he said.

While acknowledging that FreedomPop doesn’t need the volumes of a company like Samsung, the aim is to take on partners that can produce in the volumes it needs, “and ramp up with us," Stokols said. 

FreedomPop doesn’t disclose exact customer figures, but is approaching 2 million worldwide, according to Stokols. 

Stokols said FreedomPop expects to introduce the V7 to U.S. customers by sometime in the next quarter.

The FreedomPop V7 includes a free FreedomPop SIM that supports free voice, text and data included, as well as free WhatsApp usage. Customers who want more than the basic free plan can either upgrade to a paid FreedomPop plan, use a different SIM, or both, because the phone is dual SIM device.

The phone itself runs Android 6.0 Marshmallow, features a five-inch IPS scree and 13 megapixel camera, and is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 210 processor. It has 8 gigabytes of internal memory and can support 32 GB micros SD card.

Poland is steadily leaving the “emerging market” phase of its development, matching or exceeding its Western European counterparts in the use of digital entertainment and boding well for U.S. programmers that made investments in the region, according to SNL Kagan.

According to Kagan, not only have Polish consumers have been buying smartphones and tablets, they are more likely to use them for digital entertainment than consumers in other countries.

A few U.S. companies have dipped their toes in the Polish market in recent years, with Scripps Networks Interactive purchasing one of the country’s leading cable networks – TVN – last September.  Time Warner Inc., has a presence in Eastern Europe with its interests in Central European Media Enterprises and other programmers have shifted their focus to that part of the world to capture a part of the growing TV ad  market.

According to a study conducted in late 2015 by Consumer Insights, 83% of Internet adults in Poland own a smartphone, which is in line with France, Germany and the United Kingdom. At 53%, tablet ownership in Poland is comparable to adoption levels in Western Europe and the country has one of the highest penetration rates for smart TVs in Europe.

Polish consumers are also big users of on-demand content. According to SNL Kagan, 60% of Internet adults in Poland reported using broadcaster or pay TV operator VOD services over the past 30 days, a level exceeded only by consumers in the U.K. (69%). But VOD usage lags those consumers in Western Europe at only 18%. But Polish consumers exceed other regions in their usage of digital content on personal computers. According to Kagan, 41% of PC owners in Poland report using the device to stream video content from an online service, more than twice the level in the U.K. (16%) and Italy (20%) and three times the rate of consumers in Germany (13%) and France (13%). Poland also exceeds the other countries surveyed in streaming video from a pay TV operator’s website (28%), the use of transactional video rental/purchasing services (28%/29%) and streaming online music (49%).

The past decade’s promise of digital convergence is manifesting in live streaming of major sports events attracting record audiences via smartphones, tablets, game consoles and PCs.

Consumers are taking advantage of TV everywhere and OTT streaming services that sports leagues and networks offer in increasing numbers, with mobile views augmenting the longer established out-of-market pay TV offerings.

“League Pass continues to grow, even as we introduced new packages,” David Denenberg, the National Basketball Association’s senior vice president of global media distribution, business affairs, told Multichannel News. “We’re focused on serving our fans no matter what platform they have with them.”

Full-season subscription-TV packages like NBA League Pass, Major League Baseball’s MLB.TV and the National Hockey League’s NHL GameCenter Live serve transplanted sports enthusiasts in out-of-market locations who want to keep following their hometown teams.

Digital extensions from the leagues have bolstered those services, leagues said. The NBA this season even added single-game pay streams. (The leagues won’t divulge the number of digital subscriptions, other than they’ve increased steadily.)

League and network officials don’t seem especially concerned about business-model-busting moves such as the live-streaming deal Twitter reached with the National Football League to stream 10 free games from its Thursday Night Football package.

“I have a hard time thinking that the best way to stream content to the masses is digital-only product,” said Rick Cordella, NBC Sports Group senior vice president and general manager, digital media. “There’s no power like broadcast television. We’re not going to make our content freely available.”

When NBC streamed in 2008 for the first time the Olympic Games, in Beijing, “We took a very cautious approach,” Cordella said. “The biggest fear initially was cannibalization: instead of people watching on a big screen TV on the wall, they would then watch on an iPhone or a desktop computer. Really that’s never the case.”

For NBC, the key to streaming live is authentication; users must prove they’re either a cable or satellite subscriber. “We’re part of the ecosystem, a larger machine. We think it’s the right model,” Cordella said.

That goes for anything that NBC broadcasts over the air, as well as NBCSN, the Golf Channel and regional sports networks, such as local NBA games, and NBC’s partnership with Telemundo’s Deportes, totalling 7,000-8,000 hours of content a year, not including the Olympics, which is another 4,500 hours. In mid-April, the first week of the National Hockey League’s Stanley Cup Playoffs scored for NBC Sports an 84% bigger digital audience than last year, Cordella said.

“Digital streaming attracts young affluent males who are tech-savvy and forward leaning: an attractive demographic to reach for advertisers,” Cordella said, adding that digital has its own ad load often with different creative even though they might be some of the same advertisers on-air. “In some case [advertisers] pay a premium to reach it.”

Livestream growth also is evident in other sports, such as soccer, golf and tennis.

The NeuLion-powered Major League Soccer service, MLS Live, grew its subscription base by 60% in 2015, according to Chris Wagner, executive vice president and co-founder of NeuLion.

NeuLion overall delivered OTT 63,000 live sports streams in 2015 and 30% higher video traffic than the previous year, Wagner said.

The new OTT product Univision Now, directed at 57 million Spanish U.S.-based speakers, expects digital traffic this June for the 32-match Copa America Centenario soccer tournament, involving national teams from North America and South America to be a bigger streaming deal than the 2014 FIFA World Cup was for Univision, he said.

“TV is still going to have the majority of [all sports] audiences,” Wagner said.

But digital is making inroads.

SIDEBAR: Sports Streaming Milestones

• Viewers of CBS Sports’s live stream of Super Bowl 50 consumed more than 402 million total minutes of coverage across laptops, desktops, tablets, connected TV devices and mobile phones, watching for more than 101 minutes each on average. During the game window, viewers consumed more than 315 million minutes of coverage, with an average minute audience of 1.4 million.

• NBA League Pass, the NBA’s live out-of-market subscription package, delivered a record 27 million video views and 1.2 billion total minutes viewed during the 2015-16 regular season. Globally, NBA.com and the NBA app netted a record 9.1 billion video views this season, up 160% over last year, and 3 billion visits, for a 27% year-over-year increase.

• This year’s NCAA March Madness Live, managed by Turner, garnered 73.5 million live streams and 18.1 million hours of live video consumption. When comparing this year with 2010, live streaming is up 84% and hours of live video consumption are up 54%.

• MLB Advanced Media’s At Bat app in 2015 established record levels of engagement including 13.1 million downloads (+21% YOY), 1.7 billion app starts (+40% YOY) and 8.4 billion minutes.

• WrestleMania 32-related content garnered more than 250 million video views across WWE.com, the WWE app and social media, (+122% YOY), setting a data traffic record of 8.6 TB on the AT&T network.

• Golf Channel Digital achieved its best week ever with The Masters from April 7–10, 2016 for total video starts (3.2 million) and total unique users (4 million). Additionally, Golf Live Extra saw a 23% increase in streaming coverage over 2015 for Golf Central Live From The Masters coverage, the best ever for Masters Week.

•CSN Bay Area Digital set a network record with 3.19 million minutes streamed for the historic 73rd regular-season Golden State Warriors win over the Memphis Grizzlies, surpassing the previous high, last Sunday’s Warriors-San Antonio Spurs game (3.15 million minutes streamed). For the full season, fans consumed 96.1 million minutes on CSNBayArea.com and via NBC Sports Live Extra (through 70 games), up 443% compared to the 2014-15 championship season.

• The NBC Sports section of Yahoo Sports delivered 3.5 million minutes in March, up 30% over March 2015, according to multiplatform data released by comScore.

Expanding into a new line of business, Dish Network  said it has deployed its national fleet of professional technicians to repair iPhones for consumers and business users, whether or not they get service from Dish.

Coverage all 50 states, Dish’s new Smart Phone Repair service will fix  cracked screens and replace batteries on several Apple iPhone models, including the iPhone 5, 5c, 5s, 6 and 6 Plus. Dish currently doesn’t fix Android devices, but noted in its announcement that it plans to expand service to include other devices and smartphone accessories in the coming months.

Dish said the new service aims to eliminate the hassle and uncertainty of smartphone repair using transparent pricing and its pro techs, while using “high-quality replacement parts from respected third parties.” Dish sees its on-site capabilities as a key differentiator particularly in the area of convenience.

Dish also outlined fixed pricing on its services (see below), which include a $35 “Drive to Me” fee. For example, repairing a screen for an iPhone 6 Plus costs $184.99, while a battery replacement for a supported iPhone models costs $74.99.

Dish added that it also offers appointments seven days a week, including same-day and next-day availability, and offers a 60-day warranty on all repair work. The service also works with Dish’s “My Tech” app, a tool that provides info on the repair tech assigned to them and a way to track the progress of the technician’s vehicle.

Dish said it also offers onsite corporate events for large-scale repairs on enterprise smartphones and employees’ personal devices.

The new service will compete with Apple’s own repair program. Per Apple’s support site, fixing a screen for an iPhone6 Plus costs $99 with AppleCare+, or $149 without, for example.  Battery replacements on all models are no cost if the device is still under warranty or covered by AppleCare+, or $79 if the device is out of warranty. Apple lets customers bring a device in for repair at Apple Stores or by sending it in, with a turnaround of three to five business days. Dish’s service will also come up against retail specialists such as BatteriesPlus, which also repairs iPhone screens and installs new batteries if customers bring them in to physical store locations. 

“Fixing your phone shouldn’t mean losing your phone for days on end, so we come to you – whether you’re at the office, the gym or even the coffee shop,” John Swieringa, Dish’s executive vice president of operations, said in a statement. “DISH is uniquely positioned with the technical know-how and ability to respond to a customer’s needs in every state across the country. Instead of paying $650 or more to replace a smartphone, our technicians step in to extend the life of the phone when a screen shatters or a battery loses its charge."

Here’s the initial pricing on Dish’s new smartphone repair service:

-Screen repair for iPhone 6 Plus: $184.99

-Screen repair for iPhone 6: $154.99

-Screen repair for iPhone 5s, 5c, or 5: $134.99

-Battery replacement for iPhone 6 Plus, 6, 5s, 5c, and 5: $74.99

-Screen repair/battery replacement for iPhone 6 Plus: $224.98

-Screen repair/battery replacement for iPhone 6: $194.98

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The Weather Channel is launching a new morning show that will be available only on mobile devices.

The Lift debuts Oct. 15 and will be hosted by Al Roker, who will be joined by meteorologists Domenica Davis and Ari Sarsalari. The network cancelled the Today show weatherman's show on cable a few weeks ago.

The show will consist of six to eight clips focused on breaking weather news, nature stories, science items and viral videos. It will be accessible via the Weather Channel app. 

Read more at B&C.