An informal group of major media trade groups, unions and some high-powered sports organizations--led by Fox--is asking Congress to pass legislation that would provide "pandemic risk insurance" for businesses attempting to, well, do business during the current pandemic. 

Among those signing on to the letter were NAB, NCTA, MPA, NFL, SAG-AFTRA and NASCAR. 

The letter, a copy of which was obtained by Multichannel News. Shows such as Fox's hit, The Masked Singer, could use such insurance, as will sports productions, if they are to start ramping back up next month for the fall, as planned, but with no guarantee a pandemic spike could spike their plans at the last minute. 

They said the "the ability of American businesses like ours to secure pandemic risk insurance will be a key factor to America’s economic recovery." 

"Whether it be professional and collegiate sporting events, the next must-see film, a bingeworthy TV series, or a marquee Broadway production, we cannot envision any long-term recovery of these American  experiences without some form of business interruption insurance that mitigates the risks associated  with producing these popular events and programs in the COVID era now facing the country," they wrote to Hill leadership in a letter dated Wednesday (July 1). 

The point is, according to someone familiar with the coalition, is that currently insurance companies aren't offering pandemic riders and probably won't absent some shove from D.C. That means that if the NFL restarts, production is planned, then a governor shuts down the stadium, or the production of an entertainment show, there is all that cost that will otherwise have to be eaten. 

He points out that Congress approved terrorism risk insurance for business re-openings after 9/11. 

Fox and company are hoping to generate some Hill activity on the issue following members' return after July 4, according to the source familiar with the coalition.

Roku has vehemently denied an anonymously sourced Digiday report that it is meeting with media companies to discuss making original shows. 

“We are not working on originals,” a Roku rep told Next TV in an email exchange this morning. 

To date, the conventional wisdom has been the that advertising-based video-on-demand (AVOD) business models don’t work for expensive original series strategies. 

However, Digiday makes the case that mere talks with the Hollywood studios aren’t out of the question. AVOD competitor Vudu (owned by Walmart) has been working on an originals strategy for several years. And in another anonymously sourced story that was posted in late February, Digiday reported that Amazon’s IMDb TV platform is looking to pay as much as $500,000 per episode to join the original series arms race. 

Roku took in $411.2 million in ad revenue in the fourth quarter, up 49% year over year and beating Wall Street expectations. 

A key generator of that revenue has been AVOD platform the Roku Channel, which features licensed movie content from the major studios, along with carriage of various digital content channels from third-party providers.

As Digiday noted, it’s not getting any easier for a platform to stand out with splashy, expensive original shows, not with Apple TV Plus, Disney Plus, Peacock, HBO Max and Quibi all joining the subscription streaming race within the current six-month period. 

Notably, Facebook and YouTube have recently pulled back on ambitious original series plans. 

With Netflix projected by BMO Capital Markets to spend $17.3 billion this year on originals, there’s a go big or go home mentality these days to entering the originals market. 

“If you’re spending under $1 billion on originals, then you’re not really in it,” an unnamed entertainment executive told Digiday.

Subscription video on demand service True Royalty TV has launched on Cox Contour TV, executives from both parties said Monday.

The $5.99 per month service, which features original and acquired content surrounding the British Royal Family, will be featured as part of the Cox Contour TV programming lineup. In addition to content about the British Royal Family, True Royalty TV features documentaries and docu-dramas about other Monarchies around the world, said the network. 

“The launch on Cox is a tremendous step forward for True Royalty TV ... we have tapped into a specialized content sector that has a massive fan base – a fact that our platform partners have come to fully appreciate,” said Gregor Angus, True Royalty TV CEO and co-founder in a statement. “Our distribution on this platform will be vital in our continued growth in the US in the months and years to come.”

True Royalty TV is also available in the US on Xfinity’s X1 platform, Sling TV, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Roku, via iOS and Android app stores and online at www.TrueRoyalty.tv.

Crunchyroll, Ellation’s anime-focused SVOD service, is branching into the world of linear TV through a partnership with Brazilian television network Rede Brasil (RBTV).

Starting April 21, Crunchyroll and RBTV will offer a programmed anime hour featuring two subtitled shows, Black Clover and Re:Zero. The block will run on Saturdays at 8 p.m., and rerun on Sundays at 11 a.m.

That hour on RBTV, they said, will also include eight minutes of local programming from Crunchyroll’s Brazilian community managers, Maria Luiza Petranski Arantes and Beatriz Braz Accioly, who will “explore the latest and greatest in anime and fandom.” (Here’s a video preview from them.)

The TV-focused deal will help to broaden Crunchyroll's reach and attempt to establish more connections with anime fans. It’s another example of how SVOD services are expanding their game plan in order to stand apart in a crowded and fragmented market.

RELATED: SVOD Shakeout: The Survival of the Fittest (subscription required)

Among other recent moves that extend beyond its core OTT focus, Crunchyroll teamed with Sumitomo Corp. and GREE to launch its first game, Memoria Freese, for iOS and Android devices.

Crunchyroll, which is also distributed through VRV (Ellation’s SVOD aggregation service), said it has more than 40 million registered users and more than 1 million subscribers. 

Byron Allen-owned Entertainment Studios’ Justice Central.TV network has inked a carriage deal with Dish Network, the company announced Thursday.

The Dish deal gives Justice Central.Tv, which launched in 2012, more than 40 million subscribers. The deal is a rare distribution agreement for Dish, which has recently been involved in disputes with content providers over licensing fees.

Allen said Justice Central.TV is a "terrific network, and we don't charge a subscription fee, which helps MVPD's in an environment where the cost of content is out of control."

He added: “I am very proud of our new relationship with Dish and I am highly confident their subscribers will enjoy the network."

Dish vice president of programming Andy LeCuyer also said that Justice Central.TV "represents a successful and underserved genre. Our customers now have the perfect destination for a wide variety of the best court shows available to them around the clock from the largest producer of television court programming.”

With Election Day drawing near (Nov. 1), the Video Advertising Bureau has released a report that shows undecided voters in the last days before going to the polls are influenced more by TV than by other media.

Televised debates and political TV shows were cited by 65% of respondents as their primary sources for political information about national races, according to a VAB survey of undecided voters.

More than 40% of undecided voters have gone online to research a candidate or issue after seeing a political ad on TV, the survey found. Only 21% said they had researched a candidate after viewing an ad on social media, and 17% said they had followed up after someone they knew “liked” a candidate on Facebook.

More than three quarters of respondents (79%) said TV was the medium where a political ad was most likely to get their attention, in both national and local races.

Read more at broadcastingcable.com.

It's easy to relish the summary finding in Nielsen's Total Audience Report, which concludes that "in the expanding world of smart devices and the seemingly endless amount of sites and apps available, traditional means of media still hold their own."

In other words Nielsen's observation for the second quarter matches the results of many other recent media consumption reports: TV is still America's dominant, favored platform.

But you don't have to dig very deeply into the Nielsen data or look very far beyond it to see the shifting patterns emerging at a quickened pace. For example, Nielsen's report, which compares second-quarter data from 2014, 2015 and 2016, points out that the time users spend daily on smartphone apps or websites jumped by more than 50% -- from 1 hour to 1 hour, 43 minutes -- in the past two years, while TV viewing time dropped only 10 minutes per day (4:19 to 4:09) and DVR usage stagnated at about 30 minutes. Time spent using the Internet on a computer crawled up from 48 minutes two years ago to 57 minutes this year, Nielsen said.

The slightly slowing pace of TV viewing is more than replaced by attention to smartphone screens (and less so to PCs), albeit this particular Nielsen report did not tabulate simultaneous screen usage when a viewer could be "watching" TV and an online/mobile app at the same time.

Nielsen acknowledged that despite a slight decline in the number of TV channels available to cable and satellite viewers (still just over 200), the average TV channel options constitute only a fraction of what’s available via digital apps or websites, "so consumers are using more of them."  On average, adults visit about 55 websites via PCs, use 28 apps and visit 44 sites via smartphones, and use 14 apps via tablets, according to the latest quarterly data.

Perhaps most significantly, Nielsen said that however many TV channels are available, the typical household still only watches 9.6% of them.

Meanwhile, Parks Associates, in its "Disruption in Video Sourcing and Production" research report, found that nearly 35% of U.S. broadband households watch user-generated video on sites like YouTube, Vimeo and DailyMotion, more than 10 days per month. Three-fourths of U.S. broadband households access this content at least once per month, and -- back to the growing reliance on mobile access -- about 13% of U.S. broadband consumers said they have watched live-streamed video on a mobile app.

The study also identified growing convergence between traditional media and Internet video and the impact of streaming technologies, including live streaming through mobile apps such as Facebook Live and Periscope.

Parks found that men watch user-generated video online more frequently than women, with men watching 11 days per month compared with less than nine days for women. And 22% of respondents said they usually use an ad blocker to circumvent online video advertising while watching.

“Competition for customers and revenues will become even more intense in the future,” said Brett Sappington, senior director of research at Parks Associates. "New personalization technologies are driving simplified authentication, increased consumption, greater viewer engagement and enhanced revenue generation."

Yet another recent study further affirmed the migration of the crucial millennial audience to mobile platforms. In its "2016 Smartphone User Behavior Report: Millennials & Their Smartphone Habits," Coupofy, an online discount coupon dealer, found that social media -- not traditional news sources -- are by far the most popular ways that young audiences keep up on headlines: 55% of millennials go to social media apps and sites on smartphones for morning news, compared with 14% who browse news sites. More than two-thirds of millennials consume news through Facebook, while Twitter is the "primary news source for twice as many high school students as entrepreneurs."

And looking even farther forward, both mobile-centric Instagram and Twitter are more popular among iGen (also called Generation Z or Post-Millennials, those born after the year 2000) than among GenY millennials. As always, that raises the question of whether these social-media-focused youths will grow into conventional media consumption patterns or if their future is being cemented beyond the wired world.

To answer that question, look at the top Coupofy finding: 18% of young respondents who browse news first thing in the morning "think their smartphones made them smarter."

Three new studies dramatically emphasize the rapid adoption of "non-traditional" viewing and the decline of the "TV-centric living room."  At the same time the research underscores how second-screen usage, especially during special events such as the Super Bowl, are attracting more viewers than the naysayers want to believe. 

In the U.K., for example, only 50% of adults online "consider the TV set as the focal point of their living rooms," and 70% of adults routinely used a connected device while watching TV, the Internet Advertising Bureau UK found in a recent study. Among British viewers aged 16 to 34, 87% are using a second screen while in front of a TV set.

Although the data represent the current British experience, the numbers are comparable to North American usage. The situation should also spur programmers and operators to develop multiscreen approaches to content and advertising.  

“Second screening is ingrained to such a degree that all screens are now equal; there’s no hierarchy, only fragmentation of attention – actually switch-screening is a much more accurate term,” said Tim Elkington, the IAB-UK’s chief strategy officer.

“Connected devices have changed the living room and will continue to do so, and advertisers must plan for the living room of tomorrow,” Elkington added. “This requires a rethink about how to command attention in the living room because the opportunity to do so is far more limited, fragmented and competitive than ever before.”

The IAB UK analysis also tracked  viewers' various activities during commercial breaks. They most frequently turn to other online activities via their connected devices (35%). followed by talking to someone in the room (15%), leaving the room (13%) and changing the channel (8%).

To emphasize the U.Kk study, two reports on U.S. Super Bowl viewing attested to the non-traditional viewing patterns -- despite some problems with the streaming video delivery of the big game.

Think With Google,an advertising research unit within the media giant, monitored the ways in which U.S. TV viewers interacted with Super Bowl 50 and found that 82% of ad-related searches conducted during the game telecast were done on mobile phones, compared with 7% on tablets and 11% on desktop computers.  

Separately, Localytics tracked the average number of apps launched during the Super Bowl by mobile users. It found that app usage ran high throughout the game, with multitasking viewers using an average of 3.2 social networks and 1.9 sports apps.

Significantly, the distraction-seeking second-screen users also launched 2.4 music apps and 2.2 entertainment apps while they were tuned in to the Super Bowl, according to Localytics' research.  It found that the great length of "time in app" (measured by average app usage within each hour period) occurred at just before the actual start of the game. The peak average time in app was 8.7 minutes with a spike in usage during Lady Gaga's performance of the National Anthem.

The Localytics data showed that after 7 p.m. ET, fans began to spend less time in apps, "likely to focus on the fast-moving game."

Although these studies, from both sides of the Atlantic, are merely the latest entrants in the ongoing war of dueling data about multiscreen engagement and platform preferences, they add new evidence about the shifting preferences and screen savvy of a growing audience sector.

Google is nearing the launch of a second-generation of its  Chromecast streaming adapter, and the company is expected to introduce the new product device at Google's September 29 event in San Francisco, 9to5Google reported while offering some blurry screenshots that show product packaging and a new, apparently larger form-factor.

Per the report, the device, which apparently will come in a range of colors, will support improved WiFi support (possibly 802.11ac) via a feature called “Fast Play.” The original $35 Chromecast (pictured) supports 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi (802.11n at 2.4GHz only). 

Google’s been asked for comment.

Update: Google isn't commenting on the report. 

The Chromecast was an immediate hit when it was launched in July 2013. In May, Google announced that more than 17 million Chromecast devices had been sold.

A new version would enter the scene as the OTT device market remains hot, following the recent debut of a 4K-capable Fire TV box from Amazon and the new app-friendly Apple TV. Google, meanwhile, has also been pushing Android TV, its platform for streaming players and connected TVs. 

For 2014, Roku led the market with 34% of units sold, followed the Google Chromecast (23%), Amazon Fire TV, and Apple TV, according to Parks Associates.

Two new longitudinal research studies -- conducted over a 20-year period -- indicate that TV viewing can lead to more injuries but may or may not lead to "adiposity" (the study's term for "obesity.")

One of the studies offers the contrarian view that watching TV doesn't necessarily make all couch potatoes fat, identifying a sizeable category of viewers who don't put on weight as they binge on TV shows. According to that study, which sought to correlate TV viewing and personal injuries, more time spent in front of a TV raised the risk of injuries during the following five years.

This relationship was greater for those in a "high hostility" group, which was determined by a scientific questionnaire, according to the report, "Television Viewing and Hostile Personality Trait Increase the Risk of Injuries," just published by University of Pittsburgh epidemiology professor Anthony Fabio and others. The research found that high-hostile individuals who watched more TV at year five of the study had 40% higher odds of injury by year 10.  After that, at year 15, frequent viewers with hostile tendencies doubled the odds of injury at year 20.  The nature of such injuries was not clearly spelled out.

"The association did not occur in individuals with less hostile personalities," Fabio said. Noting that "injuries cause more than half the deaths among people ages 1 through 44," Fabio and his colleagues suggested that "a reduction in television viewing and a content rating system that is geared not just to age but also to personality traits "could help."

Their study concluded that the correlation of TV viewing by people with hostile personalities has several implications. Certain personalities may lead them "to participate in more high-risk behaviors if they watch more television."

The report also repeats two long-held contentions: "Media violence and high-risk activities increase psychological arousal, intensifying subsequent behavior, such as aggressive risk-taking or impulsivity," and "Images on television may desensitize people to violence or risk-taking."

The second study, also published in late August by a team headed by the University of Pittsburgh, found that the link between watching TV and higher body mass does "not hold in later years, indicating that young adulthood is an important time to intervene and promote less TV viewing."

“We were quite surprised to find that television viewing was associated with subsequent obesity for young adults, but not for the middle-aged,” Fabio said in describing the findings of long-term research among more than 3,200 adults.

"This suggests that middle-aged adults may differ from young adults in how they respond to the influence of TV viewing," he added.

The study, "Fifteen-Year Prospective Analysis of Television Viewing and Adiposity," found that the more time participants watched TV when they were about 30 years old, the more likely they were to be obese five years later, compared with peers who spent less time in front of a TV.

Overall, both studies argued for watching less TV. 

"Even a small reduction in television viewing could lead to vast public health improvements," Fabio concluded.

He did not indicate if his team is working on other long-term examinations of the relationship of hostility, apidosity and injuries in the aging population of mouse potatoes -- that is, screen addicts who spend a lot of time in front of computers and videogames.

Earlier this month, Sony rolled out its new PlayStation Vue over-the-top pay TV service, the latest in a trend of over-the-top streaming-video platforms looking to compete with traditional cable and broadcast networks for consumer eyeballs.

The PlayStation Vue service can only be accessed through Sony’s PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 consoles when connected to TVs, joining other media players like Roku, Apple TV and Amazon Fire TV available through Internet-enabled devices connected to the boob tube.

As these connected devices continue to offer consumers the ability to watch both cable-network programming and original content from OTT services like Hulu and Netflix without a cable subscription, another interesting trend is developing. With all the talk of consumers watching more and more content on iPhones, tablets and computers, it seems that viewing on big-screen TVs is also on the rise.

A recent Reality Mine report on Digital Video Trends reports that heavy Internet-video users spent 35% of their TV-viewing time watching streaming TV shows and movies on television and connected game consoles last year. That’s up from about 20% in 2013.

That figure compares favorably to about 17% of consumers who watched streaming content on computers — down from nearly 30% in 2013 — and less than 5% of users who view streaming content on mobile devices, tablets and eReaders, which was also down significantly from the year prior, according to the survey.

While video viewing on mobile phones, iPads and other devices provides convenience for people on the go — and is particularly prevalent among millennials — for many others, the ideal and easiest way to experience quality, high-definition streaming video is on a big-screen television set through Internet-ready smart TVs and connected devices.

 Digital media research firm eMarketer estimated that nearly 55% of all Internet users will stream video content and conduct other Web-based activities through a connected TV at least once a month in 2015 — up from 45% in 2014.

Dish Network and Sling TV interactive and advanced TV general manager Adam Lowy said as much during a panel at last week’s Horowitz Cultural Insights Forum in New York, when he asked which trends would emerge in the video space over the next year.

“I personally think we’ll see a lot more viewing on the big screen, as smart TVs continue to come down in price and as more [digital] services evolve,” Lowy said.

Digital advertising in the U.S. will grow 13% this year, driving an overall 3.2% increase in total ad spend to $186.6 billion, according to a new forecast from Boston-based consultancy Strategy Analytics. 

By comparison, the TV ad spend is expected to grow only 1.7% while print advertising will decline 7.9% year-over-year, the company said.

The year’s digital ad increases will be fueled by search (up 45%), social media (31%), video (29%) and mobile (20%). The digital growth alone, however, is not enough to bolster traditional media revenue, which Strategy Analytics expects to be 0.2% lower in 2015 than in 2014.

“Despite digital’s best efforts, the drop in traditional ad revenues means we’ll see fairly modest growth in overall U.S. ad revenues in 2015,” Michael Goodman, co-author of the report, said. “[We] will have to wait for more significant growth in 2016, courtesy of the U.S. presidential elections and summer Olympics.”

Other ad categories that Strategy Analytics predicts will grow in 2015: outdoor (up 4.8%), cinema advertising (3.4%) and radio (1.8%).

At $78.8 billion total, U.S. TV ad revenue would comprise a 42.2% share of the overall U.S. ad spend, down 0.6% from its haul in 2014. Next is digital with 28.3% ($52.8 billion), up 2.5% from 2014, and print with 14.9% ($27.9 billion), down 1.8%. The remaining 14.6% will come from radio ($17.6 billion), outdoor ($8.7billion) and cinema ($0.8billion), each relatively unchanged from last year.

Looking ahead to 2018, report co-author Leika Kawasaki said TV’s share of the ad spend will drop to 40% while digital will grow to 35% share, but TV networks are unlikely to feel any major pain from the change. “TV’s declining share is less about ad dollars flowing out of TV and more about dollars flowing into digital from print and radio,” Kawaski said. “TV networks … will see little, if any, real decline in revenue, just a shift in the source from linear TV ads to online video.”

Print advertising, on the other hand, is expected to fall to $20.3 billion by 2018, or less than a third of its 2007 level, accounting for only 10% market share.

Affluent Americans are highly engaged with traditional television but their digital media consumption is increasing significantly, according to a 2014 affluent survey conducted by global research company Ipsos.

More than 90% of Affluents -- defined in the survey as the 23% of U.S. households with at least $100,000 in yearly household income -- watched video on traditional television screens over as 7 day period, according to the report. In addition, 44% watched video on a computer, with both figures virtually unchanged from last year.

Nearly half of all Affluents have a TV connected to the Internet, 23% own a smart TV, and 23% have a TV connected to a digital media receiver or streaming device – all of which are up significantly from 2013, according to the survey.

Wealthy Americans also watch 16 hours of traditional broadcast or cable television a week – virtually matching last year’s figures – and tune into an average of more than 15 cable channels a week.  

While affluent Americans are still enjoying traditional television viewing, they are also increasingly turning to digital media for their entertainment. Video viewing on tablets increased to 25% in 2014 compared to 22% last year, while smartphone viewing increased to 31% from 28% in 2013, according to the survey.

Overall, 67% of Affluents now own a smartphone, up from 45% in 2011 and 48% own a tablet, up from a meager 9% in 2011.

Affluents are also big internet users, averaging 42.9 hours of online use weekly. Facebook is the most popular social media network, with Affluents spending more than 6 hours weekly on the site, followed by Instagram with less than five hours a week, according to the survey.

“Digital media use continues to grow, and traditional media use has changed much less than many people expected,” says Steven Krus, chief Insights Officer for Ipsos. “Consumption of new media is supplementing, not supplanting, traditional media use – and the result is a net increase in Affluents’ overall engagement with media.”

A new study on the rising age of television viewers, along with primetime ratings results from this summer’s top cable networks, should cause programmers some concern.

The median age of viewers during the 2013-14 TV season has risen by 2.5 years, to 44, since the 2009-10 TV season, according to MoffettNathanson Research. Further, the

research said, cable viewers have gotten 8% older in the past five years and are now a median age of 40.

Outside of the kids’ networks, the survey said  the youngest networks were Nick At Nite (20.8 years), MTV2 (23.2), MTV (23.5) and Adult Swim (23.8). But even all of those networks are

skewing older than they were during the 2009-10 season, according to the report.

Those findings are consistent with viewership for the most-watched cable networks on cable in primetime this summer. Seven of the top 10 networks posted double-digit declines among the younger

18-34 audience during the period of May 26 to Aug. 31, according to Nielsen. Only Fox News Channel and ESPN — both of which had significant live programming events/breaking

news stories during the summer -- posted increases in the demographic.

The top 10 cable networks didn’t fare much better among total viewers, with six out of 10 posting year-to-year declines, but the decline in younger viewers is particularly notable.

While younger viewers are accessing programming on alternative platforms, the numbers show that the migration from traditional TV to other distribution outlets could be accelerating. These are the

consumers cable needs to attract and secure to replace the older viewers as subscribers.

TV remains the "key" viewer for video in U.S. homes, but that video is increasingly coming from the 'net, which is taking some toll on traditional distribution.

That is one of the conclusions of a new market research analysis being released today by the Consumer Electronics Association.

Multichannel News received an early copy of the report, which found that 45% of TV households reported getting some programming on their TV's via the Internet (from a Netflix or Hulu, for example), up from 2013's 28%.

Nearly half of TV households (46%) also watched video on a portable computer (laptop, notebook or netbook), up from 38% in 2013,  or on a smartphone (43%, up from 33% in 2013), or on either a tablet (35%, up from 26% in 2013) or a desktop computer (34%, up from 30% in 2013).

Consumers who said they receive Internet-based programming are also doing so on other devices, including gaming consoles (50%), Blu-ray players (405) and a service such as Apple TV or Roku (33%).

But Internet-only viewers are still a small fraction at 5%, about the same as 2013.

That number could be growing. CEA says that according to figures as of January 2014, 24% of all households had an Internet-enabled TV, with 16.1 million app-enabled TV's projected to ship this year.

The vast majority of U.S. households (93%) have used TVs to access video in the past 12 months. Traditional TV programming is primarily accessed through a pay-TV service, with cable claiming half-52%--of that subscriber base with 60 million subs, down from 63 million in 2013.

Satellite services boast 36 million households (31%), up from 35 million in 2013. Fiber to the home video services account for 14% or 16 million subs, up 33% from 12 million in 2013.

Seventeen percent of TV households receive television programming through an antenna, with only 6% relying exclusively on an antenna for their TV, in line with 2013 findings.

CEA says there has been a seven percentage point decline in the number of homes using traditional pay-TV platforms since 2010, when 88% of households said they subscribed to cable, satellite or fiber to the home. And since 2005, said CEA, cable service subs have declined from 61% to 52% in 2014. Even with the increases over that time for fiber and satellite, total paid subs are still down. "The decline in traditional pay TV service may be partially attributed to increasingly accessible Internet sourced television programming on TVs as well as the adoption and use of alternative video-capable CE devices in homes," said the report. "Inexpensive streaming options, such as Netflix and Hulu Plus, are also contributing to the overall decline."

The numbers appear to bear that out. Over the past 12 months, in homes not subscribing to pay TV, "non-subscriber use of notebook, laptop or netbook computers to view video content increased from a quarter (25%) in 2013 to over half (53%) in 2014. Use of smartphones for in-home video consumption increased among non-subscribers from 27% in 2013 to 46% this year, and 27% of non-subscribers now view video content on tablets compared to just 13% in 2013."

The CEA report found that 10% of pay TV households currently subscribing to cable, satellite or fiber video services said they were "likely" to cut that cord in the next 12 months. Of those, 23% said they were going the all-Internet route, with 20% saying they would be getting an antenna and 17% said they were swearing off video entirely.

The report is based on findings of a telephone survey of 1,006 adults, 504 men and 502 women 18 and older, living in the continental United States. The survey was conducted April 24-27, 2014, with 606 landline interviews and 400 by cell phone.

The margin of error at 95% confidence is +/- 3.1%.

Syncbak, the CBS-backed startup that delivers live, in-market broadcast TV on mobile devices, has become the first to integrate a new platform from Nielsen that measures local audiences on a range of connected devices.

Nielsen said Syncbak has successfully tied in its proprietary Software Development Kit for its portfolio of apps.

Nielsen said the SDK will allow clients in local markets, who are encoding with Nielsen Watermarks, to measure audiences across mobile platforms, and later this year include that viewing in their television ratings when streaming the same program and same advertising as the live television program.

Nielsen noted that its mobile SDK will initially be integrated for the iOS platform, enabling Syncbak to have Nielsen measurement capabilities hard-coded into the app.

Syncbak and Nielsen will next work on integration on the Android platform.

Syncbak said it has over 150 television stations across the U.S. using their platform today. Its list of live markets includes San Diego and San Francisco; Colorado Springs; Boston; Miami; Lansing, Mich.; Topeka, Kan.; and Binghamton, N.Y., among others.

The integration announcement follows earlier work between the companies. Last year, Nielsen announced that Syncbak had completed a two-week tech trial with four CBS-owned TV stations in New York and Los Angeles. Nielsen unveiled its mobile-pointing SDK last October.

Working in tandem with TV partners, Syncbak’s platform replicates over-the-air broadcasts and delivers those simulcasts over the Internet and via cellular networks to select Android- and iOS-powered tablets and smartphones. Syncbak’s system uses a specialized device deployed at the station that intercepts the signal before transcoding and packaging those streams for delivery.

Syncbak’s work with Nielsen comes as U.S. broadcasters continue to battle it out in the courts with Aereo, a startup that uses an array of tiny antennas to capture over-the-air digital broadcast signals, and then encodes them into a format that can be delivered to subscribers over the Internet. The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments in the case on August 22.

“Our goal is to take live broadcast television over the Internet in ways that make money and increase viewing,” said Syncbak founder and CEO Jack Perry, in a statement. “By integrating Nielsen’s technology, we support an economy that has served broadcasters and advertisers for decades and help eliminate risks and hurdles that would slow adoption of Internet TV, which we see as vital to the future of television. We’re thrilled to be part of this important step.”

In addition to CBS, the National Association of Broadcasters and the Consumer Electronics Association also have invested in Syncbak.