Cordcutting Fortnightly provides readers with a collection of news in cordcutting that has occurred over the past two weeks. View last fortnight’s news.

FCC Votes to Reevaluate Media Ownership Cap

In order to promote a large number of broadcasters, the FCC has long had a media ownership cap, effectively a cap on how many households a broadcaster is allowed to reach, up to 39%. Recently, they voted to reevaluate the rules and make changes. This would benefit large broadcasters, those who are reaching the limits of their cap and want to continue growing. Critics believe this would allow for greater media consolidation and reduce local flavors and independent voices. They also plan on reinstating the UHF discount, doubling the reach for those broadcasters using UHF bands. Do these broadcast regulations make sense in a world where cable and the Internet have had greater influences in our media consumption? The agency will continue to evaluate these programs and make rulings as needed.

Twitch Adds New Subscription Options

Twitch is hoping to give streamers more certainty in their income, and . Now viewers can subscribe for $10/month and $25/month. In addition to supporting the livelihood of these streamers, you gain additional benefits such as custom emotes.

Hulu TV Launching Early May

According to , Hulu is planning for their Internet TV service to be launched in the first week of May or soon thereafter if everything goes right. It would combine live TV with their on-demand offering and accompany a brand new experience for viewers. Their promo video shows users interacting with a number of TVs, leading to some questions about which platforms it will support. To tie into a story above, what kinds of FCC regulations will Hulu face as an Internet broadcaster? We should be finding out soon.

Livestream’s Mevo Camera Streams Live to YouTube

Streaming video live to different platforms can be tricky and dependent on apps, but some devices are building it into the hardware itself. The Mevo Camera from Livestream will let users start a stream directly on YouTube, as well as Facebook, Periscope, and Livestream itself. The YouTube feature is currently in beta, so results may vary.

Disney Deal with ABC Affiliates to Improve Streaming Access

Disney has recently with ABC network affiliates in order to access digital distribution. This would make it easier for Internet TV services like YouTube TV to negotiate once with Disney than with each affiliate separately. This could be a large improvement in consumer access to these stations through the Internet and may also set a precedent for future media companies to do the same.

Direct Media Routing in Chrome Tab Casting

Casting a tab to your TV? The process can often be laggy due to the computation time in rendering screen content and moving it over a local Internet connection. A recent change in the desktop version of Chrome Dev may improve the quality a lot. When playing a video then clicking full-screen, the cast video will be directly forwarded from the video bitstream, saving battery life as it won’t need to reencode the bits before sending.

“Kodi Boxes” Deemed Illegal in Europe

Kodi, the popular media platform, has been used by many hardware makers to promote their own wares. Often these versions of Kodi will include add-ons that let users pirate content, something that is illegal. This was noted again by the European Union’s Court of Justice, who recently ruled on a website selling boxes that ran Android and Kodi. Although Kodi itself is okay, including add-ons that encourage piracy is not. This is another mark against the recent rise of these piracy boxes, which have been the target of several police raids across the continent.

Twitter may launch 24/7 live stream

With the recent apparent successes of its live video content, it seems like Twitter may be expanding this. they will try to expand to have content 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It would be like a TV channel, entirely encapsulated in its app. This could make Twitter more enticing for individuals to watch, although it’s hard to say if they will be able to fill up the time with enough interesting content.