Revere Digital

New data from analysts MoffettNathanson show that the pay-TV business lost about 300,000 subscribers in the second quarter. But that’s basically flat compared to 2013, and that’s a change from the year-on-year declines of the previous few quarters.

And after factoring in the housing market -- a key driver for pay TV -- the research firm concludes that “it appears that cord cutting slowed to an annualized rate of 400k homes, a meaningful deceleration and well below the peak (but still modest) rates of cord cutting seen in 2012.”

The most amazing thing about AOL’s business is the thing that drives AOL’s business: Millions of people, who started paying the company a monthly fee for Internet access more than a decade ago, who continue to pay the company a monthly fee for Internet access, even though they likely aren’t getting Internet access from AOL anymore.

Here’s how AOL makes money: Getting a shrinking number of subscribers -- 2.34 million this quarter, down from 3.62 million at the beginning of 2011 -- to pay an increasing amount -- the average AOL subscriber now pays $20.86 per month, up from around $18 a few years ago.

Not surprisingly, Time Warner told analysts not to ask it about Fox’s now-dormant $80 billion bid.

Instead, analysts asked Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes, in several different ways, to explain why he rejected the deal.

If you like succinct versions, here it is: There’s really no point in us buying a big company or being bought by a big company, because we’re really big, and those deals are a mess. But never say never!

[Commentary] Television may have peaked, but it’s going to have a very long run ahead of it. That’s the thinking behind a series of big media moves in the past few years, where conglomerates that own big investments in TV have been doubling down -- or trying to double down -- by acquiring more TV assets.

Even if TV ad dollars are shrinking, TV still generates a lot of ad dollars -- that’s why Facebook, Twitter and everyone else on the Web wants a piece of the TV business.

Meanwhile, the fees that cable providers pay broadcasters for their programming, which had theoretically been threatened by Aereo, now look like they’ll continue to be reliable, high-margin cash-flow generators, after all.

Dish Networks, which says it wants to launch an Internet TV service in 2014, is getting closer to its goal: The satellite TV company has signed a deal with A&E Networks that lets it stream the cable programmer’s shows on the Web.

The deal gives Dish the rights to stream live and on-demand programming from A&E’s lineup of channels, which include A&E, History and Lifetime.

While it’s not clear if T-Mobile’s owner Deutsche Telekom is taking seriously a $15 billion bid from French telecommunications firm Iliad, one thing is certain: The deal would be a lot easier to get approved than any merger with Sprint.

Antitrust regulators wouldn’t likely have many issues with an Iliad deal since the French company doesn’t have any US telecommunications assets and its purchase of T-Mobile wouldn’t consolidate the industry by lowering the number of large wireless carriers from four to three.

The Federal Communications Commission would consider whether the deal is in the public interest as well as ensuring it falls within foreign ownership limits. The foreign ownership issue likely wouldn’t really be much of an sticking point, however, since T-Mobile’s current majority owner is German telecommunications giant Deutsche Telekom. Transferring ownership to a French company wouldn’t really be a big deal -- unlike, say, an acquisition by a Chinese or Russian company with government ties.

With T-Mobile adding customers and suddenly becoming the target of a surprise buyout offer, it’s easy to think the company might not need Sprint after all. But the truth is that few options other than a sale to rival Sprint will help T-Mobile thrive over the long term.

Because AT&T and Verizon are so much bigger than T-Mobile, only a partner or owner with deep pockets could help it topple its powerful rivals.

Apple’s $3 billion purchase of Beats Music and Beats Electronics has been completed. Apple has notified roughly 200 Beats workers that their positions at Apple will only be temporary, while the remainder will join Apple permanently.

[Commentary] The problem is that, even in the most developed areas of Africa, the deployment of strong and fast 3G and 4G coverage is lagging, and the capital that is available will flow to build out areas where there are paying customers.

That means that the outlying areas, where a lot of people live, will continue to be underserved for quite some time. Alan Knott-Craig, an experienced South African entrepreneur who is setting out to bring connectivity via Wi-Fi across his homeland, knows that Internet access is transformative.

Some professional football fans have been flooding federal regulators with pleas to save a rule that keeps local National Football League games from being televised when the hometown stadium doesn’t sell out, thanks to a new push by the NFL to keep the restriction in place.

More than 500 comments have been filed at the Federal Communications Commission since July 21 and commissioners have been getting inundated with e-mails about the issue, according to agency officials. The NFL has convinced some fans that the rule is a good idea, arguing it will help prevent owners from moving games onto cable channels and off free local TV broadcasts.