More cable news from across the Web:
> NBCUniversal has extended its NBC and NBC Sports TV Everywhere apps to Amazon's Fire TV and Fire TV Stick devices. Press release
> Bright House Networks has added the Discovery Go TV app to its service. Press release
> Vubiquity has reached a deal with Awesomeness TV to secure SVOD distribution of content in Middle East, Africa, South Eastern Europe and Latin America excluding Brazil. Digital TV Europe story
> Apple has named Jeff Williams as its new COO. Press release
> Kantar Media says U.S. TV ad spending was down 3 percent in the third quarter. Multichannel News story
> Nexstar Broadcasting executives met this week with Media General director John Muse in hopes of solving an impasse over a proposed buyout of the Richmond, Va., broadcast company. New York Post story
> Cox Business has signed on as the exclusive telecommunications service provider for the 20,000-seat Las Vegas Arena, which is set to open on the Las Vegas strip in April 2016. CED Magazine story
> Dark fiber provider Lightower's recent buildout of 1,100 route miles in Virginia continues to pay off as the company announced that it is now an authorized vendor for the Commonwealth of Virginia for data networking services. Article
> Wow! Wholesale may be an advocate of fiber-based services, but being a traditional cable operator it is now tapping into its HFC (hybrid fiber-coax) network to deliver an Ethernet over HFC service to customers in its network area. Article
> Bell Labs conducted a study that reveals that communications service providers can reduce their operating costs by up to 40 percent by virtualizing complex functions currently deployed on residential gateways into the network cloud. Article
> T-Mobile capped its holiday-season promotional campaign with an offer packaging a $100 discount and a free year of Netflix with the sale of some new Samsung smartphones. The carrier is knocking $100 off the Samsung Galaxy S6, S6 Edge, Edge+ and Note 5 at the point of sale. Article
> Smartphone users in the U.S. and U.K. were most likely to be interested in a device with a display size of 5.3 inches overall during the first half of 2015, according to a new report from Strategy Analytics. U.S. consumers were more interested in larger prototypes than their U.K. counterparts, while Android owners showed more interest in phablet-sized phones than Apple users did. Article
And finally… Longtime Horizon Media TV-industry research executive Brad Adgate has moved on to a senior research role at Comcast Spotlight. MediaPost story