Charter Communications will have ex-Judge Barbara Jones as its independent compliance officer to “review and evaluate” the operator's compliance with conditions imposed by the FCC as part of the company's purchases of Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks, said a public notice in Thursday's Daily Digest. Jones was on the bench for 16 years in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, and is a partner in the law firm Bracewell. She's a former prosecutor who worked against organized crime in Manhattan, and a former law professor, the PN said. The FCC Office of the General Counsel approved Jones' selection, the notice said.

DOJ received just one public comment on its settlement with Charter Communications resolving the company's buys of Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks, and concluded its final judgment remains “an effective and appropriate remedy,” Justice said in a response to the comment filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Tuesday. The lone public comment during the 60-day comment period came from North Carolina Charter customer Amy Bloomfield, who argued DOJ should block the deal because “Time Warner [Cable] is a decent company; Charter is not.” That's outside the scope of the antitrust concerns raised in the settlement and doesn't provide a reason to reject DOJ's final judgment, the document said.

Viacom largely fulfilled its advertising agreement with MGA Entertainment on showing MGA's Lalaloopsy TV series, based on MGA's Lalaloopsy doll line, U.S. District Judge Manuel Real of Los Angeles said in an order entered Friday granting Viacom's final motion for summary judgment on the basis of breach of contract. He called MGA's argument -- that Viacom a handful of times didn't broadcast each episode three separate times in a number of countries and thus it was excused from paying the balance of its obligations -- "nonsensical." That "Viacom achieved approximately 96 percent compliance at a minimum establishes substantial performance," Real said. The judge in July also found in Viacom's favor on other summary judgment claims in the dispute. In the most-recent order, Real set an Aug. 22 deadline for the parties to file additional briefs as to the amount owed by MGA. MGA didn't comment Friday.

As part of "an established pattern ... of strong-arm tactics" to coerce channel carriage, the motion by Entertainment Studios Networks (ESN) and the National Association for African American Owned Media (NAAAOM) for leave to file an amended complaint against Charter Communications should be denied, Charter said in its opposition (in Pacer) filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. In its request (in Pacer) filed in July to file an amended version of its $10 billion discrimination complaint that also targeted the FCC (see 1601280063), ESN/NAAAOM said they planned to cite "powerful additional evidence of racial animus by top executives," including Charter Senior Vice President-Programming Allan Singer's allegedly making racist comments in March to protesters outside Charter's Connecticut headquarters and CEO Tom Rutledge's allegedly calling ESN CEO Byron Allen "boy" while at the Cable Hall of Fame dinner in May. In its opposition, Charter said ESN/NAAAOM "have decided to up the ante in a bid to perpetuate this scam of a lawsuit" by adding "demonstrably false and incendiary allegations" aimed at embarrassing and harassing Charter executives. The motion should be denied on bad-faith grounds, Charter said, pointing to previous ESN/NAAAOM lawsuits against other multichannel video programming distributors as evidence of "a transparent scheme to pressure distributors with sensational lawsuits." Charter also said the motion should be denied because the proposed amendments don't address that the First Amendment forecloses the ESN/NAAAOM claims since MVPDs' carriage decisions are protected. ESN/NAAAOM also are pursuing litigation and related FCC complaint against Comcast (see 1606100017).

Comcast ended its appeal of a decision by a federal judge in Tampa not to compel arbitration in a lawsuit that a customer filed against the cable company, with the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Tuesday granting (in Pacer) Comcast's motion to dismiss with prejudice. A Florida customer sued Comcast after she signed up for service in 2015, and previous charges from 2009 -- supposedly discharged in a 2009 bankruptcy -- were added to her bill (see 1606290020).

Any rulemaking proceeding to come out of the FCC look into independent programming should include confidentiality assurances to indie programmers so they can take part, said NewsMax Media CEO Christopher Ruddy in a letter to the commissioners posted Thursday in docket 16-41. Indie programmers already face hurdles in getting carriage, with fear of multichannel video programming distributors seeking retribution when those indies share their concerns with regulators and lawmakers "among the most omnipresent," NewsMax said. Any NPRM proceeding should exempt indie programmer presentations from the "permit but disclose" ex parte rules, it said.

Cox Communications must pay BMG Rights Management $25 million, after a federal judge Monday denied Cox's motion for judgment or for a new trial. A jury in 2015 found against Cox in BMG's lawsuit alleging the cable company failed to penalize its Internet customers who repeatedly infringed copyrighted materials (see 1512180012), with the cable ISP then seeking a new trial and BMG an injunction (see 1602160025). In his memorandum opinion (in Pacer) Monday, U.S. District Judge Liam O’Grady of Alexandria, Virginia, dismissed Cox arguments that BMG's claim failed from lack of proof, saying the evidence that Cox IP addresses uploaded more than 100,000 copies of BMG works "can form the basis of a distribution claim." O’Grady said Cox is right that there was no evidence on how Cox users ended up with the BMG works, but there was enough proof "from which a reasonable jury could find Cox users violated BMG's reproduction right." There also was sufficient evidence for the jury to decide the operator was aware of the infringing activity and "acted recklessly or with deliberate disregard," O’Grady said. He dismissed Cox arguments with the jury instructions, such as that they didn't require the jury to find the direct infringers acted while using Cox's service. But O’Grady said the jury instructions said BMG had to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that Cox internet subscribers used that service to infringe on BMG's copyrighted works.

Suddenlink's decision to drop Viacom content last year (see 1504090051) remains "a very good decision," though not automatically one that Altice USA will make for its Optimum -- formerly Cablevision -- footprint, Altice USA CEO Dexter Goei said during Altice's Q2 earnings call Tuesday. The Viacom move's "impact on customers was relatively minimal" because that content was replaced by alterative channels, and given the big and rapidly growing cost of content, Altice USA will look at viable alternatives, Goei said. He said "it really is on a case-by-case basis." Multiple times during the Tuesday call, Goei and Michel Combes, CEO of parent company Altice, said Altice USA's focus is on integration of Suddenlink and Optimum, network investment and reducing churn. Goei said the company is seeing increased customer adoption of its higher-margin top-tier broadband offerings with the elimination of data caps on them. Tuesday's earnings report was the company's first since it closed on Cablevision in June (see 1606210026). Goei said Optimum had about 120 people resign from the management and executive ranks, including all the Dolan family members, saving the company $50 million to $100 million annually. For the quarter, Suddenlink revenue was up 5.2 percent to $640 million from the year-ago quarter and the typical seasonal decline in broadband and video customers was less. Optimum pro forma revenue was $1.62 billion, up slightly more than 1 percent, Altice said in a news release.

NBCUniversal will produce original episodic shows for Snapchat under a multiyear content and advertising deal, NBCU said in a news release Monday. NBCU said it will "reimagine highly successful television franchises and produce them specifically for Snapchat and a mobile-first audience." NBCU said the first such Snapchat content will be The Voice on Snapchat, which will debut Aug. 22. The unit of Comcast also said it will develop and sell ad packages using Snapchat ad products in its sponsorship, mobile and video products.

The FCC set-top plan would “more aptly be named the ‘Enable Copyright Violations’ Proposal,” said the Free State Foundation in a blog post Monday. “The Copyright Office's concerns (see 1608040062) about the FCC's proposed improper curtailment of video programmers' copyrights come from a straightforward reading of the law,” FSF said. Critics of the CO letter are wrong to attack the office’s intent, FSF said. Public Knowledge “incorrectly insinuates” that the Copyright Office misrepresented the FCC proposal, FSF said. “A fair reading of the letter shows the Copyright Office understands the distinction between the Commission's stated intent behind ‘Unlock the Box’ and the actual practical effect of its proposal,” said FSF. “The Copyright Office, charged by law with advising Congress on copyright issues and interpretations of the nation's copyright laws, has now articulated the copyright problems in a manner that the Commission should not ignore.”