Fifty-seven percent of U.S. households subscribe to VOD from Amazon, Hulu or Netflix, and 48 percent of U.S. adults stream at least one of the services monthly, a Leichtman Research Group report said. Some 81 percent of U.S. households have a DVR, subscribe to Netflix or use VOD from a cable or telco provider; 30 percent use two of the services; and 13 percent use all three, Leichtman said. Seventy-seven percent of consumers 18-24 stream a VOD service monthly, compared with 63 percent in the 25-44 age group, 50 percent aged 45-54 and 23 percent 55 and over, the researcher said. The number of adults streaming from Netflix on a weekly basis is now 37 percent, up from 8 percent in 2010, Leichtman said, and 83 percent of Netflix streaming users watch their Netflix content on TV. Other findings: 64 percent of pay TV subscribers have a DVR, up from 45 percent in 2010; 65 percent of households with annual incomes above $75,000 have a DVR; and 61 percent of all cable subscribers have used VOD from their current provider. The December phone survey canvassed 1,214 adults ages 18 and older in continental U.S TV households. Margin of error is 2.8 percent.

Altice debt levels, broadband speeds and cable modem policies are among areas of interest to the FCC Wireline Bureau as it reviews Altice's plans to buy Cablevision. The agency posted its information request Thursday in docket 15-257 as it reviews Altice's planned $17.7 billion takeover of Cablevision. The bureau's seven-page request seeks a comparison of Altice's expected post-transaction debt levels compared with the eight largest U.S. cable companies and an explanations of how the deal would affect current peering policies of the two companies. Merger opponent Communications Workers of America raised the issue of post-deal debt, arguing it would result in cuts to employment and to customer service (see 1601270048). The bureau said it wanted information on Altice's plans for upgrading residential broadband speeds and how this differs from Cablevision's current upgrade plans. It asked numerous post-acquisition cable modem billing policy questions of Altice, including its plans for pricing of integrated and unintegrated modems and what the two companies' policies have been in the past regarding separate line-items on customers' bills for such modems. Modem maker Zoom Telephonics pushed for the FCC to designate Altice's Cablevision application for hearing, or for it to impose cable modem-related conditions (see 1512080013).

New Charter should be required to launch more independent channels as a condition of Charter's buying Bright House Networks and Time Warner Cable, Ride Television Network CEO Michael Fletcher and President Craig Morris told FCC Media and Wireline bureau staff and Owen Kendler, who's heading the FCC working team overseeing the deals' review, said an ex parte filing Thursday in docket 15-149. Ride executives also said the FCC should launch a proceeding about making this an industrywide requirement and look at multichannel video programming distributors "requiring 'most favored nation' treatment by programmers but not offering the same to independent programmers." Ride said large MVPDs "for the most part, have little interest in launching new, independent channels," leading to artificial constraints on consumer choice. In a statement, Charter said it "is committed to providing its customers access to diverse and independent programming and we carry more than 100 minority focused networks and offer more Spanish language programming than any other major provider. We appreciate the support for New Charter by numerous independent programmers including TV One, Baby First, RFD-TV, One World Sports, Fuse Media, Ovation, Inspire, AXS TV, The Blaze, Condista, Bounce TV, Crown Media and Reelz.”

Calling it "an after-acquired systems provision on steroids," Mediacom said "additional stations" provisions in retransmission consent negotiations are something the FCC should scrutinize in updating its totality of circumstances test for good faith retransmission negotiations. In a letter to FCC Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake posted Wednesday in docket 15-216, Mediacom said it and other cable operators in retrans talks are running into proposed broadcaster provisions whereby terms agreed to with the broadcaster automatically apply also to any stations that later grant that broadcaster authority to negotiate retrans consent on its behalf. The result is the existing retrans agreement with those stations immediately terminates, to be replaced with the agreement with the broadcaster. "In practice, what this provision would do is give the broadcaster a 'hunting license' to seek proxies from any other [local] station ... in which the cable operator provides service," Mediacom said. "This is a far cry from the typical 'after acquired' systems provision" covering any stations broadcasters buy and "flies in the face of the fundamental principles underlying the notion of market-based, good faith retransmission consent negotiations," it said. "If the Commission allows this kind of arrangement to stand, there is every reason to expect that within a few years, a mere handful of stations will dictate the terms of retransmission consent for hundreds of unrelated stations in which they have no other material interest [and] all but write the concept of competitive market considerations out of the retransmission consent process," Mediacom said. In a separate filing Wednesday in the docket, the American TV Alliance pointed to Nexstar Broadcasting's potential blackout of Cox for Sunday's Super Bowl as further evidence of the need for totality of circumstances test reform. "This ... is not a case where agreement between the parties is impossible, or where the parties maintain irreconcilably different views of the value of Nexstar's programming," ATVA said. "It is a shakedown." ATVA has made a variety of proposals for test changes (see 1601140026). Nexstar didn't comment. But TVFreedom in a statement said ATVA "needs to be renamed the American Deception Alliance," pointing to Cox having been involved in 23 blackouts of local TV service since 2013 and that the Super Bowl will be available both online and over the air in affected markets.“The ATVA/Big Pay-TV game plan is clear: Rather than negotiate a fair rate for popular broadcast programming, it seeks to force a few disruptions of service in hopes the FCC will bail them out of a ‘crisis’ of their own making," it said.

Comcast plans to roll out DOCSIS 3.1-powered gigabit Internet service in Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, Miami and Nashville later this year, it said in a news release Tuesday. Comcast installed its first DOCSIS 3.1 modems in Atlanta and Philadelphia earlier this year, it said. "Combined with all the upgrades we have already put into our advanced fiber optic-coax network, [DOCSIS 3.1] will not only provide more gigabit speed choices for customers, it will also eventually make these ultra-fast speeds available to the most homes in our service areas," Comcast Central Division President Bill Connors said in a statement. Comcast said DOCSIS 3.1 modems have been tested, but their use in Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, Miami and Nashville is their first wide deployment.

The FCC’s draft proposed changes to set-top box rules could help “loosen the stranglehold” cable companies have over program guide information, the Alliance for Community Media said in an ex parte filing in docket 15-64 Monday. “PEG organizations are systematically prevented from providing program guide metadata by cable providers which control access to the navigation systems on their set-top boxes,” ACM said. “This means that local governments are unable to direct citizens to program guides to find vital civic information.” The group said it intends to file comments in support of the coming (see 1601270064) FCC proposals.

The purchase of The Weather Co.'s (TWC) nonprogramming assets is complete, IBM said in a news release Friday. IBM didn't buy TWC's The Weather Channel, but said the programmer will license weather forecast data and analytics from it under a long-term contract. IBM said last year when announcing the deal that it expected to complete the buy in Q1 (see 1510280018).

Sky will be the first user of Roku's hybrid set-top box that allows TV services to offer both linear and streaming programming, Roku said in a news release Friday. The Roku Powered set-top will be part of Sky's Now TV service in the U.K., Roku said.

Massachusetts Department of Telecommunications and Cable arguments that a Time Warner Cable analysis of the state of cable competition in Adams, Massachusetts, are flawed are in themselves wrong, TWC said in an FCC reply posted Friday. It responded to MDTC opposition (see 1601190068) to the company's petition seeking a declaration that Adams is subject to effective competition. Each of the eight additional ZIP codes missing from MDTC's analysis of Adams represents a residence, and should be counted for purposes of calculating competing provider penetration there, TWC said. MDTC's proposal to discount Adams' direct broadcast satellite numbers because of seasonal homes in Adams goes against FCC precedent, TWC said. Even if that subscriber count were discounted, TWC said, Adams would still reach the 15 percent of DBS subscriber penetration that's the statutory threshold for determining effective competition exists, TWC said. MDTC didn't comment.

Unless pay-TV companies show concrete steps for how they'll address service and billing woes, "Washington’s policymakers should take action" by requiring greater transparency about any such quality control measures being instituted, TVFreedom said in a blog post Thursday. Pointing to various cable and satellite advertisements that take a light-hearted tone on such issues as wait times for technicians and competitors' service quality, the group of broadcasters its website noted include NAB said pay-TV companies themselves at times acknowledge improvements need to be made, but "positive industry changes to improve the customer experience are slow to materialize." It said "anti-consumer tactics ... can’t simply be fixed or laughed away with humorous commercials ... a commitment to dramatically improving customer service would be a positive start." NCTA didn't comment Friday.