A settlement conference is scheduled for March 1 between Time Warner Cable and Cableview Communications of Jacksonville, a cable installation company. In an order filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Jacksonville, Florida, Magistrate Judge James Klindt ordered Cableview and TWC to submit confidential memoranda by Feb. 22 "setting forth their respective positions on settlement and the ultimate settlement position to which each party would be willing to agree." Cableview sued TWC in 2013 (No. 1:13-cv-306-J-34JRK), claiming TWC interfered in FTS USA's 2012 purchase of Cableview.

Any regulatory approval of Charter Communications' buying Bright House Networks and Time Warner Cable should come with conditions regarding broadband adoption and deployment, including expansion of eligibility for Charter's $14.99 per month broadband offering, the California Emerging Technology Fund said in an ex parte filing Friday in FCC docket 15-149. CETF said it neither opposes nor backs regulatory approval for the deals, but it does support broadband-related conditions if the FCC gives approval. New Charter should have a goal of broadband adoption by 696,000 to 960,000 low-income California households as a public benefit of the acquisitions, it said. CETF also listed a variety of suggested broadband conditions, including setting of performance goals for New Charter's low-income broadband service with its adoption rate being at 45 percent of eligible households within two years, with the eventual goal of 80 percent adoption. Conditions also should include establishment of an independent fund to aid community-based organizations in increasing broadband adoption, and infrastructure-building plans for 10 unserved and underserved broadband areas "with a particular focus on the Inland Empire, San Joaquin Valley, Salinas Valley (Monterey County) and Modoc County," CETF said. Charter pledged to start a low-income broadband offering open to families with students taking part in the National School Lunch Program and/or senior citizens who receive Supplemental Security Income program benefits (see 1512170070), but eligibility for the $14.99 per month service should "include all low-income households (particularly people with disabilities and veterans)," CETF said, and a wireless router should be included with the program's modem. Charter didn't comment. The filing recapped a meeting between CETF and Commissioner Michael O’Rielly.

Comments on the transfer of control of Wide Open West (WOW) to private equity firm Crestview are due Feb. 10 in docket 16-12, replies Feb. 17, the FCC said in a public notice Wednesday. Crestview is buying an ownership interest in Racecar Holdings, of which WOW is a wholly owned indirect subsidiary (see 1601120072), the FCC said.

STMicroelectronics is scrapping its set-top box/home gateway business after a cumulative $500 million loss over two years as it focuses on smartphones, the IoT and other digital areas. The company has reorganized operations and is targeting the connected car and IoT markets, said CEO Carlo Bozotti on an earnings call. For the year, ST’s financial results fell short of expectations due largely to a weak semiconductor market and the winding down of legacy products in what Chief Financial Officer Carlo Ferro called the company’s “post-Nokia phase.” For the year, STMicroelectronics revenue was $6.9 billion below projections and down 6.8 percent from 2014, said Ferro. The decision to shut down the set-top box and home gateway business followed a turnaround plan that didn’t produce desired results, said Chief Operating Officer Jean-Marc Chery. He cited a “much slower than expected market take-off,” operator takeovers and “box manufacturers delaying rollouts,” which led to increasing competition on low-end boxes and high R&D costs. STMicroelectronics plans to “redeploy” roughly 600 employees from its set-top business to support what it called growth areas including digital automotive, Chery said. This year, job cuts are expected to affect about 1,000 employees, he said.

Entertainment Studios Networks (ESN) and the National Association of African American-Owned Media (NAAAOM) are seeking $10 billion in damages from Charter Communications, plus an injunction against the FCC to stop "its practice of facilitating sham 'diversity' agreements/MOUs," they said in a lawsuit filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. The suit said Charter racially discriminated against African American-owned media companies -- including ESN -- by withholding carriage, despite ESN being carried on a number of other multichannel video programming distributors, including AT&T U-Verse and DirecTV. Those MVPDs now are part of the same company. Pointing to Charter buying Bright House Networks and Time Warner Cable, the complaint also said the FCC "works hand-in-hand with these merging television distribution companies to enable and facilitate their civil rights violations." It criticized pledges Charter made to improve its board and employee diversity as part of Charter/TWC/BHN (see 1601150017), calling those pledges "nothing more than a ploy to garner FCC support for and approval of its merger." In a statement Thursday, Charter said the suit "is a desperate tactic that this programmer has used before with other distributors. We will not comment further at this time." ESN and NAAAOM sued Comcast and Time Warner Cable in 2015, making similar allegations; that suit was dismissed (see 1508100017). A similar complaint in 2014 against AT&T was voluntarily dismissed in December. The FCC didn't comment Thursday.

Time Warner Cable customer Derek Gubala's complaint that the cable company illegally keeps former customers' personal information such as Social Security and credit card numbers fails to plead facts that are necessary to state a claim, TWC said in a reply brief filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Milwaukee in support of its motion to dismiss his complaint. "Although [Gubala] knew his claim was subject to a binding arbitration clause, he filed this case in federal court seeking money damages," TWC said. "Despite amending his complaint twice, [he] still fails to plead the essential elements for injunctive relief." Gubala sued in 2015, claiming TWC was violating the Cable Communications Policy Act, which requires destruction of that personal data, and seeking class-action status. Gubala's counsel didn't comment Thursday.

California Public Utilities Commission review of Charter Communications' buying Bright House Networks and Time Warner Cable potentially "can be accelerated," TWC CEO Rob Marcus said in a conference call Thursday as the company announced earnings. On regulatory approval of the $89.1 billion pair of deals, Marcus said TWC and Charter are "working constructively with FCC, and DOJ to ensure that they are in a position to approve the deal expeditiously," though he said he couldn't give a timetable for closing. California has said it's on track to make a decision in June on the deals (see 1601130060). Marcus also said TWC is beta testing in New York City an IP video product "that eliminates the need for a leased set-top box." For the year, TWC said it spent $5.82 billion on programming and content, up nearly 10 percent from 2014. Marcus said the cable industry is in the "very early days" of offering content a la carte -- a trend that could shift leverage and lead to slower programing cost growth. When asked about Verizon's small-bundle Custom TV package, Marcus said, "The only reason that we haven't run headlong into a custom TV-type solution is that we've really made a great effort to simplify our offerings as we tried to turn our residential business around, and keeping things simple," with that approach helping in the company's customer numbers -- ending the year up 32,000 video customers.

Dish Network and Fox Entertainment may settle a 2012 complaint against the satellite company for its PrimeTime Anytime VOD service. In a joint status report filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, the two said they "are presently engaged in business negotiations which include discussions about settlement of this case." Barring a settlement, Dish and Fox said they proposed a Sept. 6 trial date. Fox argued in its 2012 lawsuit that PrimeTime Anytime and its AutoHop service, which strips out commercials from network programming, was an "attempt to camouflage" copyright infringement (see report in the Aug. 28, 2012, issue).

Committing to "clear and consistent" copyright infringement policies should be a condition before Charter Communications gets regulatory approval to buy Bright House Networks and Time Warner Cable, the National Music Publishers' Association (NMPA) said in a filing posted Wednesday in docket 15-149. While TWC is taking part in the Copyright Alert System developed by some ISPs and copyright holders to tackle infringement on their networks, "recent litigation has raised serious doubts about other ISPs' commitment to complying with the law." New Charter should be required to take part in the Copyright Alert System "and pledge to work with copyright owners to address infringement on its network," NMPA said. Charter didn't comment.

A Virginia federal judge will hear oral argument Feb. 26 on motions by BMG Rights Management and Cox Communications, including a motion by the cable operator for a new trial in the copyright infringement complaints brought by BMG. Both Cox and BMG filed motions and briefs Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Alexandria. BMG renewed a previous motion for judgment as a matter of law for vicarious infringement and also seeking a permanent injunction. A jury in December awarded BMG and Round Hill Music $25 million in their lawsuit against Cox for the cable company's failure to penalize its Internet customers who repeatedly infringed copyrighted materials via BitTorrent (see 1512180012). More than a month later, BMG said in a brief in support of its permanent injunction motion, "Cox's network continues to be the site of a massive, ongoing infringement of BMG's copyrights." The cable ISP in its motion for judgment as a matter of law or, alternately, a new trial, said BMG failed to prove Cox's liability and that the court erred in jury instructions on such issues as contributory infringement and willfulness and that it didn't instruct the jury on innocent infringement. "Any one of the errors ... would justify a new trial," it said in its motion. "Taken together, however, they create a compelling basis for a new trial." Cox also filed a motion seeking an order sealing some exhibits it previously had submitted, citing their containing of confidential business information.