The FCC can best help consumers by making sure independent content providers -- like Al Jazeera America -- can distribute online "and not be shackled by provisions ... that frustrate their ability to reach a wider audience," the network said in a meeting reported in an ex parte filing posted Wednesday in docket 14-261. The meeting between AJA executives such as CEO Al Anstey and with Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, was the network's first such meeting with FCC officials, according to the FCC filing system. AJA -- available in 54 million homes -- said it has difficulty expanding its reach because of such issues as most-favored national clauses put in place by multichannel video programming distributors on some content companies and regulations limiting over-the-top distribution of its linear content.

Viacom wants FCC clarification that Cablevision isn't obligated to carry PMCM’s WJLP Middletown Township, New Jersey, on cable channel 33, which would displace Nickelodeon, the programmer said in a meeting Monday attended by Viacom representatives, Media Bureau and Office of General Counsel staff, and attorneys for CBS, Cablevision, Comcast, Meredith, PMCM and Time Warner Cable, according to an ex parte filing. Cablevision announced plans to displace Nickelodeon under the “mistaken belief” that it's legally obligated to do so, Viacom said. PMCM missed a deadline to change its must-carry channel, Viacom argued. PMCM’s application for review asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to overturn the Media Bureau's decision on its attempt to use the same main program and system information protocol (PSIP) channel as Meredith’s WFSB Hartford, Connecticut, (see 1409160043) is still pending, the filing said. The FCC should issue a clarification that Cablevision is under no such obligation and won’t be punished for not bumping Nickelodeon, Viacom said. “The disruption and harm to Nickelodeon and its viewers are unnecessary and unjustified," Viacom said. After winning a rare FCC OK to move cross-country after the D.C. Circuit ordered it over the agency's objections, PMCM sought to operate the station in what would have been a technological first for broadcasting: on the same main PSIP channel as WFSB, with each having different virtual PSIP subchannels (see 1409160043).

Time Warner Cable connected nearly 20,000 cell towers to one another in an effort to increase tower backhaul, the company said in blog post Wednesday. TWC Business Class began its backhaul initiative in 2008 by connecting the towers using fiber, it said.

HBO Go, as a part of StarHub's new online streaming service StarHub Go, is now available in Singapore, Time Warner said in a news release Wednesday.

Few over-the-top viewers are using OTT to replace cable, though more pay-TV providers getting into OTT "could start changing the game," Horowitz Research said Tuesday in a report. The report and survey data indicates OTT streaming VOD typically complements traditional pay TV, as 40 percent of Internet users have both multichannel and an OTT subscription VOD service, while only 11 percent have OTT SVOD only and 42 percent have multichannel only. Nearly 80 percent of OTT SVOD users also are multichannel subscribers, Horowitz said. That could be changing, as millennials are far more likely to have just an OTT SVOD service -- 21 percent of them vs. 7 percent among people 35 and up, it said. Fifty-five percent of millennials who are multichannel subscribers say pricing could get them to subscribe to an Internet TV service instead of their current cable or satellite service, vs. 43 percent of people ages 35 and up, Horowitz said. The survey was done online in May among 1,568 broadband Internet users.

With broadband to be the backbone of the IoT, NCTA increasingly is paying attention, creating a new section of its website dedicated to it. The page, unveiled Wednesday, gives a layman overview of the IoT, as well as links to a variety of resources such as IoT TED talk videos and media reports on various aspects. "To have a working Internet of Things, America needs a broadband network that’s capable of securely and dependably handling our increasing data needs," wrote NCTA Senior Director-Digital Strategy John Solit on the group's blog. "That’s why we’re working so hard to grow our broadband networks and expand the availability of super fast Wi-Fi."

Cox Communications is launching gigabit Internet service for residential customers in San Diego, the company said in a news release Wednesday. Cox's initial launch of G1gablast, the name the company is marketing its gigabit service under, will include new single-family home communities in Escondido and north San Diego, it said. The company already launched G1gablast service in parts of Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Irvine, California; Las Vegas; New Orleans; Omaha; and Phoenix, the cable ISP said. Cox also said customers with the Ultimate Internet package will see speeds double to 300 Mbps.

Comcast tentatively agreed to a $28,782 Environmental Protection Agency fine to settle violations of the Clean Water Act and the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act, the EPA said in a notice in Tuesday's Federal Register. Comments on the proposed settlement are due Sept. 10. Comcast self-reported the violations after it did an audit of 286 facilities, the EPA said. Violations included a failure to have a spill prevention, control and countermeasure plan at 10 facilities, and failure to submit a safety data sheet for hazardous materials to the proper local emergency planning outfits at 22 facilities, the EPA said.

Redefining the term multichannel video programming distributor "would constitute a substantive change in law" that alters the rights and obligations of many regulated businesses, Discovery Communications said in an FCC filing in docket 14-261. Including some types of online video distributors as MVPDs is changing the law, since OVDs haven't always been considered MVPDs, and thus can't retroactively cover previous actions before the change is made, Discovery said. If the FCC makes such a definition change, new OVDs need to have the choice to be MVPDs or to be able to waive -- at least temporarily -- the obligations that come with that status, YipTV said in a filing also posted Tuesday. "Unless classification is optional, or the Commission waives MVPD obligations for emerging or smaller OVDs such as YipTV, the burdens of such a classification would far outweigh any potential benefits," said the company, which went live May 7. The burdens include requirements on program carriage, retransmission consent, program captioning, video description, access to emergency information, accessibility of user interfaces and guides, and signal leakage, all of which add up to "substantial costs," it said. If the FCC doesn't let OVDs elect to be MVPDs, it could waive MVPD obligations "for certain categories of companies," YipTV said.

Draft FCC changes to rules on protection of confidential information would give third parties a competitive gain "that is not only unfair but also unnecessary," and needs to be done after the public has a chance to weigh in, said Digital Content Next, MPAA and NAB in a filing in docket 15-149 posted Wednesday. Digital Content Next, started as the Online Publishers Association, represents digital content companies that its website says include A+E Networks, ABC, Bloomberg, Disney Interactive, E.W. Scripps, NBCUniversal, Viacom and Vox Media. Given the breadth of changes the agency is considering in its review of Charter Communications buying Bright House Networks and Time Warner Cable and as a general policy change, the three associations said the FCC should change video programming confidential information policies "only after careful deliberation, including sufficient time for public comment." Having reviewed such major deals as Comcast/NBCUniversal and AT&T/DirecTV through existing policies, rather than making such materials available to third parties that sign the protective order acknowledgement, there "appears no reason for the Commission to alter its previous procedures and third-party disclosure policies to review the proposed Charter/TWC merger," they said.