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.
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.
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.
Sinclair plans to buy the Tennis Channel for $350 million, it said in a news release Wednesday. Sinclair said it expects to close on the purchase of the cable network/online video distributor in Q1. It also said it has negotiated contracts with a number of multichannel video programming distributors that would make Tennis Channel available in roughly 50 million households, up from 30 million today. In a statement, Sinclair General Counsel Barry Faber said the broadcaster anticipates other upcoming MVPD negotiations "to result in further carriage and Tennis subscriber penetration." The channel for years has unsuccessfully sought at the FCC and in court wider carriage on Comcast.
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).
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.
The Rural Broadband Alliance (RBA) joined the Stop Mega Cable Coalition opposing regulatory approval of Charter Communications buying Bright House Networks and Time Warner Cable (see [Ref:1601210028]), the coalition said in a news release Tuesday. In a statement, RBA Chief Counsel Steve Kraskin called Charter/TWC/BHN “a ‘lose, lose’ for rural communities." “Ongoing consolidation and the dominance of a handful of companies in the cable and broadband marketplace has dramatically reduced the bargaining power of small and rural entities to obtain must-have video content, undermined their ability to compete, much less remain economically viable, and diluted the diversity of service options available to consumers in rural areas," Kraskin said. "Mega Cable would further tip the balance against these smaller providers and their customers." In a statement, Charter called itself "a different type of cable company -- committed to creating American jobs, offering the most innovative products, delivering fast internet speeds, preserving an open internet and advancing online video friendly policies including no data caps and no modem fees. ... It should come as no surprise that Dish and other parties seeking to use the regulatory review process to extract concessions are also engaging in tired PR tactics to further their self-interests. Their arguments against the pending transactions are baseless. The facts are that New Charter has received significant and broad support from leading [online video] provider Netflix because of its online video friendly practices, independent programmers including Fuse Media and RFD-TV due to its commitment to diverse programming, national multicultural organizations like National Urban League, National Action Network and the League of United Latin American Citizens with whom it is collaborating to expand diversity and inclusion, and from the State of New York which recently approved the merger. These parties have taken a close and honest look at the benefits of these transactions and have all come to the same conclusion: they are in the public interest.” Stop Mega Cable members include Consumers Union, Dish Network, ITTA, Public Knowledge and USTelecom.
The FCC Media Bureau agreed with Time Warner Cable that TWC is subject to effective competition in 27 New York communities. In an order released Thursday, the Media Bureau revoked any certifications to regulate basic cable service for those 27. Maybrook, southwest of Poughkeepsie, filed an objection to TWC's petition. The village argued TWC hadn't provided any proof that Maybrook households "are reasonably aware of [direct broadcast service] providers' service availability," but the bureau said "reasonable awareness" of the availability of DirecTV and Dish Network is presumed. The bureau also dismissed Maybrook arguments that multichannel video programming distributor subscription rates in the village might not exceed 15 percent of the households in the franchise area -- that being the minimum penetration in the competing provider test. While TWC also had originally asked that the Village of Red Hook be part of its petition, it subsequently asked for consideration of that community to be withdrawn, which the bureau granted. The agency also has before it a variety of other TWC, Comcast and Mediacom petitions seeking declarations that various communities in Florida, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Ohio, Wisconsin and Washington are subject to effective competition.
CableLabs cut 27 jobs as part of its restructuring to focus more on long-term innovation work, CEO Phil McKinney said in a blog post Friday. CableLabs earlier this month announced it was putting less emphasis on its traditional bailiwick of shorter-term R&D work (see 1601150077). The job cuts have "allowed us to free up budget for investment in innovative pursuits, including opening new positions requiring the range of skills needed to build out and sustain our innovation pipeline," McKinney said. While not giving specific details on projects in its long-term pipeline, McKinney said the innovation work will involve "all of the areas that CableLabs has historically been responsible for such as high speed data, wireless, [Network Functions Virtualization/Software Defined Networking], next generation video, IoT, business services, security and many others." Meanwhile, he said, the discontinued R&D projects "were focused on near term activities already supported by our membership, or by the vendor community," saying CableLabs "will cover those same technical areas but look at them through an innovation lens that targets an impact three to eight years out."
Altice's buying Cablevision will result in more corporate debt and numerous staff cuts and thus "fewer financial and human resources to invest in the network and provide quality service to customers," the Communication Workers of America told FCC staff in a meeting. In an ex parte filing posted Friday in docket 15-257 on the meeting between CWA representatives and Media Bureau, Office of General Counsel and Wireline Bureau staff, CWA said the proposed deal "will result in significant public interest harm with few, if any, offsetting public interest benefits." Citing a Moody's analysis, CWA said about half of the $900 million in synergies Altice expects to see from the deal will come from annual reductions in the first two to three years, and cuts of that size "cannot be made without impacting service." Barring blocking the transaction, the FCC should impose public interest-protecting conditions, CWA said. Those commitments should include broadband expansion, service quality, capital and operating expenses, employment stability or growth, and "reasonable limits on 'upstreaming of dividends' to parent Altice," the union said. It also said the agency should seek details from Altice about such issues as its broadband deployment plans and timetables through 2017, capital structure and financing, Cablevision's five-year financial forecast, expected synergies, employment impacts and retail service quality. Altice didn't comment.