If the FCC lets broadcasters satisfy their broadcast election notice requirements by taking steps other than the traditional certified letters to cable operators, it should make similar changes to rules requiring cable operators send notices to broadcasters via certified mail, the American Cable Association said in a docket 17-317 posting Wednesday. It said with the agency "steadily moving toward a regime" that lets parties use electronic communications with subscribers and other interested parties, its proposal "simply extends the benefits of electronic delivery even further."
Despite growth in over-the-top platforms, nearly 20 percent of "cable keepers" who watch TV through a cable or satellite provider don't know how to access live TV without an MVPD subscription, Telaria and Adobe Advertising Cloud reported Tuesday. Forty-two percent of cable keepers said access to live programming is the reason they keep a cable connection, and 55 percent find cord-cutting options confusing. Seventy-three percent of cord cutters cited cost for axing their linear TV connection, and 48 percent of cable keepers are mulling canceling their cable service. Thirty percent of cable keepers said they would be cord cutters if they knew they could livestream their preferred sports, news and events programming. The national online survey was done in April and May, with 750 adults ages 21-54.
Comments are due Nov. 14, replies Dec. 14, on the local franchise authority Further NPRM approved in September (see 1809250017), says an FCC notice scheduled for Monday's Federal Register.
AT&T doesn't strongly defend the U.S. District Court's logic that let it buy Time Warner, but focuses on "musing footnotes and phrases as if they were holdings," DOJ said in a U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit reply brief Thursday (docket 18-5214) responding to the acquirer's appellee brief (see 1809200039). It said AT&T doesn't address the lower court's inconsistencies in rejecting bargaining principles accepted by economists. Justice said the court insisted on an unreasonably high degree of certainty in DOJ economic modeling and its finding of zero harm to be unsupportable, making remand "unavoidable." AT&T didn't comment.
A 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel challenged counsel for Comcast and Entertainment Studios Networks/National Association of African American Owned Media in oral argument Tuesday (see here, docket 16-56479). ESN and NAAAOM are appealing a lower court's 2016 dismissal of a racial discrimination claim against Comcast (see 1704170017). Judge Milan Smith is "struggling" with the difficulties the lower court had in finding the ESN claims plausible. He said there's a seeming lack of proof that white-owned companies were treated differently by Comcast in its programming decisions. ESN outside counsel Erwin Chemerinsky said Comcast not contracting with almost any black-owned programmers is evidence of a plausible claim. Judges also questioned Comcast outside counsel Miguel Estrada of Gibson Dunn about what ESN would have to show to have a valid pleading. Estrada said ESN is "finding shreds that are arguably actual in a complaint that is brimming with conspiracy theory." He said the complaint is implausible because it affirms Comcast gave carriage to other majority black-owned networks Aspire and Revolt and Africa Channel and ESN arguments involve a contrived category of 100 percent African-American owned.
AT&T plans to launch a streaming service in Q4 2019 as a result of combining with Time Warner, it said Wednesday. An SEC filing with few details said it would represent "a new choice for entertainment with the WarnerMedia collection of films, television series, libraries, documentaries and animation."
Comcast added multilingual English and Spanish language support for its Xfinity X1 voice remote. The company processes more than 6 million Spanish-language commands monthly for customers who set their primary X1 language as Spanish, blogged Lead Engineer Raul Guerra Paredes Wednesday. “Unlike a personal electronic device like a phone, which can just be set to a mode where it only takes Spanish-language inputs and gives only Spanish responses, we knew that many of our Spanish-speaking customers lived in homes where both English and Spanish are spoken interchangeably.” Human speech patterns add complexity, Paredes said. Comcast engineers built technology so that when a customer makes a command, the voice platform queries English and Spanish voice databases simultaneously, he said. “We make manual changes to ensure we are capturing the most popular commands and train our [artificial intelligence] and machine learning algorithms to continuously improve." Some 23 million Xfinity customers have used voice remotes, issuing more than 3.5 billion voice commands in the first half of 2018. In both languages, requests for free movies top the list of voice commands, it said.
The Competitive Enterprise Institute is taking its failed FCC fight over conditions on Charter Communications buying Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Those conditions, and the agency's order last month rejecting CEI's petition for reconsideration of those conditions (see 1809100048), are contrary to longstanding policy, said a notice of appeal to be filed with the D.C. Circuit. The FCC didn't comment. Chairman Ajit Pai dissented on the conditions in 2016 (see 1605100050), saying they put the agency ever closer to banning usage-based pricing and "micromanaging where, when and how ISPs deploy infrastructure." That likely won't affect the agency's position in court since it won't want to encourage other parities to come in and challenge conditions on other mergers, a longtime media lawyer said. Common Cause Director-Media and Democracy Program Yosef Getachew said the agency denying under Pai the recon petition points to it defending those conditions despite the chairman's previous criticisms. He said CEI could face a challenge in its appeal since the reasons for the petition denial -- all on procedural grounds -- appear solid. The commission under Pai in 2017 rolled back some of the broadband overbuild conditions on New Charter (see 1704030039).
Vizio would change privacy disclosures and menu options beyond refinements the FTC required under a February 2017 consent decree, said the proposed $17 million class-action settlement agreement (in Pacer) to end complaints the “smart interactivity” function violated the Video Privacy Protection Act (see 1604060039). Cases had been consolidated in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana, California, where plaintiffs filed an “unopposed” motion (in Pacer) asking Judge Josephine Staton to convene a Dec. 7 ratification hearing. In the new deal versus the FTC one, the manufacturer will delete about another year of consumer viewing data, will add more on-screen disclosures and will let customers know about the settlement via announcements on their smart sets and by social media ads. Average settlements will be $13-$31.
Atlantic Broadband finalized its buy of FiberLight's south Florida fiber network, it said Wednesday. The deal -- giving Atlantic an additional 350 miles route miles -- was announced in January (see 1801250033).