The FCC Media Bureau released inflation adjustment figures for cable operators using Form 1240. The first quarter 2013 inflation factor is 1.24 percent (http://fcc.us/14qYQzx).

Sky Angel’s request to depose C-SPAN’s board and other cable executives before filing a new antitrust complaint against the cable channel should be denied as a violation of discovery rules, said C-SPAN in a filing in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Sky Angel’s antitrust claims against C-SPAN over the channel refusing to allow its content to be distributed on Sky Angel’s online video service were dismissed last month by Judge Rudolph Contreras for failing to show a basis for collusion. However, Contreras ruled that Sky Angel could amend its original complaint to address the court’s comments, and Sky Angel then filed a request to depose six executives -- including C-SPAN President Rob Kennedy, Time Warner Cable Chairman Glenn Britt and Chris Winfrey, Charter Communications chief financial officer -- prior to amending its complaint. “The nature of the facts sought to be discovered and their possession uniquely in the hands of the defendant and its corporate board members threatens to undermine justice if defendant is permitted to maintain its cloak of secrecy,” said Sky Angel in its request for discovery. However, C-SPAN argued in a filing this week that pre-complaint discovery is against court procedure and usually granted only in situations when a witness is expected to die before the court can proceed normally. “There is not a single case in the [U.S. Court of Appeals for the] D.C. Circuit granting a plaintiff permission to take one deposition, let alone six, under circumstances similar to this case,” said C-SPAN. The cable channel also pointed out that Sky Angel said in its discovery request that it’s prepared to proceed with a new complaint even if denied the depositions. “Plaintiff does not have good cause for such an extraordinary measure when, by [its] own admission, [the plaintiff] already possesses information sufficient to amend the complaint,” said C-SPAN. “Plaintiff simply seeks to engage in a fishing expedition because it lacks any basis for its accusations."

Netflix signed an agreement with PBS that would make a wide variety of the network’s programming available to subscribers of the online video service in the U.S. and Canada. Beginning this fall, subscribers can access exclusive subscription video on demand (SVOD) content from all seasons of The Bletchley Circle, Netflix said in a news release (http://nflx.it/pjkK9L). Next year, Netflix “will become the exclusive SVOD home of Super Why!,” a PBS preschool series, it said. Ken Burns documentaries, other children’s series and past seasons of NOVA also will be available, it said.

The FCC’s negative Alaskan coefficient for capital expenditure leads to a result that’s “both unsupportable and illogical,” the Arctic Slope Telephone Association Cooperative and Copper Valley Telephone Cooperative told the Wireline Bureau in comments Tuesday (http://bit.ly/12dUPtQ). It leads to a quantile regression analysis model that punishes Alaskan carriers that provide service “in some of the harshest climates and most challenging environments in the country,” they said. The groups were commenting in support of a petition by the Matanuska Telephone Association to correct the variable (CD Aug 30 p11). “There is unanimity among FCC Commissioners that the Alaska coefficient used in the Model was supposed to, or should, account for the high costs of deploying broadband in Alaska,” they said, quoting Matanuska’s petition. “We respectfully request the Commissioners interject a dose of common sense and logic into the debate on the Alaska CapEx coefficient.” Commenters in June unanimously urged the FCC to correct the errors; Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, wondered aloud during a hearing of the Natural Resources Subcommittee whether agency officials were “smoking pot” when they approved the model that finds it’s cheaper to build in Alaska than the rest of the country (CD June 19 p8).

AT&T won an employment discrimination case in the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Wednesday (http://1.usa.gov/12dNCtV). The St. Louis-based panel affirmed that the district court properly dismissed a plaintiff’s age discrimination complaint.

The FCC Wireline Bureau is seeking comment on a petition by American Broadband and Telecommunications Co. for a designation as an eligible telecom carrier so it can provide Lifeline-supported wireless services in 10 states and the District of Columbia (http://bit.ly/12dKGgK). Comments in docket 09-197 are due Aug. 1, replies Aug. 16.

The Oregon legislature passed a bill establishing the office of and clarifying the responsibilities of the state chief information officer, a position in the Department of Administrative Services. The heads of both the Oregon Senate and House signed the final version of House Bill 3258 Tuesday. The bill covers many elements of the CIO role, touching on procurement and the state’s information technology and telecommunications plan. “The plan must provide for integrating statewide technology initiatives, ensuring compliance with information technology policies and standards, promoting alignment of information resources and technologies and effectively managing state agencies’ information technology portfolios,” the bill said. The plan’s development should include CIO consultation with and advice from “state agencies and local governments, from private sector information technology experts, from the Legislative Fiscal Officer, from a committee of the Legislative Assembly with oversight over information resource and technology issues or from individual members of the Legislative Assembly that the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives appoint for the purpose of consulting with the State Chief Information Officer under this subsection.” It’s emergency legislation intended to take effect immediately the moment it becomes law.

Net job growth in the New York tech sector has outpaced that in Silicon Valley since March, said TriNet’s SMBeat, an analysis of trends in human capital economic indicators for small businesses, in a report released Wednesday (http://bit.ly/13jIlZa). In June, the New York tech sector received a 2.5 percent bump compared to 1.3 percent in California. California tech pay outpaced New York tech salaries with $143,000 in California, $94,000 in New York and $120,000 nationally, said the report. SMBeat said New York tech workers tend to trend younger and more female than the California tech population. The Georgia tech sector showed 3.74 percent net growth in job creation in June, said the report.

Revenue from pay TV reached $184 billion in 2012, an increase of 28.5 percent from 2008, said a report released by Digital TV Research (http://www.digitaltvresearch.com/ugc/press/61.pdf). Although cable generated the most pay TV revenue in 2012, at $87 billion, the report said the cable numbers show a plateau. “Cable revenues are flattening, and [direct-to-home] will overtake cable soon,” said Digital TV Research in a press release. IPTV revenue increased by almost $10 billion between 2008 and 2012, the report said, to $12 billion. There were 772 million pay TV households globally in 2012, up from 585 million in 2008, the report said. “Two thirds of the global additions” during this period came in the Asia Pacific region, which has the most pay TV households in the world at 433 million, the report said. The second highest ranking region, North America, has 112 million pay TV households, but only added 4 million households between 2008 and 2012 -- while the Asia Pacific region added 126 million, the report said. “Digital TV penetration of TV households climbed from 28.6 percent at end-2008 to 54.7 percent by end-2012” said the report. The percentages represent an increase of about 404 million homes, bringing the number of digital TV households to 786 million, the report said. At the end of 2012, there were 652 million analog TV households, the report said, down from 956 million at the end of 2008. Of the digital households added between 2008 and 2012, 83 million converted to digital terrestrial TV only, 151 million moved to digital cable, paid direct to home service accounted for 75 million, and pay IPTV provided 56 million, said the report.

The court-appointed receiver of WHNR(AM) Cypress Gardens, Fla., filed an FCC involuntary transfer of control application. It said the Form 316 application followed an April Media Bureau decision rescinding an application granted last year to GB Enterprises Communications for an involuntary assignment of the station’s license to the receiver, George Reed (CD April 10 p23). Reed is now applying to acquire control of GB Enterprises, WHNR’s prior licensee, said the receiver in a notice of filing the agency received Monday. It included an order from the 10th Judicial Circuit of Polk County, Fla., authorizing such a transaction.