MVPDs and subscribers shouldn't expect rebates from programmers due to the lack of live sports content, sports and cable experts said in interviews last week. At least one cable ISP indicated it expects a rebate or discount, and multiple ones have brought up the issue with programmers. The idea of sports costs is also getting political pressure.
The COVID-19 pandemic began hurting Comcast business operations in Q1, but bigger effects are expected in Q2, the company said Thursday, announcing Q1 results. Cable and broadcast advertising, already down, will be weaker in Q2 due to canceled sports programming and a weak economy, said Chief Financial Officer Mike Cavanagh. Film revenue will be down heavily in Q2 and Q3, as tentpoles like Fast and Furious and Minions sequels move to 2021, he said. Residential broadband and enterprise trends are better than feared, New Street Research analyst Jonathan Chaplin wrote investors. Pivotal Research's Jeffrey Wlodarczak said 2020 is "a wash [with] a return to relative normalcy for cable in ’21." He said the cable business should have slower growth this year and "a nice rebound in '21 while NBC and Sky will have an ugly ’20 [and] return to normalcy by ’22." For the quarter, Comcast revenue was $26.6 billion, down 0.9%. Filmed entertainment revenue was down 22.5%. Comcast said since March 1, upstream traffic has grown 33% and wireless data use over Wi-Fi is up 40%. It said 95% of its call center employees are working from home. Comcast ended Q1 with 19.9 million residential video subscribers, down 950,000 year over year; 26.9 million residential broadband customers, up 1.4 million; and 9.8 million residential voice customers, down 250,000. It has 2.27 million wireless subscribers, up 862,000.
Ligado hopes to have its L-band spectrum deployed terrestrially within 18 months, now that it has FCC approval (see 2004200039), CEO Doug Smith told us Wednesday. Senate Armed Services Committee leaders are eyeing a hearing next week on DOD opposition to the FCC’s Ligado decision, Capitol Hill aides and lobbyists told us.
There's no consensus whether mobile and fixed communications services are complementary or substitutes in docket 20-60 comments this week for the FCC's communications market competitiveness report to Congress. The agency got requests for further smoothing access to poles and rights of way for wireline broadband access.
Lawyers and judges said widespread use of video and telephone conferences for civil hearings and oral arguments is causing relatively few problems and is a decent replacement for meeting in-person during the pandemic. Many told us they hope or expect such tech to be incorporated more into court proceedings even post-pandemic.
Changes to the FCC orbital debris order, as expected (see 2004170011), netted 5-0 commissioner adoption Thursday at the agency's April meeting. Some commissioners said they approved after several items were moved from the draft order to the accompanying Further NPRM.
The 1 dB standard for determining harmful interference to GPS, pushed by the GPS industry and others opposed to Ligado's planned low-power terrestrial L-band network plans, doesn't assess harmful interference and isn't directly correlated with it, the FCC said in its 74-page Ligado order adopted Sunday (see 2004200011) and released Wednesday.
Facing what the New York Attorney General's Office told us is an inquiry into Charter Communications' labor practices and management of employees during the pandemic, the company emailed us Wednesday that it has been "dramatically" reducing the number of workers going into the field or office "while maintaining the efficacy of our business operations." It said most office and call center workers are remote, it announced a permanent $1.50 an hour pay increase to field operations and customer service employees retroactive to their annual increase in February, and committed to a $20 hourly minimum wage in 2022. It said it has given every worker an additional 15 days of COVID-19-related flex time and promised no furloughs or layoffs for at least 60 days. The cable operator said it instructed employees to follow Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations for quarantining if sick, with full pay and benefits. The company said many workers at its corporate campuses are on a rotating schedule to allow for minimal interaction and social distancing, and it escalated routine cleanings in line with CDC guidelines. Other cablers and other ISPs are taking similar moves, we have found (see 2004100038).
Federal appellate judges were skeptical Wednesday of math the Independent Producers Group used to assert an arbitrary and capricious Copyright Royalty Board decision cost video content producers $28 million in MVPD retransmission royalties. Appellant counsel and appellee intervenor counsel told us the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit could rule in a month or two. They said IPG challenging a CRB 2019 order on distribution of cable and satellite royalties (docket 18-1337) doesn't have broader copyright royalty implications.
The FCC commissioners' approval of the long-pending Ligado plan for terrestrial use of its L-band spectrum (see 2004200011) might not be the end of the proceeding, since a legal appeal is considered possible by some proceedings watchers. The 5-0 approval of the order was announced Monday, but the order wasn't released. An FCC official said it was approved as circulated and there were no changes to the draft order.