Pay-TV industry insiders and watchers tell us they expect 2017 to be a strong year for small and midsized cable deals, particularly because of what's expected to be a more favorable environment under a GOP-controlled White House and Congress. But it's still unclear where the Trump administration will stand on media consolidation, given mixed signals from President Donald Trump, said MCTV President Robert Gessner. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai would seemingly be more open to media deals, but it's conceivable there could be contrary pressure from the White House, Gessner said.
Matt Daneman
Matt Daneman, Senior Editor, covers pay TV, cable broadband, satellite, and video issues and the Federal Communications Commission for Communications Daily. He joined Warren Communications in 2015 after more than 15 years at the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, where he covered business among other issues. He also was a correspondent for USA Today. You can follow Daneman on Twitter: @mdaneman
The Univision/Charter Communication legal fight over carriage terms is also becoming a legal battle over a blackout of the broadcaster's content from the cable operator's lineup, with Charter saying it will go to court to end the carriage disruption that started Tuesday. Critics of media consolidation are calling the dustup evidence of the problems of media consolidation. "Unfortunately, this is the future that we predicted when we opposed recent consolidation attempts in the cable industry," said the Computer and Communications Industry Association, which ripped Comcast's attempt to buy Time Warner Cable (see 1406100052), in a statement Wednesday.
The public interest groups that often tried to help craft communications policy during the Obama administration now likely will spend more time in court trying to stop or block policy in the Trump years, they told us. "No matter what the FCC does, they get sued," Free Press CEO Craig Aaron said. "It might be different people suing them now." Added Public Knowledge Vice President Chris Lewis, "Offense and defense is a fair way to describe it. We'll certainly play defense ... to protect the gains we've made in the last few years.”
While an FCC staffer suing the agency for workplace retaliation (see 1609300016) obviously suffered "frustration with her employment and her chronic inability to work cooperatively with colleagues," she didn't suffer any violation of her rights, the DOJ Civil Division said in a motion (in Pacer) Friday in U.S. District Court in Washington seeking summary judgment on Sharon Stewart's complaint. DOJ said that while the FCC doesn't condone its workers looking at nude or semi-nude images in their cubicles, that Stewart sometimes caught a glimpse doesn't create a hostile work environment -- especially when a co-worker doing such viewing tried to hide the images from her. Instead, the plaintiff is "cobbl[ing] together a hostile work environment claim" even though the viewing habits weren't directed at all at her. It said there's no evidence that no one took any action on Stewart's complaint because of her gender or other protected characteristic, as a hostile work environment claim requires. The agency also said that while Stewart has argued she was denied performance bonuses in 2012 and 2015 as a form of retaliation, she also was disciplined for misconduct in both of those years, so the FCC "had a legitimate, non-retaliatory reason for its actions." Justice disputed that Stewart was retaliated against when she was relieved of her duties regarding Section 610 reports -- annual lists of 10-year-old agency reports -- since the reports were put on hold for years and no one at the FCC was doing them. Regardless, removal of such administrative responsibilities doesn't count as materially adverse since there is no proof they would have resulted in Stewart's being promoted, DOJ said. The motion also retells multiple past equal employment opportunity and other complaints Stewart filed against co-workers and supervisors when she worked at the Department of Health and Human Services and then at the FCC since starting there in 2001. Stewart's counsel, Noah Peters of Bailey & Ehrenberg, emailed us Monday, "We look forward to responding to the Agency’s motion and are confident we will prevail."
By the end of Q1, Globalstar expects to have started regulatory proceedings in at least four countries with a combined population of 375 million as it looks for international regulatory approval of its terrestrial broadband plans (see 1701120035), the company said Monday. In meetings with New York analysts and in an interview with us, General Counsel Barbee Ponder said the company initiated applications in three countries, which he didn't name, in January and plans to make that at least four by March's end. He told us Globalstar plans to make similar filings in other, unnamed countries through this year. With a goal ultimately of worldwide authority for the spectrum, he said that "it will be ongoing for quite some time."
Video bundling is in the crosshairs of numerous small programmers and allies, with many of them urging the FCC to add it to its rulemaking on independent and diverse programming. An NPRM looking at only unconditional most-favored-nation (MFN) provisions and unreasonable alternative distribution method (ADM) provisions in carriage agreements "is like the Fire Department attempting to douse a four-alarm fire using Solo cups of water," said the American Cable Association and multiple indie programmers in joint comments posted Friday in docket 16-41.
Comcast's wireless offering will come as part of a multiproduct bundle and the company will be "measured" in its rollout, "learning and adapting along the way," CEO Brian Roberts said in a conference call Thursday as the company announced its Q4 results. Comcast said it plans to launch a wireless service by mid-2017 (see 1609200042).
A Verizon buy of Charter Communications might pass regulatory muster, said numerous deal watchers and experts. It's not clear if such a transaction -- which lead to a combined entity of more than 20 million pay-TV customers -- would face the same concerns about creating too big a competitor that scuttled the ill-fated Comcast/Time Warner Cable. Some Wall Street experts are pessimistic that the reported talk of such a deal will go any further. Verizon and Charter didn't comment Thursday.
Wireless interests are rallying behind, and satellite interests and allies opposing, the Fixed Wireless Communications Coalition (FWCC) petition for changes in satellite earth station licensing rules, as was expected (see 1612270034), with a series of filings posted Tuesday and Wednesday in RM-11778. Google Fiber said that since full-band, full-arc licensing results in inefficient use of the bands shared by fixed satellite service and fixed service, the FCC should start a rulemaking on the FWCC proposal and on broader rules changes to allow more use of the spectrum. It also brushed off Satellite Industry Association arguments, saying low rejection rates for FS coordination requests "may reflect nothing more than that those operators adjust their plans to avoid time-consuming and expensive coordination engagements." The National Spectrum Management Association said satellite operators should be licensed for as much spectrum as they need, but only the spectrum they actually need, letting other services access the rest. CBS, Disney, Scripps Network Interactive, 21st Century Fox, Time Warner and Viacom said in opposing the FWCC petition that they worried about negative effects on C-band satellite spectrum and its use in distributing to multichannel video programming distributors' headends and to over-the-top distributors. PBS said the FWCC proposal would mean, absent a waiver procedure, every earth station adjustment to a different transponder or satellite would require a license modification procedure that could take weeks or months. NAB said there's no evidence full-band, full-arc licensing is a problem, and plenty of evidence it has substantial public benefit. The association said the FWCC proposal is unrealistic because the waiver process "would be cumbersome and wholly ineffective to deal with situations that regularly occur with broadcasters' use of FSS earth stations and satellites." SES said the FWCC and its allies never acknowledge that the two extended Ku-band segments listed in the petition have FSS use limits aimed squarely at preserving FS spectrum access.
Cablevision is asking commissioners to listen to oral argument on its exceptions to the initial FCC administrative law judge decision in Game Show Network's programming discrimination complaint. In a filing Tuesday in docket 12-122, Cablevision laid out multiple areas where it says it and GSN disagree widely, such as direct evidence standards, the standard of review to which the cable operator is entitled and whether GSN was unreasonably restrained by Cablevision's retiering. It submitted a brief in further support of the exceptions it submitted earlier this month (see 1701050019) to the ALJ decision, arguing it isn't trying to relitigate but seeking a de novo review, and that GSN is misinterpreting the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit's Tennis Channel ruling on a similar discrimination complaint. Cablevision said the channel is wrong when it says Judge Richard Sippel correctly followed FCC guidance about deciding whether GSN was similarly situated to Cablevision-affiliated networks, and it was incorrect when it says the agency shouldn't consider the effect the ALJ's ordered relief would have. GSN outside counsel Stephen Weiswasser of Covington & Burling told us the latest filings break no new ground in what Cablevision has already submitted in the record, and it has no objection to oral argument, but such a step isn't necessary.