Matt Daneman

The Supreme Court case pitting DirecTV against ex-customers over its arbitration policy points up what critics contend are problems with forced arbitration, while backers say it's a cost-effective way of settling disputes over small sums. During oral argument Tuesday, at issue will be language in customers' contracts requiring arbitration for disputes unless applicable state law forbids it, and whether the arbitration agreement is unenforceable. That is according to briefs in the case and comments from participants.

The FCC is considering a revamp of broadcast foreign ownership rules to bring them in line with the same review processes governing foreign ownership of common carriers and aeronautical licensees in what Chairman Tom Wheeler said was regulatory simplification. The broadcast ownership NPRM -- docket 15-235 -- is part of the agency's tentative agenda released Thursday for its Oct. 22 meeting.

Don't expect to see many mergers or acquisitions in the satellite industry despite the benefits of such consolidation, Intelsat Chief Financial Officer Michael McDonnell said Tuesday at a Deutsche Bank's investor conference. The few such M&A transactions in the industry -- such as Eutelsat's 2014 takeover of SatMex -- sometimes come with high price tags, and many smaller operators' governments aren't as interested in consolidation as their owners, McDonnell said. He declined to address directly what he called rumors of Intelsat considering a sale of some assets, except to say its satellite fleet is designed so most of them carry a variety of customer sets and they are supported by a common platform. "We don't really have any assets we consider to be non-core," McDonnell said. While the company's network services revenue has been declining in recent years, its high-throughput Epic satellite platform going online next year opens the door to expansion into markets such as connected cars and IoT and "is our path back to growth," McDonnell said. The company has four launches planned for 2016 -- Intelsat 31 and 29e in Q1 and 33e and 36 in the second half of the year -- and most of its satellites planned in coming years are Epics, he said.

The mounds of data the FCC seeks in Charter Communications' efforts to buy Bright House Networks and Time Warner Cable, coupled with Friday comments by FCC General Counsel Jon Sallet, point to the transactions not being a shoo-in for regulatory approval, cable industry watchers said. The agency last week gave the three an Oct. 13 deadline to provide answers to lengthy requests for information about the companies, their policies and plans, and about market conditions (see 1509220057).

The FCC shot clock is two weeks in for Charter Communications' buys of Bright House Networks and Time Warner Cable. The $89.1 billion deal already attracted considerable support from the likes of the AIDS Service Foundation of Kansas City and watershed preservation group Milwaukee Riverkeeper, alongside TV outfits such as Herring Networks and PBS Hawaii.

The video market remains divided on whether it's suffering from a lack of real, effective competition or whether it's replete with competitors. "Choice and competition are now the hallmarks of the market for the delivery of video programming," NCTA said in replies in docket 15-158 as the FCC prepares its 17th video competition report. Pointing to such sentiments, NAB said it "wonders if these commenters are observing the same marketplace as everyone else." In initial comments last month, the FCC received a variety of suggestions for improving the video market (see 1508210033). The deadline for replies was Monday.

Broadcasters and allies are howling over the FCC's increased public advocacy for repeal of the syndicated exclusivity and network nonduplication rules. "Chairman [Tom] Wheeler appears to be on a singular crusade to eliminate exclusivity rules that serve an important part of the overall localism landscape," NAB said in a statement Tuesday in response to Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake's blog. Lake said that the exclusivity rules "are past their prime in light of the significant statutory and marketplace changes that have occurred since their adoption."

The virtual shutdown of the Export-Import Bank is having devastating consequences on the U.S. commercial satellite industry, industry experts said Monday at a Washington Space Business Roundtable lunch. "It's embarrassing we're not open for business," said Jeff Trauberman, Boeing vice president-Space, Intelligence and Missile Defense Systems.

Public, educational and government channels and local communities are lining up in opposition to one aspect of the FCC proposal to broaden the definition of multichannel video programing distributors to include certain types of over-the-top providers. If what the NPRM proposes becomes a rule, PEG channels and allies said they fear that cable operators' OTT services won't need to carry the programming or pay franchise and/or PEG fees that fund the channels. "In these proceedings, you sometimes get the law of unintended consequences," Merlyn Reineke, CEO of Montgomery Community Media in Rockville, Maryland, told us. "That’s our fear on the PEG side."

Altice's plan to buy Cablevision for $17.7 billion likely won't face major regulatory hurdles or raise any barriers to its pending takeover of Suddenlink, experts told us. "Probably at the end of the day there's not a lot of 'there' there" in terms of grounds for objections or public interest concerns, said cable lawyer Barbara Esbin with Cinnamon Mueller. "It's not Comcast/Time Warner."