Matt Daneman

Charter Communications' handling of third-party device makers and cable apps is increasingly a bone of contention in FCC review of Charter's purchases of Bright House Networks and Time Warner Cable. The Computer and Communications Industry Association in a filing Friday in docket 15-149 joined Nvidia in criticizing Charter for its supposed blocking of third-party devices from accessing TV Everywhere apps. Charter and TWC dispute those claims. TWC said Nvidia "appears to misapprehend" how multichannel video programming distributor subscribers access programming via TVE.

Charter Communications is pushing back at critics of its proposed takeovers of Bright House Networks and Time Warner Cable, meeting with the FCC to rebut arguments raised against the deals. Separately, it received some ammunition in its arguments from Discovery Communications, which also met with the FCC to say claims that New Charter might try to use its power to keep Discovery content from rival multichannel video programming distributors are off base. In an ex parte filing posted Wednesday in docket 15-149, Charter said executives met with FCC staff including General Counsel Jon Sallet and Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake to address individual filings by such critics as Incompas, Nvidia, TiVo (see 1601220017) and Time Warner Inc. (see 1601140033). Incompas' arguments that cost savings that New Charter would enjoy could hurt broadband competition aren't backed by any evidence and depend "on the questionable assumption that a provider's decision to enter a particular market depends on the incumbent providers' costs," Charter said. It also said there's no basis for conditions requiring New Charter support of CableCARD since it plans "to purchase, distribute and service CableCARDs ... for years to come." And Charter said it "has been transparent and unequivocal" that it backs the rise of over-the-top services like HBO Now since they drive broadband demand, and thus has no motive to harm OTT. It also disputed Nvidia claims Charter has blocked access to TV Everywhere apps to disadvantage Nvidia's Shield TV device. Discovery, in a separate ex parte filing Thursday in the docket, said it told commission staff -- including Lake and Owen Kendler, who's heading the FCC working team overseeing the deals' review -- that it has no incentive to withhold programming from any MVPD and though John Malone and BHN owner Advance/Newhouse own equity stakes in both Discovery and Charter, the programmer "has made many deals with alternative distribution providers" and that it doesn't vary its pricing across regions in a given MVPD contract to target any overlapping Charter areas. Withholding its programming from a rival MVPD to benefit Charter would hurt Discovery's top line and would cause only limited switching to New Charter, it said. Given the decline in linear TV viewing and the growth of OTT platforms, "cutting back on reaching viewers through these platforms would harm [its] ability to evolve with the changing video marketplace," Discovery said. In ex parte filings Thursday in the docket on meetings they had with FCC officials (see here and here), Charter/TWC/BHN foes Stop Mega Cable coalition and the Writers Guild of America, West said the deals would give New Charter too big a hold on the U.S. broadband market and incentive to stifle growth in the online video market.

The Wi-Fi Alliance issued the first of what it says will be several plans for tests to evaluate LTE-unlicensed's impact on a Wi-Fi network. The draft LTE-U test plan follows a Wi-Fi Alliance coexistence test workshop Wednesday in California involving what the group said in a statement was "dozens of industry players" discussing test regimen and agreeing it was "sufficiently mature to begin a validation exercise." Wi-Fi interests in the cable industry have been battling with wireless carriers over whether LTE-U will interfere with Wi-Fi.

The 1996 Telecom Act couldn't happen in 2016, but a major rewrite doesn't seem needed either, numerous architects and implementers of the legislation said in interviews and on a pair of panels Thursday. "It's hard to imagine it being done today in the current political climate," said NCTA CEO Michael Powell at an FCBA luncheon for the act's 20th anniversary. "I don't think the political machinery is functioning all that well. It's hard to imagine the navigation process ... that would produce something more rational or sound" than the 1996 act, he said. Other panelists, a slew of online statements and the industry's law journal made similar observations this week (see 1602080062 and 1602090048).

Technology companies such as Apple and Google are in the Newspaper Association of America crosshairs over use of advertising blockers and fair-use copyright issues, NAA CEO David Chavern said at a Media Institute lunch Wednesday. Chavern said NAA is talking to Apple about its use of ad blockers in Apple News, and plans similar conversations with other companies. "You've got to keep letting my guys make money," Chavern said. "That keeps the reporting coming. ... At some point, we've got to get back to talking about fair use for my members." Apple didn't comment. Chavern became CEO in October and said a good portion of his job has been to evangelize about the traditional news business. "Facebook isn't going to interview the quarterback," he said. "Google's not going to interview the mayor. They don't want to." A key reason, Chavern said, is the difficulty in creating a newsroom: "That's going to be really, really expensive. Incumbency has its advantages." Despite woes about the state of the newspaper industry, Chavern said, "It's not the coal industry, it's not travel agents. People want the product." Newspapers, even with declining print circulations, are somewhat the envy of digital businesses, Chavern said, because those print operations still are profit generators -- something digital businesses find elusive. But he said the decades of enjoying 35-plus percent profit margins are gone, and newspaper companies must resign themselves to that. "It may not ever get to that again," he said. "It doesn't have to be that [level]." Given that all of the 2,000 newspapers that make up NAA are "experimenting like crazy" and generally don't compete much among one another, Chavern said, "there's an incredible opportunity for knowledge sharing," with that being one NAA goal. He previously spent nine years as U.S. Chamber of Commerce chief operating officer, and spent part of his talk discussing the ins and outs of lobbying. "This is a tough environment for advocacy," Chavern said, saying much of the job involves laying the groundwork for when legislative action has a better likelihood of passage.

Analysts are skeptical of Viacom's plan to rebound from ratings declines at some of its biggest pay-TV networks, given the onslaught of newer media and online competition. Speaking as Viacom announced results Tuesday for FY Q1 that ended Dec. 31 that disappointed some analysts, CEO Philippe Dauman said the company would rebound, but analysts said they're not so sure. Investors, too, were cautious, with Viacom stock closing down 18 percent Tuesday and closing Wednesday down another 4.4 percent to $35.15.

Growing subscriber rolls at some cable TV providers, even as the over-the-top (OTT) market booms, indicate people "really like to watch TV," said Corie Wright, Netflix director-global public policy, Wednesday at Incompas' 2016 Policy Summit. "It's not an either/or proposition -- a price point for something like Netflix or [Amazon] Prime makes it easy to add onto your core package," she said on a panel on the streaming video content marketplace.

Landline telcos' largest trade group quit a coalition of telcos, pay-TV providers, consumer groups and others that has been seeking to block Charter Communications' planned buys of Bright House Networks and Time Warner Cable. Meanwhile, FCC staff asked executives of two major programmers to discuss the pair of deals worth about $90 billion, said filings posted Friday in docket 15-149. The staffers are asking programmers questions about video market competition and past transaction conditions as part of the agency's review of Charter/TWC/BHN.

Charter Communications still hopes to see federal approval of its $89.1 billion takeovers of Bright House Networks and Time Warner Cable by the end of March, CEO Tom Rutledge said on a conference call Thursday on FY 2015 financial results. "We're reasonably confident the FCC and DOJ [Department of Justice] are on track to stay within the [180-day] shot clock," Rutledge said. As of Thursday, it stood at 131 days.

From regulatory reform to incentives to help justify the total cost of ownership of a network, rural broadband advocates came to the launch of the House's bipartisan Rural Broadband Caucus Wednesday with a litany of suggestions. "As much as we want to advance rural broadband, if you don't have a government program [to] support the deployment and maintenance, people aren't going to deploy it," said Sarah Tyree, CoBank vice president-government affairs. The caucus' focus was expected (see 1602020057).