The Walt Disney Company and the National Cable Television Cooperative signed a long-term retransmission consent agreement for eight ABC-owned local stations. NCTC members in ABC-owned markets "will continue to have the ability to provide the authenticated WATCH ABC live streaming service to their customers," Walt Disney said Monday in a news release. The agreement follows a comprehensive long-term distribution agreement to deliver Disney's lineup of sports, news and entertainment to participating NCTC members' customers, it said. The agreement pertains to WABC-TV New York, KABC-TV Los Angeles, KTRK-TV Houston and other markets, it said.

CEO Brian Roberts and other Comcast executives made the case for the company's planned buy of Time Warner Cable to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, saying the approximately $66 billion deal won't hurt broadband competition and the cable operator backs "robust, enforceable, industry-wide net neutrality rules." So said an ex parte filing posted Thursday in docket 14-57 on a meeting that also included Comcast Executive Vice President David Cohen, FCC General Counsel Jonathan Sallet and others. On President Barack Obama's recent support for Title II Communications Act reclassification of broadband, "Comcast is on record as agreeing with every substantive point the President outlined -- a free and open Internet, no blocking, no throttling, increased transparency, non-discrimination rules, and no paid prioritization," the company said. With "much agreement on what the new rules should address" on net neutrality, Comcast said, "there is no upside to be gained from heavy-handed regulation associated with Title II reclassification, only substantial risk of harm. Such harm would be exacerbated to the extent the FCC’s going forward plan includes a Title II approach without broad-based forbearance."

NV Energy’s requirement for a complete loading analysis for Cox Communications Las Vegas to use the overlashing technique for its poles “is unjust and unreasonable,” Cox said in a petition to the FCC filed Thursday. Cox is asking the agency to order the NV Energy to allow work to continue without the analysis due to “discriminatory denial of access” and for imposing “unreasonable terms and conditions,” the petition said. NV Energy didn't comment.

Six tech companies completed the first successful interoperability test of the latest super-fast broadband specification, said CableLabs, developer of the DOCSIS 3.1 spec. Such products can deliver up to 10 Gbps on hybrid fiber-coax networks, CableLabs said in a Tuesday news release. The interop event included providers of cable modems, it said. "To keep up with the rate of development and accelerate product maturity, CableLabs will be facilitating a series of interop events building up to the certification program that will be open for submissions in 2015." Names of participating companies weren't disclosed. "Since this was CableLabs first interop for DOCSIS 3.1," emailed a spokesman Tuesday, "we wanted to respect vendor neutrality and so have not named the companies which participated."

Programmers’ bundling of content is driving up the cost of cable packages beyond the most basic services, said Mediacom Group Vice President-Legal and Public Affairs Tom Larsen in meetings last week with FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake, aides to Chairman Tom Wheeler, aides to Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, and Media Bureau and Office of General Counsel staff, said an ex-parte filing posted in RM 11728 Monday. Larsen discussed the arguments for limiting a content company’s ability to require bundles laid out in a Mediacom rulemaking petition (see 1410020048), and said the issue also makes it harder for cable operators to increase broadband capacity. “The cost demands associated with the programmers’ practices impeded expansion of broadband service into new areas,” Larsen said. Adopting rules preventing such practices is within FCC authority under the Communications Act, he said.

The average monthly price of expanded basic cable service increased 3.1 percent in 2013, while the average price per channel increased by 0.9 percent, said the FCC Media Bureau in a cable pricing report released Monday. The Consumer Price Index increased 1.6 percent in the same period, the report said. “The price of expanded basic service has increased at a compound average annual growth rate of 5.9 percent during the period 1995-2014,” the bureau said. “Over the 19 years from 1995-2014, the price per channel is virtually unchanged on an average annual compound basis.” As of Jan. 1, the average expanded basic cable price of $66.61 was higher than DirecTV’s $64.92 and Dish Network’s $59.99, the report said. DirecTV offered the greatest number of channels and had a significantly lower price per channel than the cable average, while Dish offered significantly fewer channels and had a lower price per channel, the report said.

The FCC Media Bureau made “certain broadband subscriber data” from FCC Form 477 data collection part of the record for Comcast's planned buy of Time Warner Cable, said a public notice Wednesday. The information includes subscriber totals, broadband providers in the combining companies’ footprints and subscriber totals by technology, the PN said. The information could inform economic analysis and comments on the transaction, the PN said. “Such comment may play an integral role in the commission’s ultimate determination about whether the proposed transactions in this proceeding are in the public interest," the PN said.

Liberty Global and Searchlight Capital Partners will buy Puerto Rico’s second largest cable provider, Choice Cable TV, for $272.5 million, Liberty said in a news release Wednesday. Choice’s operations will be combined with Liberty Cablevision of Puerto Rico to form the island’s largest cable provider, 60 percent-owned by Liberty Global and 40 percent-owned by Searchlight. The deal needs regulatory approval and is expected to close in the first half of 2015, said Liberty.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit set oral argument in programmers' challenge of FCC confidentiality rules in the Comcast/Time Warner Cable and AT&T/DirecTV deals for Feb. 20, said a court order. The date matches the expedited schedule requested by the parties involved. The FCC has told the court that the case needs to be resolved to allow prompt review of the proposed deals.

The FCC decline of a GAO recommendation that it step up oversight of usage-based pricing could signal “a strong disinclination by the Chairman toward any new FCC limits on cable broadband pricing,” said Guggenheim Partners analyst Paul Gallant in an email to investors Wednesday. The FCC’s rejection of GAO’s advice (see 1412020037) makes it seem likely that if the commission bases new net neutrality rules on Communications Act Title II, “the Wheeler-led FCC would do as much as it can to limit the risk of a shift toward greater pricing oversight by a future FCC,” Gallant said. “We continue to believe that reclassification of broadband as a Title 2 service -- should that happen -- would not make it more likely that a future FCC will in fact decide to regulate cable broadband prices.”