Comcast’s “modest gain” in footprint from buying Time Warner Cable won’t increase its incentive “to engage in exclusionary conduct” toward video industry rivals, said Comcast in response to questions from FCC staff. The response was posted online Monday. Those who believe the merger will have anticompetitive consequences believe Comcast would reap “slightly higher proportion of gains from exclusionary conduct if it serves 29% of U.S. MVPD [multichannel video programming distributor] subscribers rather than 22%,” said Comcast. “This theoretical claim finds no support in the documents or historical behavior of Comcast,” said the cable company. Since Comcast has long been the nation’s largest cable company, evidence of such behavior should have already emerged if it were a real concern, Comcast said. The cable company also pointed to merger conditions that keep it from preventing online video distributors from accessing its content. “There is “strong empirical evidence that the immediate harm to Comcast’s programming business from any foreclosure strategy would exceed any purported benefit to its MVPD business,” Comcast said.

The FCC should issue a subpoena to collect the data it requests in its revised special access data collection order, representatives from cable companies and NCTA told staff from the Wireline Bureau and Office of General Counsel in a meeting Nov. 24, said an ex parte filing by the association posted Friday in docket 05-25. Charter Communications, Cox Enterprises and Time Warner Cable sent representatives. They want the FCC to subpoena the data to protect the cable companies from running “afoul” of Communications Act privacy requirements protecting identification information, NCTA said. This will allow providers subject to Communications Act Section 631 "to comply with that section’s privacy requirements while providing the Commission with the full suite of information requested in the special access proceeding,” NCTA said.

Comcast's planned buy of Time Warner Cable poses “substantial threats to competition,” CenturyLink said in a Nov. 24 presentation to a large number of FCC staff. The staff included Philip Verveer, aide to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, and Shane Greenstein of the FCC's transaction review team, plus staff from the Media and Wireline bureaus, the Office of Strategic Planning, the General Counsel's Office and the Public Safety Bureau, said an ex parte filing in docket 14-57. The meeting also concerned the effects of the deal on CenturyLink's pay TV business, and information on CenturyLink's churn rates and financial information was redacted from the filing.

The FCC asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit for an expedited briefing schedule for content companies’ petition for review of the commission’s order releasing confidential programming documents connected with the proposed mergers of AT&T/DirecTV and Comcast/Time Warner Cable. An emergency stay in the case has put the FCC’s shot clocks for completing merger reviews on hold. The petitioners in the case, which include CBS, Disney and Viacom, have consented to the proposed schedule, the FCC said. Under the FCC’s proposed schedule, the final briefs in the case would be filed Jan. 13, with the court likely issuing an opinion some weeks later. Since the programmers’ case sought to block access only to the video programming confidential information, the commission will allow access during the stay to highly confidential information that doesn’t contain VPCI, the motion said.

Time Warner Cable Deputy General Counsel David Christman met with FCC staff last week to describe the relationship between Bright House Networks, Advance/Newhouse and TWC, said a partially redacted ex parte filing posted in docket 14-57 Tuesday. A/N is the “exclusive day-to day manager” of the Bright House Networks systems, while TWC provides “programming acquisition and network-related services” to the BHN systems, TWC said. It said the arrangement provides “scale advantages” to Bright House while TWC benefits from “close collaboration” with BHN management.

A letter to the FCC from the leaders of the Senate's Antitrust Subcommittee about Comcast's planned buy of Time Warner Cable was “mildly positive relative to expectations” and more favorable in tone than a similar letter sent from the subcommittee in 2010 during the Comcast/NBCUniversal transaction, Guggenheim Partners analyst Paul Gallant emailed investors. The letter, sent by subcommittee Chairwoman Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and ranking member Mike Lee, R-Utah, asked the FCC to focus on the effects of Comcast/TWC on over-the-top companies and the ability of independent programmers to enter the pay-TV market. A letter focusing on Comcast/TWC's national broadband reach would have been more concerning, Gallant said. Though that issue was raised tangentially by the senators' concern for OTT companies, the letter devotes little space to the matter, Gallant said. “Our view continues to be a slight edge to merger approval with conditions.” President Barack Obama's endorsement of Communications Act Title II regulation for ISPs may have exposed them to a higher risk of being overturned by a Republican-controlled Congress, Gallant said. That could make approving Comcast/TWC with net neutrality conditions “marginally more attractive to the FCC” and the Department of Justice, Gallant said.

Tablets are adding accessibility features, while e-readers "are becoming even more distinct" from tablets, said Amazon, Kobo and Sony representatives and their lawyer in lobbying the FCC to grant their request for a longer waiver of accessibility rules. E-readers have "become even more specialized for digital reading, featuring a long battery life and decreased size, weight, and complexity," said the Coalition of E-Reader Manufacturers, which represents the three companies. "Tablets are increasing in functionality and continue to add accessibility features." In a recent one-week sample of more than 400,000 e-reader devices, 4.2 percent of users launched the product's browser, and no more than 2.5 percent used it for what might have been advanced communications services, said a filing recounting executives' lobbying of FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler's office and Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau staffers. "It would be arbitrary and capricious for an agency to conclude that an activity (ACS) is a primary or coprimary use of a device" based on such evidence, said the coalition in an ex parte filing posted Tuesday to docket 10-213. Two library groups recently opposed the accessibility waiver that CEA and the Internet Association backed (see 1411120048).

The FCC may not be able to forbear away all the collateral effects of Title II reclassification under the Communications Act of the Internet, said a group of cable executives in a meeting with FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler last week, according to an NCTA ex parte filing posted in docket 14-28 Monday. The group included Cox Communications President Pat Esser, Midcontinent Communications President Pat McAdaragh, NCTA President Michael Powell and Suddenlink CEO Jerry Kent, the filing said. One aspect of Title II reclassification that may be beyond forbearance is the web of state and local taxes that apply to utilities and telecom services but hadn’t previously been applied to broadband, the filing said. The “impact of Title II reclassification would be to stifle investment and innovation, raise consumer prices, and hurt broadband adoption,” the filing said. Rules based on Section 706 of Telecom Act would be “consistent with industry practices that have provided consumers with an open Internet experience for the past two decades,” the filing said.

Graham Holdings will spin off its subsidiary Cable ONE, Graham Holdings said in a news release Thursday. Graham, the former owner of the Washington Post Company, was authorized by its board to proceed with the plan Thursday, and the deal is expected be completed in 2015. Cable ONE will be an independent, publicly traded company, the release said. “The separation will position Graham Holdings to pursue continued growth opportunities, while enabling Cable ONE to focus entirely on its video, Internet and voice services and to attract a more natural stockholder base,” said Graham Holdings Board Chairman Donald Graham. The proposed transaction will be structured as a tax-free spin-off of Cable ONE to the stockholders of Graham Holdings, and is contingent on regulatory approvals, the release said.

Large and mid-sized cable operators and their associations are concerned about the Communications Act Title II broadband reclassification that President Barack Obama sought Monday (see 1411100035), they continued to say in written statements and blog posts. Forbearing from Title II regulations, as that approach would entail, "is Easier Said than Done," said the headline of an NCTA blog post Wednesday. It cited "the history of forbearance petitions." Executive Vice President David Cohen headlined his blog post Tuesday "Surprise!" which he said some would be that Comcast agrees with Obama's principles on net neutrality. "There is one important technical legal difference of opinion between the President and Comcast: we do not support reclassification of broadband as a telecommunications service under Title II," wrote Cohen. "Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act provides more than ample authority to impose those rules." The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit's January ruling against FCC net neutrality rules "made clear" that distinction, he said. Time Warner Cable "remains committed to an open Internet, but we disagree with the President’s statement that an open Internet can only be achieved by reclassifying broadband as a public utility," said CEO Rob Marcus in a Monday news release. Comcast has agreed to buy TWC, and some analysts and industry lawyers have speculated that the deal may be less likely to be completed if the FCC takes a Title II approach. Like Obama, Suddenlink backs an open Internet, said CEO Jerry Kent in an emailed statement. "Unfortunately, the President has proposed a 'solution' in search of a problem. There is no blocking of legal content by ISP’s and no paid prioritization with respect to broadband Internet access." Obama's "call for the FCC to impose heavy-handed government regulation under Title II on Internet service providers, like Mediacom, is politically motivated and ill-conceived," said CEO Rocco Commisso Wednesday. Smaller ISPs don't threaten the open Internet, and their subscribers "have long benefited from the government’s light touch in applying regulation to broadband," said American Cable Association CEO Matt Polka Monday. “Common carrier regulation of telephone service crafted in 1934 under President Franklin Roosevelt should not be applied to a thriving, bustling broadband Internet market in 2014 under President Barack Obama."