U.S. broadband households watch an average two hours of alternative content on a computer each week from sources including Facebook, Snapchat, YouTube, Vimeo and Dailymotion, Parks Associates reported Thursday. Almost half watch user-generated content monthly and more than one in 10 watch livestreamed content. About half of TV households watch video from YouTube and similar sites on TVs, said analyst Brett Sappington, and more watch online video from an app such as YouTube than from a TV channel app. Pay-TV adoption is dropping as alternative content consumption increases, and younger respondents are more likely to watch user-generated content, both posing threats to pay TV, the firm said.

Comcast launched its parental control feature enabling parents to set a Wi-Fi usage time limit. Noting kids spend more time on devices during summers, Comcast cited Wakefield Research finding three-quarters of parents want a way to turn off their children’s Wi-Fi access whenever they want. When a kid is close to reaching the allotted time limit, the parent can receive a push notification, text or email alert and extend the time or pause Wi-Fi access.

NTCA and WTA back the American Cable Association petition that some smaller MVPDs be waived from compliance with FCC Dec. 20 talking guide requirements (see 1806180050). In a docket 12-108 posting Tuesday, NTCA said the FCC assumed demand from big MVPDs would create supply of compliant devices, but "such has not proven to be the case" and full compliance would require some smaller MVPDs to largely re-engineer video distribution networks at great cost. WTA said the one commercially available option that covers all the accessibility features required is TiVo's Quattro system, but the cost of upgrades for small providers to deploy that is at least $100,000. WTA said more affordable options that use CableCARD don't cover all accessibility features, and analog systems can't use such plug-in devices. Rural Alabama MVPD Pine Belt Communications -- also backing the ACA petition -- said it looked into possible compliance offerings and didn't find one that doesn't involve a systemwide upgrade, which is "neither practical nor affordable."

The FCC can’t ignore retransmission consent ramifications of Gray Television’s proposed purchase of stations from Red River Broadcast to create a top-four duopoly in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, said the American TV Alliance and NCTA in comments on the proposed transaction Monday. Gray’s application doesn’t address the deal's possible retrans harms, ATVA said. “This is a remarkable omission in light of the importance of retransmission consent to Gray’s overall revenues.” Gray “has failed to satisfy its burden of showing that the Top-Four Prohibition should be lifted in these circumstances,” NCTA said. Gray hasn’t shown that the deal’s public interest benefits outweigh possible retrans harms, NCTA and ATVA said. The benefits listed by Gray, such as improved local news coverage, “are plainly not cognizable” and aren’t “transaction-specific nor verifiable” ATVA said. The media ownership reconsideration order lists retrans as an area the FCC will consider in case-by-case review of top-four duopoly proposals, so the deal’s potential to lead to higher consumer fees shouldn’t be ignored, ATVA said. The broadcaster didn’t comment.

The high cost of content that has made traditional pay TV so expensive is now hitting virtual MVPD operators as they are starting to pass along to consumers large increases in programmer fees, nScreenMedia analyst Colin Dixon blogged Sunday. Thus virtual MVPDs are only going to help cut the costs of pay TV in the short term and help smooth the transition to what is likely a more direct-to-consumer TV model in the future, he said.

The FCC should keep pole attachment complaint procedures requiring complainants to include pole cost information in complaints and requiring pole owners to provide such information upon request by a cable operator or telecom carrier before a complaint is filed, said NCTA and the American Cable Association. NCTA and ACA opposed deleting the requirements in Monday meetings with aides to Chairman Ajit Pai and Commissioners Jessica Rosenworcel and Mike O’Rielly, and Tuesday calls with the Enforcement Bureau and an aide to Commissioner Brendan Carr, said a Tuesday ex-parte notice in docket 17-245. “There is no record evidence supporting the proposed elimination of these rules or contradicting the views expressed by NCTA and ACA,” the cable groups said. Verizon supported NCTA and ACA's request in Tuesday calls to a Pai aide and the Enforcement Bureau, said another ex-parte notice posted Thursday. "Those data are critical, and if pole owners do not provide them up front that will only delay and impede the complaint process -- the opposite of what the Commission wants to achieve."

Cable operators' Q1 inflation adjustment factor is 2.2 percent, said an FCC public notice Tuesday, to compensate for the annualized change in prices during that period.

MVPDs must file equal employment opportunity annual reports by Oct.1, the FCC Media Bureau said in a public notice Monday. The PN includes a list of MVPDs that are required to complete a supplementary investigation sheet as part of their EEO submission.

Publication of two new CableLabs specifications on point-to-point coherent optics is “the beginning of a sea change for the way data is distributed into the network,” blogged Matt Schmitt, principal CableLabs architect. The new specs unveiled Friday, which CableLabs members and their “manufacturer partners” hope to bring to market quickly, have the potential to expand by a factor of 10 “the capacity of existing cable operator fiber access networks,” while also “meeting ever-increasing capacity demands at the lowest possible cost,” said Schmitt Monday. The opportunities with coherent optics technology “go well beyond improving service to residential broadband customers,” he said. Cable operators also are “ideally placed to support next-generation wireless services like 5G,” he said. “These networks will place network endpoints right where wireless transmitters are needed, and with plenty of capacity to support wireless demand growth in addition to wired growth.”

Federal appellate judges overturned a ruling that Time Warner Cable violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, further undercutting broad definitions of restricted automated telephone dialing systems (ATDS). A district court ruling, which cited a now-vacated FCC decision, was based on an incorrect statutory interpretation, ruled a unanimous three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit of Court of Appeals Friday in Araceli King v. TWC, No. 15-2474. The panel noted the district court granted plaintiff King partial summary judgment on a claim that the company knowingly or willfully violated the TCPA by using an ATDS to call King's cellphone 153 times without her consent. The panel said the district court "relied primarily" on a 2015 FCC ATDS definition that was invalidated by the D.C. Circuit in ACA International (see 1803160053). The commission "broadly construed the term 'capacity' and thus extended the TCPA to reach any device that could be modified by software changes to perform the functions of an autodialer," said 2nd Circuit Judge Gerard Lynch's opinion on an appeal by TWC, part of Charter Communications. "In the wake of ACA International, which invalidated that Order and thereby removed any deference we might owe to the views the FCC expressed in it, we must decide independently whether the district court’s broad understanding of the 'capacity' a device must have in order to qualify as an ATDS under the TCPA is a supportable interpretation of the statute. We conclude that it is not." Although not bound by the D.C. Circuit interpretation, "we are persuaded by its demonstration that interpreting 'capacity' to include a device’s 'potential functionalities' after some modifications extends the statute too far," Lynch wrote, vacating and remanding the district court ruling. A King attorney didn't comment Monday.