Comcast is favoring its NBC Sports and NBC Universo in issues like tier placement and authentication for online viewing, beIN Sports said in a docket 12-1 program FCC carriage complaint Friday. It said its sports programming is similarly situated with the NBC properties, but the cable operator puts beIN soccer programming in tiers with lower subscriber penetration and doesn't give beIN the right to authenticate Comcast viewers for online watching via the beIN website and app, though it authenticates the MVPD's viewers for online watching of Comcast-affiliated soccer. BeIN said Comcast wouldn't let it be part of a direct-to-consumer product, though it offers NBC Sports and Universo English Premier League games as such. It said such discriminatory behavior can be due only to "Comcast’s desire to favor its affiliates over these affiliates’ competitor." It asked Comcast be found in violation of Communications Act Section 616, covering regulation of carriage agreements, and the Comcast/NBCUniversal order, and require the MVPD carry beIN programming on terms that "compete fairly." Comcast didn't comment.

The International Trade Commission began another Tariff Act Section 337 investigation into allegations Comcast set-top boxes infringe Rovi's patents, the ITC said Tuesday. In a Feb. 8 complaint (see 1802160029), Rovi said the Comcast X1 DVR and related hardware and software, including interactive program guide software, voice remote controls and remote apps, copy its patented technologies. Models identified include brand names Arris, Pace, Cisco, Humax and Samsung. The ITC issued a limited exclusion order and cease and desist orders last year against Comcast in a related investigation, requested by Rovi, that covered different patents (see 1711280017). Comcast didn't comment Thursday.

Comments are due April 2, replies April 12 on an American Cable Association petition asking the Media Bureau to waive FCC rules requiring video programming distributors make audible emergency information available for analog-only cable systems on a secondary audio stream, said a docket 12-107 public notice in Thursday's Daily Digest. ACA said most analog-only systems still in operation are in "poor and deteriorating financial health" and unable financially to meet the June 12 deadline, and asked for either a permanent waiver or, alternatively, five more years.

The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court's 2016 ruling rejecting Sky Angel's complaint that Discovery Communications and its Animal Planet improperly terminated affiliation agreement (see 1609120042). The docket 16-2050 decision issued Thursday by Judges Albert Diaz, Dennis Shedd and Harvie Wilkinson in Richmond, Virginia, and penned by Diaz, said contractual language between the parties was so broad as to make the contract itself unclear, and the lack of definition of areas like "high-speed data connection" doesn't mean Sky Angel can use any type of such connection. It said contract language was vague, but granting Sky Angel distribution rights would have gone against Discovery's policy of prohibiting distribution of linear programming over the public internet. Sky Angel counsel didn't comment. Oral argument was in December.

An event not meeting viewers' expectations, even if allegedly due to misconduct by participants and broadcasters, isn't a legally cognizable injury, defendant appellees HBO and boxer Manny Pacquiao said in an answering brief (in Pacer) posted Tuesday with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, urging it to affirm a lower court's August decision tossing out class-action complaints (see 1801170015). The pay-per-view-watching plaintiffs "received exactly what they paid for" -- a chance to see a fight, HBO/Pacquiao said, citing court precedents. Defendant appellee Floyd Mayweather, in a similar answering brief (in Pacer), said plaintiff success would "create new law, opening the floodgates to a host of lawsuits brought by disgruntled sports fans." The appellee arguments are "a rehash" of what they brought in District Court motions to dismiss, and they miss the point of the complaint -- that consumers were deceived through a conscious effort to conceal that Pacquiao was injured during training and, had they known, would have made a different purchasing decision, said appellant counsel Hart Robinovitch of Zimmerman Reed. Those fraud-based sports claims have been allowed to go forward in other suits, he said.

Comcast lauded an FCC draft proposal aimed at reducing unwanted robocalls to reassigned phone numbers. Comcast "strongly supports" the proposal "to establish a centralized, Commission-designated database" of reassigned numbers, "and to encourage use of this resource by adopting a safe harbor from liability under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act" for businesses relying on the database, said a filing Monday in docket 17-59 on a draft Further NPRM on the tentative agenda for the March 22 commissioners' meeting (see 1803010047). "Without access to a comprehensive tool for determining whether a number has been reassigned, even committed efforts by legitimate businesses to comply with the TCPA cannot entirely protect against 'gotcha' lawsuits based on calls mistakenly placed to reassigned numbers." While the draft "properly emphasizes that use of the database would be wholly voluntary for callers, the item correctly seeks to encourage widespread use by proposing the adoption of a TCPA safe harbor for callers that rely on the database," Comcast said. AT&T urged the FCC to issue a separate FNPRM "to expand the types of numbers that can be blocked if illegal robocall activity is detected" and it proposed a safe harbor if legitimate calls are inadvertently blocked. "The industry is still limited in the types of calls it can block and expanded blocking would benefit consumers," said a filing on a meeting with agency staffers. "Every effort must be made to avoid blocking a legitimate call but occasionally that may happen." It proposed a safe harbor for providers that inadvertently block legitimate calls if they: block the calls "in connection with an event" carriers "had good faith reason to believe was an illegal robocalling event;" had procedures for "network blocking that were reasonably likely to confirm that calls being blocked are illegal robocalls;" followed the procedures; and "had a process for unblocking legitimate voice calls."

Comcast's cable side has enjoyed stable growth, while the prospects of its NBCUniversal business are less clear given media industry struggles with changing monetization models and new competition from deep-pocketed entrants, New Street Research analyst Jonathan Chaplin wrote investors Thursday. He said a Comcast bid for Fox and Sky, conditioned on a spinoff of its cable business, would ease regulatory concerns about a Fox deal. NBCU/Fox "would be the most exciting asset in media" with its studios, channels, theme parks and consumer products, and Comcast Cable would have a clearer path to accelerated financial returns and potentially a merger with Charter Communications, Chaplin said. Comcast didn't comment.

Disney wants its ESPN excluded from the list of top five national nonbroadcast networks subject to FCC video description rules. In a docket 11-43 filing posted Tuesday, Disney said the video description rules adopted in 2011 expressly excluded ESPN since it didn't provide at least 50 hours of prime-time programming per quarter that isn't live or near live, and that programming issue still holds true. ESPN said its own review of its prime-time programming for the past six quarters showed it aired 21-42 hours of nonexempt programming.

The FCC Media Bureau dismissed a Wave Broadband petition for declaratory ruling against Comcast's NBCUniversal and three regional sports networks, saying the complaint is actually a program access complaint but a time-barred one, coming three years after Wave signed a contract with Comcast. In the docket 17-361 order posted Wednesday, the bureau said Wave's complaint was "clearly" brought under Section 628(b) of the Communications Act, which governs unfair cable operator competition, and Section 628 violations allegations are considered through program access complaints. The bureau also said Wave didn't give any reasons to justify a waiver of the one-year time limit on bringing a program access complaint. Wave outside counsel didn't comment. Its complaint said Comcast's over-the-top offerings unfairly undermined its own ability to meet existing programming agreement terms (see 1712190041).

Discovery Communications is now Discovery, after its closing Tuesday on its takeover of Scripps Networks Interactive, Discovery said. DOJ signed off on the $14.6 billion deal last month (see 1802270015).