Saying President Donald Trump may have injected his views into Disney's proposed Fox deal, the nonprofit Protect Democracy Project (PDP) is suing DOJ seeking release of any White House/agency communications on the deal. In a docket 17-cv-506 complaint (in Pacer) filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Washington, PDP said the administration's praise for Disney/Fox contrasts with DOJ attempts to block AT&T/Time Warner and questioned whether that was due to Trump friendliness with Fox News and his antipathy toward TW's CNN. It said it submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to DOJ in December seeking such documentation and hasn't received a response aside from a January letter from Justice's Office of Information Policy acknowledging receipt and indicating a reply will take an unspecified time. Justice didn't comment Tuesday. PDP has a similar suit (in Pacer) pending before the court on July and November FOIA requests it sent DOJ seeking all White House/DOJ communications about AT&T/TW. PDP said DOJ hasn't responded to those requests aside from acknowledging receiving them. Feb. 23, the department said in its docket 17-cv-2409 reply (in Pacer) that PDP isn't entitled to information exempt from FOIA disclosure and that PDP hasn't exhausted administrative remedies. PDP's website describes itself as created by former White House and administration lawyers and focused on legal accountability of the executive branch.
Growth of low-price virtual MVPDs helped lead to a 4 percent decline in traditional pay-TV subscriptions in 2017, and those virtual MVPDs' pricing policies will mean accelerated sub losses among traditional MVPDs this year, nScreenMedia Colin Dixon blogged Sunday. He said virtual MVPDs are, at best, breaking even, but it's unlikely any will back away from such "aggressive pricing," so traditional pay TV could lose another 5 percent this year, possibly falling below 90 million homes.
The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision rejecting Puerto Rico Telephone Co. antitrust claims against San Juan Cable -- doing business as OneLink -- ran contrary to past 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 9th circuit decisions saying a pattern of regulatory petitioning aimed at delaying a competitor's entry can give rise to liability under antitrust laws. PRTC made the argument in a petition for writ of certiorari filed Wednesday with the Supreme Court. The 1st Circuit order (in Pacer) last year said OneLink's fusillade of regulatory petitions was aimed at blocking cable TV competition from PRTC, but none of those ultimately unsuccessful petitions individually were baseless so OneLink wasn't liable. PRTC in its cert petition said the 1st Circuit decision wrongly gave categorical immunity for seeking to use administrative petitions as an anticompetitive weapon. OneLink outside counsel didn't comment Friday.
Meeting with FCC Commissioner Mike O'Rielly, Charter CEO Tom Rutledge said the company sees the possibility of offering "wireline-like" broadband connectivity and speeds using fixed wireless technologies in the 3.5 GHz band, according to a docket 17-258 filing posted Friday. Rutledge also said mobile uses of the citizens broadband radio service band "could combine well" with Wi-Fi and let a new entrant like cable deploy 3.5 GHz spectrum quickly. To facilitate new entrants into the mobility space, Rutledge said, the FCC should make sure 3.5 GHz license sizes aren't so big that only national carriers can bid, and adopt a compromise between the use of census tracts and partial economic areas. Counties could fit that bill, he said. Rutledge also backed opening the 5.9 GHz spectrum for unlicensed use quickly since that would help meet growing demands for faster Wi-Fi while also helping spur development of next-generation technologies like Gigabit Wi-Fi.
The video market for content equipment supplier Harmonic is “opportunity-rich, but still very much in transition, as our customers evolve from traditional broadcast and pay-TV models to new over-the-top models,” said CEO Patrick Harshman on a Wednesday earnings call. The migration from “traditional” pay TV to what Harmonic calls “Over-the-Top 2.0" is very much “poised to trigger a global wave of investment in new unified video platforms that enable delivery of premium live over-the-top services and targeted advertisements with broadcast-like quality and reliability” to large-screen TVs as well as mobile devices, said Harshman. Ultra HD will be a key “additive to these next generation over-the-top services,” he said. “We're pleased to be finally seeing a still early, but clear pickup in customer demand” for such services, he said. The “ongoing wave” of mergers and acquisitions in media and telecom “is inextricably linked to enabling and exploiting this next generation of streaming video services and associated personal advertising,” he said. “The endgame is unquestionably greater investment in next-generation over-the-top streaming platforms, underscoring the opportunity for Harmonic to leverage our strong technology platform and global brand to play a key enabling role in this global re-invention of the pay video business model.” Harmonic shares closed 15.7 percent higher Thursday at $3.50.
Consolidated Communications now is offering virtual MVPD DirecTV Now across its footprint, it said Wednesday.
Cable ISPs again accounted for all net new data subscribers in Q4, and telcos aren't likely to reverse losses soon given the cable trend of ramping up broadband speeds, Pivotal analyst Jeffrey Wlodarczak wrote investors Wednesday. He said cable has plenty of medium and long-term sub growth opportunities taking share from the roughly 22 million DSL-based telco data customers. The pay-TV industry likely lost 530,000 video subs in the quarter, which would be the sixth straight quarter of accelerating percentage year over year decreases in pay-TV subs, he said. He said direct broadcast satellite had particularly heavy video customer losses of 270,000 subscribers due to cable bundling of data and TV.
Rather than eliminate Form 325, the FCC should have its new Office of Economics and Analytics use data from it and other sources to put together a more detailed picture of the video and broadband industry, Public Knowledge said in a docket 17-290 filing posted Tuesday. The cable industry and allies have pushed for axing the 325 reporting requirement (see 1802150009). PK said filings in response to specific questions can cherry pick information, and can't replace annual reports like the form, and standardized information accumulation over time is valuable for tracking trends.
Discovery Communications expects to purchase Scripps Networks Interactive by the end of March now that the DOJ closed its review, it said Tuesday. Discovery said review is pending in Ireland. The $14.6 billion deal hadn't been expected to face regulatory difficulties (see 1707310062).
RLJ Entertainment would become a privately owned subsidiary of AMC, the cable network said Monday as it announced intentions to buy the outstanding shares of RLJ. AMC currently owns 26 percent of the premium digital channel, which is home to the Acorn TV and Urban Movie Channel streaming services, it said. It said founder Bob Johnson -- who founded Black Entertainment Television -- would keep a minority stake in RLJ. AMC invested $65 million in RLJ in 2016 (see 1610170027).