Comcast's NBCUniversal and three regional sports networks over-the-top offerings undermined Wave's ability to meet existing programming agreement terms, the smaller company said in an FCC unfair competition complaint to have been posted Tuesday. The petition for declaratory ruling said Comcast would settle for only "a Draconian remedy" that made competition against Comcast's MVPD services on the West Coast impossible. It said Comcast -- by increasingly making RSN content available via OTT -- resulted in cord cutting that made it difficult for the cable ISP to continue to meet contractually set penetration levels. It said NBCU and the RSNs in response demanded the RSNs be moved to Wave's Lifeline tier but that would have led to "an avalanche" of other services with tagalong rights also relocating to Lifeline, making it uncompetitive. It said NBCU in July demanded and received $2.7 million, mostly in damages, for the RSNs not being repositioned to Lifeline from the Expanded Basic Tier. It said ongoing talks with NBCU made it clear NBCU didn't actually want the RSN services repositioned but wanted the ongoing breach allegation "to sustain its Machiavellian plot" to block Wave from accessing the commercial arbitration remedy that was part of the Comcast/NBCU consent decree.
Comcast's NBCUniversal received NFL streaming rights for Sunday Night Football that extend to mobile phones starting with the 2018 season, NBCU said Monday. It said the deal allows NBCU to extend the authenticated streaming rights to its cable, satellite, telco and virtual MVPD partners.
Channel Master's business keeps growing, mostly due to cord cutting, Joe Bingochea, executive vice president-product development, told us, with cord-cutting homes rising. Contrary to TiVo reports showing a slight dip in the cord-cutting trend in Q3 (see 1712130008), “we haven’t seen anything to suggest it has slowed down in the last quarter, as far as our business is concerned,” he said. Among the company's customers, all watching TV over the air, by antenna, "there’s not one consistent pattern of streaming services that they’re supplementing their OTA with," he said. Bingochea sees long-term viability in the OTA business. “I think there’s still some life left in OTA,” even though the major broadcast networks are becoming available in over-the-top formats, he said.
AT&T, Time Warner and DOJ agreed that no dispositive motions, such as a motion to dismiss, will be filed in the DOJ lawsuit seeking to block AT&T's buy of Time Warner, according to a docket 17-cv-2511 proposed case management order filed Friday with U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. It said the parties engaged in good-faith settlement negotiations and couldn't get an agreement, and neither side believes the case would benefit from an alternative dispute resolution. They said AT&T and TW agreed not to consummate or complete the deal until six days after a court judgment is entered in their favor. In a separate proposed scheduling order, the sides said they expect the trial to start March 19 and last 15 days.
The cable electronic notifications NPRM -- expanding the number of customer notifications cable operators can provide via email and opening the door to broadcasters submitting carriage election decisions by routes other than certified mail -- was released Friday. It was approved at Thursday's FCC members' meeting (see 1712140054).
Virtual reality company Dreamscape Immersive and Nickelodeon will jointly create content using the network's brands as part of Nickelodeon's participation in a Series B financing round that raised $30 million, Dreamscape said Wednesday. It said AMC Entertainment's investment in the financing round will lead to the theater chain opening and operating up to six Dreamscape VR centers in North America and the U.K.
Redbox launched Redbox On Demand, offering movie and TV content via VOD and electronic sell-through, it said Wednesday. The service is available via the Redbox website and app, plus Apple TV, Chromecast, LG and Samsung smart TVs and Roku, it said.
Altice USA, Charter Communications and Comcast reached preliminary agreement for an interconnect in the New York City market that will launch in Q2 and give advertisers one-stop access to households served by the three, as well as other MVPDs in the New York designated market area, they said Wednesday. The interconnect will manage all DMA-wide non-local advertising sales for local news channels News 12 Networks and Spectrum News NY1.
Broadcasters typically go into retransmission consent talks with small and mid-sized cable operators with a "take it or leave it" approach to their offers, 76 percent of American Cable Association members said in ACA survey results released Wednesday. ACA said nearly 70 percent of its responding members said their top goal in retrans talks is to keep fee hikes down, and 63 percent expressed pessimism at the future of the retrans negotiations regime. ACA said the November survey received 131 responses. "Apparently, ACA's idea of a free market negotiation is one where cable companies simply get to take programming most valued by their customers for free," NAB said. "We respectfully disagree, and suggest that ACA spend more time fixing its woeful customer service problems than asking for a government bail-out."
Pointing to Comcast/NBCUniversal conditions expiring in 2018 and the competitive threat posed by AT&T/Time Warner, RCN and the American Cable Association are pushing the FCC to adopt new program access rules. In meetings with commissioners and Media Bureau staff, the two said the National Cable Television Cooperative should be able to bring program access complaints, and backed instituting a "standstill carriage" requirement while carriage disputes are pending and instituting an arbitration process. "An 'unleashed Comcast-NBCU is certain to wreak havoc in the market," RCN and ACA said in a docket 10-56 ex parte filing posted Tuesday on the meetings. RCN said the seven-year licensing terms being offered by TW as part of the AT&T deal (see 1711280063) aren't sufficient since they don't cover all the programming that would be owned by New AT&T. RCN and ACA had meetings with all FCC members but Jessica Rosenworcel and Media Bureau Chief Michelle Carey.