Since CNN and Team Video Services (TVS) were joint employers of numerous technical workers, and CNN violated the National Labor Relations Act when it brought those technical jobs in house and then refused to hire former TVS workers, a court should enforce the National Labor Relations Board's 2015 order that more than 100 employees be rehired and should deny CNN's cross-petition for review, the NLRB said in a petitioner brief (in Pacer) Friday before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The appeal stems from a 2007 complaint against CNN alleging workers unfairly lost jobs after CNN took over news operations in New York and the District of Columbia (see 0704130138). Backing CNN in a joint amicus brief (in Pacer) filed in February are the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace, International Franchise Association, National Association of Manufacturers, National Federation of Independent Businesses, National Restaurant Association and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. NLRB in its brief said despite CNN and amicus curiae arguments the agency retroactively applied new joint employer law standards without acknowledging doing so, its 2015 Browning-Ferris Industries of California decision didn't set a new standard, it merely clarified the decades-old standard. In its brief, the NLRB also argued it properly ordered CNN to reinstate fired TVS workers and restore their employment terms and that CNN has shown no proof that its operations have changed in any meaningful way that would make reinstatement an undue burden. CNN didn't comment Monday.

Charter Communications CEO Tom Rutledge and FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler met last week about the company's proposed takeover of Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks, Charter said in an ex parte filing Monday in docket 15-149. Charter said it cited the competition enhancement aspects of the deal, especially its broadband network expansion plan, its settlement-free interconnection commitments and its plans for broadband service without usage-based pricing or data caps. Also at the meeting were FCC General Counsel Jonathan Sallet and Charter Executive Vice President-Government Affairs Catherine Bohigian.

Cablevision's Optimum TV interactive program guide will start including Hulu, the cable company said in a news release Thursday. Cablevision distributed Hulu content to Optimum customers only online last year (see 1504280054). Cablevision said it's the first cable provider with a dedicated channel -- channel 605 -- for Hulu content.

An array of Wisconsin communities no longer can regulate Time Warner Cable basic rates, the FCC Media Bureau said in an order Wednesday, rejecting arguments from the cities of New Berlin and Waukesha and the town of Delafield that they weren't subject to effective competition. New Berlin had said the footprint of LEC AT&T Wisconsin didn't cover parts of the community, but the bureau said the LEC effective competition test doesn't require any particular penetration level and that AT&T's service area significantly overlaps TWC's. The cities and town also argued the Wisconsin Department of Financial Institutions is the franchising authority that should have been a party in TWC's petition, but the bureau said its omission doesn't make the petition procedurally defective. The order covers 18 communities around Wisconsin.

New Charter should be required to carry at least one independent sports network in the same manner it carries proprietary sports networks and nationally distributed sports programmers and without any limits on the indie sports network's alternative distribution methods, said beIN Sports in a meeting with Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake, according to its ex parte filing Wednesday in docket 15-149. BeIN said it also discussed its proposed condition's applicability to other independent programmers that have or will have U.S. rights to international sports. Nvidia in a separate filing on meetings or discussions with Owen Kendler, who is overseeing the Charter review team, and with Commissioner Mignon Clyburn's chief of staff, David Grossman, said it proposed that any approval of Charter's buys of Bright House Networks and Time Warner Cable come with conditions that would stop New Charter from preventing third-party devices such as Nvidia's Shield TV from having access to the authentication credentials needed to work with various TV Everywhere apps (see 1601220017). In a statement Wednesday, Charter said it "continue[s] to productively engage with regulators about the substantial public interest benefits of the transactions and look[s] forward to approval soon.”

Comcast and Disney Studios signed a licensing agreement that will let the cable company resell new releases and library titles from such Disney properties as Lucasfilm, Marvel Studios, Pixar and Touchstone Pictures through its Xfinity On Demand digital store, the cable company said in a news release Tuesday. It said the purchased films can be cloud-stored to watch on any device anywhere. Disney joins Fox, Lionsgate, NBCUniversal, Paramount, Sony Pictures and Warner in making content available through Comcast's On Demand digital store, it said.

Time Warner Cable and a North Carolina woman have settled a 2014 Telephone Consumer Protection Act complaint. Victoria Galbreath sued TWC in U.S. District Court in Raleigh, alleging the cable company would use its automated telephone dialer system to repeatedly call her on her mobile phone to collect a debt even after she told the company "the calls were annoying" and to cease calling her phone. She asked for statutory damages of $500 for each violation, with treble damages for each violation found to be willful or knowing. Galbreath and TWC filed a stipulation of dismissal Monday, dropping the lawsuit with prejudice and without costs to any party.

Cox Communications never required anyone to rent a set-top box, and that no one else in Oklahoma City was offering set-tops isn't its fault, Cox said in brief and request for oral argument filed Monday in the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. That is where class-action plaintiffs Richard Healy et al. are appealing (see 1603010016) a U.S. District judge's 2015 overturning of a $6.31 million jury verdict against Cox for its set-top rental policies (see 1511130005). "It is not 'tying' for Ford to offer both trucks and tow hitches for sale, separately -- even though there are some things that a truck can do only if it has a hitch and even if there happen to be no other sellers of hitches in a particular community, through no fault of Ford's," Cox said in its 71-page brief. While Cox has no specific "Premium Cable" product, it said, most of the content Healy et al. have described as premium in their complaint doesn't need a Cox-provided set-top and could be accessed through Cox-provided CableCARDs. Cox said that despite its efforts working with makers of consumer electronics, none opted to sell set-tops in the Oklahoma City market. The cable operator said the District Court ruling should be affirmed or, alternately, that Cox should get a new trial because of faulty jury instructions that didn't properly explain issues of foreclosure and coercion. Cox said that at minimum, it is entitled to binding judgment against class members whose damages came solely from DVR fees, since the original jury verdict indicated it rejected any claims based on DVR fees. Plaintiffs' counsel didn't comment Tuesday.

All the FCC commissioners are on the agenda for NCTA's INTX 2016 show in Boston, though they won't share the stage. Commissioners Mignon Clyburn, Mike O'Rielly, Ajit Pai and Jessica Rosenworcel are scheduled to appear jointly May 17 on a panel regarding FCC policy and initiatives ranging from set-top boxes to privacy. C-SPAN host Peter Slen will moderate that panel. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and actor LeVar Burton are scheduled to talk May 18 in a general session.

Entertainment Studios and NAAAOM are "serial litigants ... willing to sue anyone in the industry that declines to offer ... millions of dollars a year in carriage fees for programming that does not appear to enjoy market acceptance," Comcast said Tuesday in opposition to a petition by the programmer and National Association of African American Owned Media seeking an FCC investigation of the cable company (see 1603280030). Entertainment Studios/NAAAOM claims that Comcast violated its voluntary commitment in the NBCUniversal takeover approval process to add up to four independently owned and operated programmers in which African-Americans have a majority or sizable ownership interest are baseless, Comcast said. The complaint offers no evidence why the Aspire and Revolt channels Comcast added to its lineup aren't independent or aren't majority or substantially owned by African-Americans, Comcast said. Any investigation would likely go beyond the scope of FCC enforcement authority, it said, adding any claims of intentional race discrimination are better left to courts. Comcast said that it has met repeatedly with Entertainment Studios and founder Byron Allen and reviewed his carriage proposals, "but exercised its business judgment to determine [the Entertainment Studios] channels lacked sufficient consumer interest to warrant the ... dollars and bandwidth that carriage of those channels would entail." Comcast said that the Entertainment Studios claims of racial discrimination because its networks aren't receiving carriage "is unadulterated bunk." Comcast's filing was in docket 10-56. Entertainment Studios/NAAAOM didn't comment.