Mediacom is "spot on" in its raising of red flags about "additional station" language in retransmission consent talks with broadcasters, and the "vigor" with which broadcasters are resisting any attempts at limiting these provisions "is a cause for concern," Wave said. Mediacom pushed for inclusion of the provision -- which would allow a broadcast group owner to bring in other stations that either were bought or ceded their retrans negotiation rights to that agreement -- as a sign of bad-faith negotiating (see 1602160054). Wave in a filing Thursday in docket 15-216 said in the past year that it has seen a number of such provisions in its own retrans talks with broadcast groups. The end result is two stations not in common ownership in a market can do an end run around the prohibition against them jointly negotiating retrans consent by including the provision in each of their contracts, and whichever one gets the better retrans consent rate "merely provides a de minimis service to the other broadcaster's stations and brings all of them into its retransmission consent agreement," Wave said. More consolidation of retrans consent rights is almost assured, Wave said, "given the creativity that broadcast station owners have shown in the past to structure ways to avoid the Commission's duopoly rules and broaden the reach of retransmission agreements." NAB, in its own filing Wednesday in the docket, shot back at Mediacom in their ongoing wrangle over "additional station" language, calling Mediacom's latest filing (see 1603090049) a "bizarre outburst" that shows an industry "simply so angry about mildly increased competition among pay TV providers that it no longer bothers to offer substantive arguments to support its positions." NAB also likened Mediacom's resistance to multichannel video programming distributors being "livid over the FCC's attempt to inject competition" into the set-top box market. Instead, NAB said, the FCC "should see pay TV providers' advocacy for what it is: a collective tantrum from an industry that abhors, and is simply not used to, the results of fair competition." Mediacom didn't comment.

Minus a condition requiring New Charter to join Incompas' proposed video programming purchasing cooperative, NTCA will oppose Charter Communications' planned buys of Bright House Networks and Time Warner Cable, CEO Shirley Bloomfield told FCC officials including General Counsel Jon Sallet and Owen Kendler, who's heading the agency's working team overseeing the deals' review. Such a cooperative would help offset the video market harms Incompas has previously pointed to (see 1601280047), Incompas CEO Chip Pickering said at the meeting, according to an ex parte filing Thursday in docket 15-149. A large multichannel video programming distributor like New Charter in the co-op would give it "the necessary scale to have an impact on programming prices to incent and enable small, competitive broadband providers to further invest in infrastructure," Pickering said. Rocket Fiber CEO Marc Hudson, also at the meeting, said the Detroit ISP has trouble securing video programming distribution rights, and without the proposed nonprofit co-op, it would have to sell video programming at break-even or a loss to compete with incumbent MVPDs. At the meeting, Incompas also proposed language for the New Charter co-op condition: that within three months of the close of the BHN and TWC takeovers, New Charter would enter into a memorandum of understanding about joining, and that it would join within six months of the close; and that New Charter would "participate in good faith as a member ... for no less than seven years." Charter didn't comment. In a separate ex parte filing Thursday in the docket, Charter recapped a meeting with Commissioner Ajit Pai Chief of Staff Matthew Berry, at which the company said it talked about the public interest benefits of the deals, including building out its base broadband speed of 60 Mbps without data caps throughout its larger footprint and building out a million line extensions.

Hallmark plans to buy outstanding shares of Crown Media Holdings and take the company private, it said in a news release Wednesday. Crown Media -- of which privately held Hallmark is a majority stakeholder -- owns and operates the Hallmark Channel and Hallmark Movies & Mysteries networks, Crown said.

Universal Electronics (UEI) said it signed a warrants agreement with Comcast as an extension of a partnership to develop advanced technology products. That follows a development and supply collaboration renewed this year, in which UEI supplies the voice remote as part of Comcast’s X1 Entertainment Operating System, said UEI. Comcast can acquire shares of UEI stock tied to the potential fulfillment of undisclosed, pre-defined purchase milestones. The agreement positions UEI to provide “innovative products” across Xfinity Home, said UEI CEO Paul Arling.

Diverse programming is both a reason to back Charter/TWC/BHN and a cause for concern about the deals, the National Diversity Coalition (NDC) and Herring Networks told FCC commissioners and representatives, according to a pair of ex parte filings (see here and here) Tuesday in docket 15-149. NDC, in meetings with Commissioners Ajit Pai and Mike O'Rielly, and with Gigi Sohn, aide to Chairman Tom Wheeler, said Time Warner Cable's "relatively poor record ... on diverse programming," along with Charter Communications' "far stronger commitment to diversity of programming" were a central reason for NDC's support of Charter's planned buys of Bright House Networks and TWC. The group also said it believes Charter would likely "go well beyond" its pledges for New Charter board and employment diversity (see 1601150017), and its planned low-income broadband offering would be notable progress in narrowing the digital divide. Conversely, Herring CEO Robert Herring and President Charles Herring met with Commissioner Mignon Clyburn about its proposals that Charter/TWC/BHN be conditioned on New Charter's carrying independent, unaffiliated news services and on carrying any independent programmer that can show it previously had an affiliation agreement with Charter with an over-the-top prohibitive exhibition clause. Such an alternative distribution method-centric clause would correct "past harms and minimize the concerns of discriminatory, anticompetitive, and retaliatory behavior," Herring said. It has pushed for a Charter/TWC/BHN condition requiring it to carry any independent network that already has a national footprint and carriage on some rival multichannel video programming distributors (see 1602220061). In a statement Wednesday, Charter said, “As evidenced by the overwhelming support of independent programmers like The Blaze, Entrevision, TV One, Baby First, RFD-TV, One World Sports, Fuse Media, Ovation, Inspire, AXS TV, Condista, Bounce TV, Crown Media, and Reelz, Charter is and will remain committed to offering our customers the best possible array of programming.”

The FCC should allow cable companies to send required notice or written information through email to subscribers for whom the operator has a confirmed email address, the American Cable Association and NCTA said in a petition for declaratory ruling posted online Tuesday. The associations want to use electronic communication to meet FCC requirements that they provide written information about prices, fees, services offered, instructions on how to use the cable system, and other things. Most cable operators still disseminate this information via mailed hard copies, the cable groups said. “As a consequence, the cable industry uses hundreds of millions of pages of paper annually to disseminate information that few subscribers read and virtually none are likely to retain.” Instead, the FCC should allow cable operators to use email, “the provision of appropriately-noticed links to websites, or by other electronic measures reasonably calculated to reach individual customers,” the associations said.

Failed Univision/AT&T carriage talks resulted in a Univision blackout on AT&T's U-verse, with each side blaming the other. In a statement Friday, Univision claimed racial "redlining" of its audience and said AT&T's "discriminatory behavior is preventing Hispanic America from receiving content and information ... which is especially vital in this election year. In our case, it's simple: we must receive fair compensation, on par with English language broadcasters." AT&T in a statement said Univision "has blocked our U-verse customers from receiving most of their channels. This is about nothing more than Univision demanding we pay an outrageous price increase. We are fighting for all of our customers to keep what Univision charges at a reasonable amount." AT&T also said Spanish-language channels "are important to us and our customers. That’s why we carry 78 Spanish-language channels.”

Anti- and pro-Charter/TWC/BHN parties have been busy lobbying the FCC, according to filings Friday and Thursday in docket 15-149. The filings by Time Warner and Charter Communications (see here and here) detail meetings Wednesday with FCC staff, including Owen Kendler, who's heading the FCC working team overseeing the deals' review. Time Warner's filing said its team -- including General Counsel Paul Cappuccio and HBO General Counsel Eve Konstan -- presented various Charter public statements and nonpublic interactions with Charter that illustrated how its buying Bright House Networks and Time Warner Cable will lead to attempts to hurt the development of over-the-top competition. They also said the FCC should take time to look into such concerns and ensure New Charter can't or won't hurt OTT competition. Charter's team, including Chief Technology Officer Jay Rolls and Executive Vice President-Government Affairs Catherine Bohigian, met with FCC staff including Kendler on public interest benefits of the deals and Charter's commitments such as settlement-free interconnection, broadband service without usage-based billing or data caps, and a low-income broadband offering. The FCC's unofficial 180-day shot clock for reviewing the transactions stood Friday at 160.

The ease of being a cord cutter makes FCC plans for the set-top box market “a real head-scratcher,” said High Tech Forum editor and American Enterprise Institute Visiting Fellow Richard Bennett in an posting Thursday. On-demand viewing is on the rise, and it's easier to be a cord cutter than ever, Bennett said. FCC set-top plans won’t “find traction” with viewers for at least four to five years, he said. By then, according to current trends, “TV viewing will be at least 80 percent on-demand,” Bennett said. “Given these trends, it’s not immediately obvious that the FCC should be trying to preserve devices like the set-top box whose sole purpose in life is to enable the viewing of linear TV.” Others have been pointing to recent market developments as a reason not to pursue what the agency eyes as a means to make it easier for consumers to get encrypted video content from devices they don't lease from operators (see 1603020035).

Communications Workers of America requests for access to highly confidential information submitted in the FCC review of Altice's purchase of Cablevision should be denied, the cable companies said in an objection posted Thursday in docket 15-257. CWA last week filed confidentiality acknowledgments for Telecommunications Policy Director Debbie Goldman and consultant Randy Barber. In their joint objection, Altice/Cablevision said neither qualifies as an outside counsel -- by not being a lawyer -- or outside consultant since neither is employed by a noncommercial participant as CWA "quite clearly is a commercial participant in this proceeding [because it] participates in union organizing and collective bargaining activities directly adverse to Cablevision and has been regularly and is currently involved in labor disputes with Cablevision." CWA also represents thousands of workers at Cablevision's chief rival, Verizon, they said. Meanwhile, because a New York Public Service Commission administrative law judge also denied CWA access to sensitive information submitted by Altice/Cablevision, the two said the FCC should take those ALJ decisions into account. CWA didn't comment but Goldman said the union plans to file a response. CWA has been a critic of the proposed deal (see 1601270048).