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).

That FCC-proposed set-top box rules are "wholly unnecessary" is shown by AT&T's plans (see 1603010046 and 1603020031) to offer the video services from its recently acquired DirecTV via streaming over mobile devices, smart TVs and PCs in Q4, a telco spokesman told us Wednesday. The features confirm the rules would be "backward looking and would impose significant costs with no corresponding benefits," he said. "Our new services will demonstrate that we and the market generally are moving beyond set-top boxes, and providing consumers more choices than ever to watch what they want, when they want and on the device of their choosing anywhere they happen to be. Rather than imposing a government technology mandate that will never keep pace with the vibrantly competitive video marketplace, the Commission should allow competition to work." Last month, commissioners voted along party lines (see 1602180065) to seek comment on changing set-top rules to make it easier for consumers to see the encrypted video conveyed by the devices without leasing one from their pay-TV provider. Agency spokespeople didn't comment Wednesday.

Federal regulatory approval of Charter/TWC/BHN coming before the California Public Utilities Commission decision expected by May 12 (see 1602120055) is "a possibility," Charter Communications CEO Tom Rutledge said Tuesday at a Morgan Stanley conference. The FCC's unofficial 180-day shot clock for review of the Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks deals was at 158 days Wednesday, with the agency "working ... to be consistent with their shot clock," Rutledge said. While upward of 95 percent of Charter video customers take an expanded video package, affordability "is a real issue," Rutledge said, saying video expenses are driven by programmers and programming bundles. He said optimally Charter would sell smaller, tailored programming packages but "I don't have the right to buy programming that way." Pricing is seeing "some moderation," Rutledge said, saying New Charter's bigger scale should help with video pricing. He said Charter's cloud-based Spectrum Guide user interface was rolled out in Missouri and Nevada, and is being introduced in other parts of the company's current footprint. He also said the company sees it as a means to increasing its customer base: "There's a tremendous amount of entertainment in that [video] package; it's hard to represent because of the user interfaces." Asked about future mergers and acquisitions opportunities for Charter, Rutledge said, "At the moment, M&A isn't really attractive to me. Just out of sheer exhaustion. But there's opportunity out there and we'll take advantage as those things come to us." In a separate presentation at the Morgan Stanley conference, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts said that the day after it called off its attempt to buy TWC, Comcast Cable CEO Neil Smit "said we're going to make customer service our best product." Referring to Smit's being a former Navy SEAL, Roberts said, "I thought to myself he's had some worse missions than a merger that failed. It is early innings but were seeing the beginning of a turnaround and results" with video customer growth in 2015 -- the first such growth in years. Roberts said he sees Comcast moving toward providing a variety of broadband-related services, such as remote diagnostics of connected devices in homes: "We are looking at smart Internet as an opportunity not any other company has -- even if all those aren't our devices." A Comcast goal this year is to move to a system where all customer transactions can be done on mobile devices, Roberts said.

Comments are due by March 30 in docket 16-41 on the FCC's notice of inquiry on carriage hurdles for independent and diverse programmers, including public, educational or governmental programmers, with reply comments due April 19, the agency said in a public notice Tuesday. The FCC commissioners approved the NOI at their Feb. 18 meeting (see 1602180044).

An array of Ohio communities can't regulate Time Warner Cable basic rates, the FCC Media Bureau said in an order Monday. It rejected opposition from the villages of Cleves and North Bend that data TWC used regarding ZIP codes was flawed, because Cleves didn't given any evidence of data flaws or suggest a better method. The Media Bureau said North Bend's assertion that TWC inflated the DBS subscriber count "advocates conflicting approaches" and said there's no basis to question the accuracy of the Satellite Broadcasting and Communications Association data TWC used. The order covers more than 15,000 households, the largest of which was Deerfield. TWC separately had sought a finding of low penetration effective competition for the village of Ripley based on its serving only 30 percent of the households there -- a petition the FCC also granted. The FCC in recent weeks has issued orders finding effective competition in numerous communities in Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Virginia and Washington (see 1602190036, 1602240037, 1602180042 and 1601220003).

U.S. District Judge Robin Cauthron in Oklahoma City erred in overturning a $6.31 million jury verdict against Cox Communications for its set-top box rental policies (see 1511130005) when she said the plaintiff had to identify specific competitors wanting to sell set-tops in the Oklahoma City market but didn't because of Cox's tying policy, said class action plaintiffs Richard Healy et al. in an opening brief filed Monday with the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. That proof requirement was "fabricated out of whole cloth" and contrary to Supreme Court and 10th Circuit precedent, the plaintiff said. He asked the appellate court to reverse Cauthron's decision giving judgment in favor of Cox and restore the jury verdict. Regardless of the validity of the proof requirement, Healy said, the court record shows substantial evidence of specific competitors excluded from that set-top market because of Cox requiring rental of one of its set-tops to access all Premium Cable content and features. The plaintiff said Cauthron's ruling wrongly disregarded evidence that the plaintiff class had suffered injury in paying $6.31 million worth of "supracompetitive" set-top rental rates. The Healy brief also requested oral argument. Cox didn't comment Tuesday.

The FCC Media Bureau plans a daylong public workshop March 21 on video marketplace issues such as competition, diversity and innovation, it said in a news release Tuesday. The workshop -- 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at FCC headquarters -- will be one of two planned on the topic, it said.

American TV Alliance officials met with FCC Media Bureau staff to talk specifics about some proposals (see 1512010052) for changes to the totality of circumstances test for good faith retransmission consent negotiations, ATVA said in an ex parte filing Monday in docket 15-216. ATVA said the Media Bureau meeting covered such ground as local vs. national ratings in defining marquee events as part of its push to restrict blackouts of such programming and the details of its proposal to allow temporary importation of distant signals. ATVA said it also discussed labor law doctrine requiring negotiations until impasse and how that could play into broadcaster/multichannel video programming distributor talks. ATVA has been aggressively lobbying on proposed changes to the totality test (see 1602190044).

Altice arguments haven't shown any material evidence of how it will deliver benefits it claims its buy of Cablevision will provide, and the savings it hopes to see "will implausibly be doing double duty, both to increase investment and to help service the substantially increased debt Cablevision will be carrying post-transaction," MFRConsulting said in an FCC filing Monday in docket 15-257. MFRConsulting has repeatedly raised red flags about the deal (see 1602190041 and 1512300024). Its latest filing said Cablevision's announced monthly cable modem fee hike from $4.95 to $9.99 is an example of Altice/Cablevision's ability "to raise prices without a basis" and Altice paints a "confusing and arguably inconsistent picture" of its Cablevision relationship by claiming the two will be separate operations yet Cablevision also will benefit from being part of Altice's worldwide operations. It also raised numerous questions about Altice's answers in response to an FCC information request (see 1602260029). "Altice has ignored and continues to fail to rebut the substantial evidence [demonstrating] that it has not delivered such benefits with its other properties," MFRConsulting said. Altice didn't comment.

Vivendi Universal has paid $775 million to Liberty Media to settle 2003 claims regarding Vivendi's 2001 purchase of Liberty Media's stake in USA Networks, Liberty Media said Friday as it announced its Q4 2015 financial results. Liberty said the $775 million settlement ends appeals both parties had filed regarding a 2013 judgment in which Liberty Media was awarded roughly $1 billion. Liberty Media in its original suit alleged "outright fraud, misrepresentation and concealment" regarding Vivendi's hiding of its liquidity crisis at the time of the USA Networks deal.