CableLabs cut 27 jobs as part of its restructuring to focus more on long-term innovation work, CEO Phil McKinney said in a blog post Friday. CableLabs earlier this month announced it was putting less emphasis on its traditional bailiwick of shorter-term R&D work (see 1601150077). The job cuts have "allowed us to free up budget for investment in innovative pursuits, including opening new positions requiring the range of skills needed to build out and sustain our innovation pipeline," McKinney said. While not giving specific details on projects in its long-term pipeline, McKinney said the innovation work will involve "all of the areas that CableLabs has historically been responsible for such as high speed data, wireless, [Network Functions Virtualization/Software Defined Networking], next generation video, IoT, business services, security and many others." Meanwhile, he said, the discontinued R&D projects "were focused on near term activities already supported by our membership, or by the vendor community," saying CableLabs "will cover those same technical areas but look at them through an innovation lens that targets an impact three to eight years out."

The Golf Channel's (TGC) proposed eight-part test to determine value flies in the face of the Texas Uniform Fraudulent Transfer Act (TUFTA), said appellant Ralph Janvey, the court-appointed receiver of Stanford International Bank, in a post-submission brief filed Wednesday with the Texas Supreme Court. The state court is tackling a question from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which in 2015 asked for a court ruling on TUFTA and reversed its previous ruling tossing out Janvey's suit against TGC (see 1507010036). Janvey sued TGC in 2011, trying to claw back the money given it by Stanford -- which was the focal point of what the 5th Circuit called an "undisputed ... multi-billion-dollar Ponzi scheme." While it operated, Stanford was the title sponsor of a PGA Tour event held yearly in Memphis, and subsequently bought advertisements on TGC. Oral argument was held Jan. 12 before the Texas Supreme Court, and Janvey said the brief was an attempt to clarify issues that came up then. Pointing to Section 24.009(a) of TUFTA, Janvey said the Supreme Court should answer the 5th Circuit's TUFTA question by saying that to prevail on an affirmative defense a transferee needs to prove the debtor received some value "that was reasonably equivalent to the assets transferred by the debtor to the transferee." TGC didn't comment Thursday.

A proposed settlement in a class-action suit against Comcast, DirecTV, Major League Baseball and a variety of regional sports networks (RSN) goes further than a settlement in a similar National Hockey League case, plaintiffs in the case said in a memorandum in support of the motion to settle filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. Like the 2015 settlement in a similar complaint brought against the NHL, MLB will offer an unbundled MLB.TV Internet package for the next five years, allowing purchase of single-team packages, but, in contrast, the MLB.TV pricing is guaranteed for five years "with very limited rights to increase over that time," the plaintiffs said in the filing. The proposed MLB settlement also includes pricing discounts for online packages and creates a "Follow Your Team" variation of MLB.TV that would let viewers watch an out-of-market club's telecast of a game even when that team is playing an in-market one, the plaintiffs said. And it includes an incentive for MLB to provide free live local team broadcasts online by not allowing any online package price increases if in-market streaming isn't in place for the 24 RSNs carrying MLB games owned by Comcast, DirecTV and 21st Century Fox by the start of the 2017 season, it said. A group of MLB fans from around the country who had bought out-of-market packages at what they claimed were inflated prices sued MLB, the multichannel video programming distributors and individual MLB teams in 2012, claiming the agreement MLB had with the MVPDs for distribution of games online and on TV was an "illegal cartel," stifling competition. DirecTV and Comcast didn't comment Thursday. In a statement, NBC Sports Regional Networks said it's "pleased with the settlement and look[s] forward to partnering with Major League Baseball to enable our regional sports networks’ offering of live in-market streaming of games to subscribers.” The NFL and DirecTV also face related litigation from a variety of sports bars around the country regarding the satellite company's NFL Sunday Ticket subscription package (see 1512300027).

Broadband customer churn data from when Netflix was being throttled in 2014 shows Charter Communications after buying Bright House Networks and Time Warner Cable "will be able to have its cake and eat it too: hurt competitors of its video business without hurting its broadband business," Dish Network said in its latest salvo of opposition to the proposed set of deals. In a filing Wednesday in docket 15-149, Dish -- which has staunchly opposed FCC approval of the deals -- submitted a heavily redacted Charter, BHN and TWC churn rate analysis by William Zarakas of economics consulting firm Brattle Group to argue the companies didn't suffer worse churn rates due to past throttling. "Even if we assume that most broadband customers understand the reason for a poor broadband experience -- a very large assumption -- switching is most often impossible because there is no reasonable broadband alternative in the marketplace," Dish said. It also repeated arguments it made in the past that post-merger Charter would have plenty of opportunity and motive to form a de facto duopoly with Comcast -- especially since major Charter shareholder John Malone "has been described as 'keen to see the industry consolidate, noting that cooperation would complement mergers.'" In a statement, Charter said, given Dish's "past history of manipulating government regulations to improve its business, it is not surprising [it] is opposing Charter’s pending transactions. Dish’s claims are without merit. The information on which Dish relies, as well as documents filed with the FCC that Dish ignores, demonstrates Charter’s recognition that [online video distributors, or] OVDs[,] are a complement to its growing broadband business. There is no better partner for OVDs than Charter; we provide fast broadband speeds at a better value, with no data caps, no usage based billing, no modem fees, and no annual contracts.” Charter also pointed to comments Tuesday by Netflix CEO Reed Hastings during the company's Q4 2015 earnings call (see 1601190069) in which he said Charter/TWC/BHN "would be a tremendous positive for the [over-the-top] industry because Charter has agreed to a multi-year strong net neutrality policy, something no one else has publicly agreed to. That means that we, Hulu, Amazon and others can compete on an open basis." Charter increasingly is responding to critics. In a blog post Tuesday, Charter said red flags raised by Incompas (see 1512070025) were "incorrect and illogical." The trade group "makes the classic merger analysis mistake of confusing harm to New Charter’s competitors with harm to competition," Charter said. "Aren’t lower prices good for consumers and competition? [Under Incompas' logic] mergers would be good if they result in higher prices because that would encourage investment by new entrants. That kind of spin does not pass the laugh test." Charter also said since TWC already buys programming for BHN, adding Charter to the buying group means an extra 4 million subscribers, or about 4 percent of the nation's multichannel video programming distributor marketplace -- "not an overwhelming increase by any measure," and smaller than Comcast or AT&T.

The FCC should move forward with the competitive navigation recommendation from the FCC Downloadable Security Technology Advisory Committee, seven public interest groups said in a letter to Chairman Tom Wheeler Tuesday. Viewers who can more easily access online and cable programming on the same device would be easier for programmers to reach without going through pay-TV carriers, said the letter from Common Cause, Demand Progress, Free Press, Fight for the Future, the National Hispanic Media Coalition, New America’s Open Technology Institute and Public Knowledge. PK had representatives on the DSTAC and is part of the Consumer Video Choice Coalition, the organization of entities backing the competitive navigation recommendation. Along with opening up paths to consumers for programmers, a more competitive set-top box market would make it harder for pay-TV companies to ”price-gouge” consumers, the letter said. “What Americans need now is for the FCC to help create ways to bypass the cable gatekeeper -- not for it to allow cable to continue strengthening its grip.”

Rogers Communications, which last week beamed the world’s first live NBA game in 4K (see 1601140002), will repeat that milestone for hockey Saturday when it shows the first-ever NHL game in 4K, it said in a Monday announcement. The first NHL 4K game will be a Hockey Night in Canada telecast produced by Sportsnet and available to Rogers customers with a NextBox 4K set-top on Channel 999 when the Toronto Maple Leafs face the Montreal Canadiens, live from Toronto’s Air Canada Centre, Rogers said. The 4K viewing “changes the game experience, drawing the fan onto the ice like never before,” it said. “Viewers can see the flex of the stick and the grooves in the ice,” while the live game producers can zoom in on key plays at up to 500 percent magnification “without motion blur,” it said. Saturday’s game is the first of a 20-game NHL 4K broadcast commitment by Rogers and Sportsnet in 2016, Rogers said.

Oral argument in Tennis Channel's legal complaint against the FCC will be April 18, said an order filed Thursday in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Tennis Channel's 2015 petition involves its claim that Comcast discriminated against it -- a claim denied by the FCC (see 1512140031).

NAB, NATOA and Minnesota's Northern Dakota County Cable Communications Commission petitioned the FCC Media Bureau to reconsider the expiration of some local franchising authority certifications related to the agency's 2015 effective competition order. The three petitioned the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in August, asking it to review the June order establishing that the cable market is effectively competitive in every franchise area and put the onus of rebutting that presumption on franchising authorities (see 1508280033). The petition filed Tuesday in docket 15-53 -- pointing to the Media Bureau's December order, which listed franchising authorities that had sought new certification -- asked for reconsideration "so that the Bureau may vacate its [effective competition] findings and certificate expirations" if the D.C. Circuit sets aside the effective competition order.

The FCC should minimize “any unnecessary burdens” on cable systems from online public file requirements, NCTA said in an ex parte filing posted in docket 14-127 Thursday. The agency should “balance the interest in ensuring access to the Commission-hosted database with the need for a reasonable transition period to the online system,” NCTA said. Its lawyers spoke separately with aides to Commissioners Mike O’Rielly and Ajit Pai. An order on circulation that's on the preliminary agenda for the next commissioner meeting Jan. 28 would extend to cable and other licensees a requirement that TV-station licensees put their public files online (see 1601080047).

CableLabs' funding of various projects is increasingly focused on the long term, with "investment in innovation projects focused on three to eight years as being of equal importance to our traditional R&D projects focused on one to three years," CEO Phil McKinney said in a blog post Friday. Those long-range innovation projects will be the source for future R&D work, he said: "While most organizations spend a small portion of their budget on longer range innovation, we’ve made the deliberate decision to be aggressive in this transformation to ensure that CableLabs can rapidly build and sustain a significant innovation pipeline for the industry." McKinney said that since his start there in 2012, CableLabs also has focused on speeding up its R&D work, with an example being certification the first DOCSIS 3.1 modems announced earlier this week (see 1601130013). "We delivered DOCSIS 3.1 in record time, especially considering the new technologies that were added," he said.