Time Warner Cable's efforts at better customer satisfaction are the focus of a new national advertising campaign. The drive had an "open letter" published in 18 major newspapers over the weekend as the kickoff to what the company is calling "Customer Service Week." The company also said it's beginning a series of tongue-in-cheek TV commercials poking fun at such issues as waiting on hold for a customer service representative. According to TWC, it's made such changes over the past couple of years as launching of better scheduling so almost all service visits happen within a one-hour window of when they're scheduled, and more recently its TechTracker service for reminding people of appointments and providing a technician's name and other identifying information when the tech is en route. In a statement, TWC CEO Rob Marcus said, apart from the company's pending acquisition by Charter, "our customers expect and deserve the best customer experience we can deliver.”

AT&T and Viacom signed a new distribution agreement allowing Viacom's various networks to remain part of AT&T's U-verse TV and on AT&T-owned DirecTV, the telco said in a news release Monday. It said the multiplatform distribution agreement "entitles AT&T's satellite and IPTV platforms to the best deal in the industry for Viacom" content.

Lionsgate and Skydance signed a worldwide TV distribution agreement for Skydance TV properties to become part of Lionsgate's distribution pipeline of programming, Lionsgate said Monday. The deal involves both existing and under-development Skydance programming, Lionsgate said. Simultaneous with the agreement, Brandon Zimon -- ex-Sony Pictures Television vice president-international distribution -- was named Skydance Media senior vice president-international television sales and co-productions.

Minus the network nonduplication rule, network affiliates can only enforce their nondupe rights in court by their network affiliation agreements banning any retransmission consent outside their markets, while those affiliates also would have to get contractual commitments from local multichannel video programming distributors that they won't carry duplicative programming from distant stations, NBCUniversal said in an FCC ex parte filing posted Monday in docket 15-216. The filing covered a meeting between Margaret Tobey, vice president-regulatory affairs for the broadcaster, and a variety of Media Bureau staffers, plus the Office of the General Counsel, at which the network brought a litany of arguments on why the nondupe rule should be kept. The rule's safeguarding against duplication of network programming "preserves the full value of the network programming for each affiliate," NBCUniversal said. That value is "fundamental to the dual-revenue stream -- comprised of advertising revenues and retransmission consent fees -- that local broadcasters rely on to finance local program production and acquisition and to help offset network programming production and acquisition costs," NBCUniversal said. While backers of Chairman Tom Wheeler's plan to eliminate the exclusivity rules (see 1508120051) have argued the nondupe rule is unnecessary because local stations can enforce their rights in other ways, it "provides the most direct and efficient means of protecting those rights" and that Congress has been clear in its desire that the exclusivity rules remain, NBCUniversal said. And given compulsory license rules, MVPDs don't need network approval for retransmission, meaning the government "has made private enforcement of the contracted-for protection virtually impossible," NBCUniversal said. With the FCC looking at revising its 'totality of circumstances" test in good-faith retransmission negotiations, the network said, "it makes no sense to suggest that the Commission’s limited role in enforcing nonduplication protection is no longer needed because the parties can craft private remedies and then, in a separate and ongoing proceeding, to ask whether those same private remedies should be prohibited." At the very least, NBCUniversal said, the exclusivity rules should stand at least while GAO is undertaking a proceeding about whether compulsory copyright licenses should be phased out -- an argument it also made last month (see 1509240028).

The Media Bureau set a Dec. 1 deadline for comments on an NPRM on possible changes to its "totality of circumstances" test in retransmission consent good-faith negotiations, the FCC said in a public notice in docket 15-216 posted Friday. Replies are due Dec. 31. The NPRM seeks feedback on 15 practices, ranging from the threat of a blackout just before a marquee event to attempting to manufacture a retrans consent dispute "in hopes of encouraging government intervention" (see 1509020061).

Verizon's go90 mobile entertainment platform will now include Univision entertainment, sports and VOD content, the broadcaster said in a Wednesday news release.

Bright House Networks received a second round of information requests from the Justice Department as part of its review of Charter Communications' proposed $89.1 billion purchases of BHN and Time Warner Cable, the company said in an FCC filing posted Wednesday in docket 15-149. The company provided DOJ with a list of custodians as part of that information request, it said.

Multichannel video programming distributors have a 15-day window to hand over data on reach and number of subscribers in a franchise area if a franchising authority wanting certification to regulate a cable operator's basic service tier requests it, according to FCC-amended effective competition rules. The agency filed a small-entity compliance guide Wednesday to spell out compliance with the new effective competition regime. Franchising authorities seeking to establish that a local market lacks effective competition request the data from the MVPD if it's not otherwise available, the guide said. Meanwhile, to oppose such franchising authority regulation, a cable operator can file a petition for reconsideration in which it either disagrees with the franchising authority or demonstrates the presence of effective competition through low penetration, municipal provider or LEC effective competition, the guide said. A cable operator filing a petition for reconsideration will automatically stay any imposition of rate regulation pending the results of the recon proceeding, according to the FCC.

Both Game Show Network and Cablevision continue to try to poke holes in each other's legal arguments about whether the cable operator discriminated against the programmer. Wednesday was the deadline for responses to proposed findings of fact and proposed conclusions of law filings submitted earlier this month in docket 12-122 (see 1509140026). The FCC Enforcement Bureau is scheduled to weigh in by Oct. 15, with closing oral argument Oct. 29 before Chief Administrative Law Judge Richard Sippel. When Cablevision in 2011 moved GSN from the basic tier to a sports tier, it was discriminatory because Cablevision used a "must-have" test that didn't apply to its own affiliates and admits its affiliates probably would fail, GSN said in its 72-page response. And while Cablevision keeps focusing on "certain irrelevant details" like minor variations in demographic information among audiences for GSN and Cablevision-affiliated WE tv and Wedding Central, the evidence overwhelmingly shows GSN and WE are similarly situated, GSN said. And the fact it has added subscribers since the retiering doesn't change the fact it was harmed by that retiering, GSN said, saying testimony makes it clear it was Cablevision that first broached the idea of returning GSN to basic if part owner DirecTV would carry Wedding Central. GSN lacks any evidence to back its claim of favoritism as it disregards that Cablevision carried its affiliated networks "on market terms and at market rates" and that it was DirecTV -- not it -- that broached the idea of the satellite company carrying Wedding Central, Cablevision said in its 71-page response. GSN also ignores the evidence the move to retiering started in 2010 when numerous networks -- not just GSN -- went under carriage assessments because their contracts had lapsed or were about to, opening the door for them to be retiered or canceled, Cablevision said. The evidence of GSN and WE tv being similarly situated was "cherry picked," the cable company said, saying when confronting evidence the retiering decision was "to save programming costs incurred by broadly carrying a network that only a tiny fraction of Cablevision’s subscribers watched, GSN resorts to dismissing such evidence as 'pretextual.'"

If the American Cable Association now says it isn't looking to stop local stations from signing exclusivity deals with networks and syndicators, the FCC should no longer listen to its request to put limits on broadcasters' ability to put together such deals, NAB said in a filing to be posted in docket 10-71. ACA has in the past been staunchly against any network interference with out-of-market retransmission consent between local stations and multichannel video programming distributors, NAB said. But pointing to a recent ACA statement that if the FCC repeals the syndicated exclusivity and network nonduplication rules, as Chairman Tom Wheeler has advocated (see 1508120051), it should protect significantly viewed stations but meanwhile doesn't need to limit other exclusivity arrangements, NAB said the ACA "now supports broadcasters negotiating for exclusivity with networks" except for the one limited circumstance regarding significantly viewed stations. NAB said it was "relieved that ACA has adopted a less extreme position in its sustained efforts to limit payments to the content owners that drive consumers to its pay service." The broadcaster group also repeated its call to keep the existing exclusivity rules as a means for preventing stations from expanding their "zone of exclusivity" through affiliation agreements. "Rather than throw the entire well-established regime of local signals/local carriage into flux and hope for the best, there is no better option than to keep these effective rules in place," NAB said. ACA said its stance and comments have been consistent.