A federal judge will hear oral argument Sept. 11 on dueling Cablevision and Viacom motions seeking to force the other to produce unredacted copies of nonprivileged information that each says it's withholding because of contractual confidentiality obligations. The hearing will be before U.S. Magistrate Judge James Cott of U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The case stems from the 2013 lawsuit Cablevision filed against Viacom and its Black Entertainment Television in which the cable company alleged it was coerced by Viacom's market power into carrying channels it doesn't want (see 1302270032). Viacom countersued in 2014, saying Cablevision fraudulently induced Viacom into their 2012 affiliation agreement just for the purpose of then suing Viacom and claiming the agreement was illegal so the court could then rewrite it to Cablevision's benefit. As part of its defense, Viacom has sought such materials as Cablevision affiliation and licensing agreements, rate information that was exchanged between Cablevision and third parties, and related documents spelling out terms of Cablevision agreements with other programmers, while Cablevision has sought much the same from Viacom. Contractual counterparties have objected to that material being produced in discovery, and in July, Cott approved a motion allowing a variety of third-party content providers including CBS, Discovery Communications, ESPN and HBO to intervene in the case (see 1507280051). Cablevision and Viacom agreed to seek relief from the Manhattan court "in the form of motions to compel that neither party would oppose," court paperwork said.

Comcast's Internet-adoption program for low-income users is increasingly targeting senior citizens, with Comcast announcing Wednesday that it would launch a pilot program for low-income senior citizens in San Francisco. Since 2011, Comcast's Internet Essentials program has provided online home access to more than 2 million people, it said. In a statement Wednesday, Comcast Chief Diversity Officer David Cohen said the low-income senior citizen pilot program is "opening up a second front in our attack on the digital divide so these seniors can get connected to the Internet in their homes and use it to communicate with friends and family, access healthcare and financial information, and enjoy online news and entertainment." A separate pilot program was announced earlier this month for low-income seniors in Palm Beach County, Florida.

Multichannel video programming distributors must file equal employment opportunity annual report on Form 396-C by Sept. 30, the FCC Media Bureau said in a public notice Tuesday. The report is required for each unit with six or more employees. The notice also listed more than 40 MVPDs that must fill out a supplemental investigation sheet with their reports. They include Cable One, Cablevision, Charter, Comcast, Cox, DirecTV which now is owned by AT&T, Time Warner Cable which Charter plans to buy and WideOpenWest.

Charter Communications shouldn't get FCC OK to buy Bright House Communications and Time Warner Cable until it first produces a peering policy "fully respecting" the net neutrality order, said Commercial Network Services CEO Barry Bahrami in a filing posted Tuesday in docket 15-149. "While I understand New Charter says they will behave more responsibly than what the peering policy actually specifies in writing, it would only take a few key employees to retire or move on to other jobs for the policy to be interpreted differently and cause significant harm to the virtuous cycle," Bahrami said, elaborating on arguments the company made earlier this month before the FCC (see 1508050033). The peering policy's problem is that the net neutrality order doesn't contain a provision allowing for paid peering arrangements with edge providers on a case-by-case basis, Bahrami said.

Changes in retransmission consent negotiation rules must include market transparency and price discovery mechanisms so that small and midsized multichannel video programming distributors in particular have a modicum of leverage, a consortium of MVPDs and advocacy groups said in an FCC filing posted Wednesday in docket 10-71. "Unrestrained by market forces or any requirement that they justify their price demands, broadcasters are free to pursue a 'sky's the limit' approach ... that is antithetical to the concept of good faith negotiations," said CenturyLink, Consolidated Communications, FairPoint Communications, the Independent Telephone & Telecommunications Alliance, Mediacom, NTCA, Public Knowledge and TDS Telecommunications in a joint letter. Current good-faith negotiation requirements put no onus on broadcasters "to explain, justify or substantiate that its price demands reflect competitive marketplace considerations," the MVPD consortium said. While the FCC in the past has explicitly rejected requiring information sharing by broadcasters, "the approach adopted by the Commission is not working" because good-faith negotiations "cannot take place when one of the negotiating parties holds all the cards," the letter writers said. The FCC should require that as part of the totality of circumstances standard for good faith negotiations that parties in retrans talks "disclose relevant information substantiating and verifying their bargaining claims" -- which would mean at the minimum that broadcasters document market prices or prices paid by other MVPDs when claiming those as reasons as rationale for price demands, the group said. A retrans NPRM has been on circulation (see 1508120051).

Mediacom is a poster child of poor customer service and an indicator why Congress must "lead the charge on a series of industrywide regulatory reforms," TVFreedom said in a blog post Wednesday. "It’s also no secret that cable and satellite TV providers represent the most disliked business sector in America," said Director of Public Affairs Robert Kenny in the blog, pointing to American Customer Satisfaction Index rankings. After highlighting a pair of anecdotal Mediacom customer complaints about particularly poor service, Kenny said Mediacom "is not alone in its abysmal treatment of consumers" and highlighted oversight or regulatory pushes going on now in Congress such as inquiries by Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., into pay-TV companies (see 1508100034) and by a group of senators into pay-TV pricing (see 1507100045). "Clearly, Congress recognizes that the anti-consumer behavior of pay-TV companies is pervasive and has gone unchecked for far too long," wrote Kenny. "This pay-TV reform movement is justified in a marketplace where consolidation will continue to erode competition and further diminish consumers’ choices for service." Organizations like TVFreedom and NAB "try to divert the attention away from the bad behavior of the broadcast industry by saying our behavior is worse. That way, they can avoid talking about retrans prices rising 8600 percent between 2005 and 2012, retrans prices more than doubling between 2013 and 2015, and the millions of American consumers that they have blacked out over the last five years," responded Thomas Larsen, Mediacom senior vice president-government and public relations. Mediacom is a member of the American Television Alliance, ATVA's website said; the group wants to change retransmission consent rules which broadcasters say work. A draft FCC NPRM on retrans is circulating (see 1508180053).

Comcast made a $200 million stake in BuzzFeed and purchased screen technology company This Technology in two separate transactions announced Tuesday. The BuzzFeed investment by Comcast's NBCUniversal will let the two collaborate on TV content, motion pictures and the Olympics and to have joint partnerships with ad agencies and brands, BuzzFeed said. The This Technology acquisition fits into Comcast's efforts as the broader industry moves "to an all-IP environment," the business said. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Dish’s complaints about Sinclair Broadcasting bargaining tactics are the pot calling the kettle black because Dish uses "precisely the same tactic," Morgan Murphy Media said in a filing in docket 10-71 posted Tuesday. Dish's retrans complaint, filed Saturday and then put on hold as it resumed negotiations with Sinclair, said Sinclair rejected a short-term contract extension offer with a retroactive "true-up" (see 1508170031). Dish did essentially the same thing to Morgan Murphy in negotiations earlier this month, the broadcast chain said, declining to extend an agreement that would retroactively "true up" rates to the beginning of the contract term without "a substantial and unilateral reduction in its proposed rates," Morgan Murphy said. Since Aug. 13, Morgan Murphy stations have been blacked out on Dish. "If Sinclair is found to have violated its obligation to negotiate in good faith, the same finding should be applied to Dish," Morgan Murphy said. In a statement, Dish said Morgan Murphy "blocked Dish customers’ access to its stations in four markets, seeking above-market rate increases double the current Dish rate. The broadcaster has demanded higher fees than Dish currently pays for any other station nationwide. We are actively working to negotiate an agreement that promptly returns this content to Dish’s programming lineup."

Before reclassifying online video distributors, the FCC should first seek comment from OVDs about how being considered multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs) would create "substantial technical challenges," complete its review of retransmission consent negotiation rules, and do a similar review of program access rules, YipTV said in an ex parte filing. Posted Monday in docket 14-261, it detailed a meeting between CEO Michael Tribolet and other YipTV representatives with Media Bureau and Office of Strategic Planning staffers and front-line staffers of various commissioners. With such a reclassification, the FCC "endangers the very competition and consumer choice that [it] is intending to support by this proposed change," the OVD said. In its filing, YipTV also repeated its argument to the FCC that any such re-categorization of some types of OVDs as MVPDs needs to be voluntary on the part of the OVD, or the obligations that come with being an MVPD are waived (see 1508120012). In its latest filing, YipTV also said such MVPD obligations should be phased in over three years "at the very least." The program access that would come with being an MVPD don't outweigh, in its case, "the ... legacy obligations associated with MVPD status," YipTV said. "Reclassification as an MVPD will bring substantial costs that may limit its ability to obtain new programming -- thus reducing the programming choices available to consumers -- and likely increasing the end-cost of its service."

Requiring that programming be available to online video distributors (OVDs) means consumers will pay more, Madison Square Garden Holdings said in an FCC ex parte filing posted Monday in docket 14-261 on a meeting between Adam Levine, senior vice president-legal and business affairs, and Media Bureau and Office of Strategic Planning staff. Much of the programming MSG licenses doesn't come with rights for online distribution because sometimes the rightsholders distribute through other outlets such as Hulu, Netflix or YouTube, or directly to customers through their own platforms, MSG said. The cost of such rights, when they're available, can be prohibitive, and those higher programming costs "will be passed through ... eventually to consumers," MSG said. "Even for programming that MSG produces and owns, acquiring online distribution rights for all elements of such programming can be very difficult." Changing the definition of multichannel video programming distributor to include some forms of OVDs "would not vest online distribution rights in MSG" since those rights agreements generally provide for distributing through specific forms of media and not some blanket rights agreement to MVPDs in general, MSG said: "There is no record of any market failure that would justify any changes to the MVPD definition," and such a change "would substantially and unnecessarily harm the handful of programmers subject to the rules."