The FCC "do[es] not have anything material to add to the party submissions," acting General Counsel Michele Ellison told the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Monday (in Pacer, docket 20-2142), declining to give input to judges hearing an appeal by Maine of a lower court's summary judgment supporting Charter Communications' challenge of the state's cable TV prorating law (see 2010290039). The court in June invited the agency to submit an amicus brief on whether the Maine law constitutes regulation of rates for the provision of cable service as preempted by federal law, and how states were regulating cable service rates when the Cable Act was enacted in 1984.

A voluntary 2012 energy efficiency agreement among CTA, NCTA and CableLabs members cut annual energy consumption by cable boxes nearly in half between 2013 and 2020, even when accounting for declining numbers of pay-TV subscribers, said an independent audit report Monday by D+R International. It said the average weighted power consumption of annual new set-top box purchases fell from more than 120 kWh/year in 2013 to less than 64 kWh/year last year. It said the decline in energy consumption meant $2.2 billion savings on subscribers' utility bills and nearly 11.9 million fewer metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions from power plants.

The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied rehearing to the Massachusetts Department of Telecommunications and Cable (MDTC) Tuesday in the state agency’s challenge of the FCC’s effective competition order. The appeals court in December upheld the agency's finding that vMVPD service AT&T TV Now is effective competition to cable TV, ending basic rate regulation in parts of the state (see 2012180023). “The petition for rehearing having been denied by the panel of judges who decided the case, and the petition for rehearing en banc having been submitted to the active judges of this court and a majority of the judges not having voted that the case be heard en banc, it is ordered that the petition for rehearing and petition for rehearing en banc be denied,” the court said (in Pacer, docket 19-2282). The FCC and MDTC declined to comment. The Massachusetts attorney general’s office didn’t comment.

Staying flexible to respond to cybersecurity issues is part of Comcast's strategy, said Chief Product and Information Security Officer Noopur Davis. A key question is "how do I build a capability to respond to changes?" she said in Q&A at the Technology Policy Institute conference in Aspen, Colorado. "The threat landscape is literally changing multiple times a day," with many new vulnerabilities, added Davis. And each one "can be exploited numerous different ways," she told TPI Tuesday. Some 100 million devices are in Comcast customer homes, and that's increasing as IoT devices are added, Davis said. "The security of those devices is super important," she continued. "That’s where their digital lives are being conducted," she said of subscribers. In cybersecurity, "we are trying our best, but we are always a few bad luck things away from something bad happening," Davis said. She said when the novel coronavirus began to spread in the U.S. last year and schools moved to virtual learning, some distributed denial of service cyber incidents against schools followed. She called it "the fire alarm of 2020," referring to when students trigger a school alarm to get out of class. Students seeking to launch attacks now "can go buy DDoS attacks as a service," Davis said. She also spoke to TPI about her company's response to T-Mobile's data breach (see 2108170050).

ESPN faces a proposed $20,000 fine for emergency alert system tones in a documentary on the Alabama Crimson Tide-Auburn Tigers football rivalry that was shown in October, an FCC Enforcement Bureau notice of apparent liability said Friday. ESPN didn't comment.

Vizio smart TV shipments fell 31% in Q2 to 1.1 million sets, driving device revenue 9% lower than a year earlier to $335.6 million even as the Platform+ business had 146% revenue growth to $65.5 million. Vizio generated more advertising revenue in first-half 2021 than 2020 total, said Chief Financial Officer Adam Townsend on a call Wednesday (see Q2 materials here). Industrywide “supply and logistical challenges” contributed to shipment decline, as did tough comparisons with Q2 a year earlier as the COVID-19 took hold in the U.S., said Townsend. “The good news is, consumer demand remains robust and average unit prices continue to shift higher.” Amid the pandemic, it’s hard to predict “what will happen next” in the supply chain, said CEO William Wang. The semiconductor and components shortage situation is “getting better,” he said. With the delta variant “unpredictable, we don’t really know what’s going to happen,” he said.

Though cost concerns drove many from traditional pay TV, cord-cutters spend an average $85 monthly for online pay-TV or stand-alone over-the-top services, reported Parks Associates Thursday. OTT services “are delivering on the promise that they can offer desired video content at a considerably lower price,” said President Elizabeth Parks, “but we find 47% of cord-cutters subscribe to four or more OTT services.” Consumers are creating their own video bundles by stacking OTT services, she said. Cord-cutters spend nearly double monthly on OTT services as cord-nevers, which Parks pegs as a 6 million audience. Cord-nevers are less likely to own streaming video products such as smart TVs and streaming media players, while 58% of cord-cutters own a smart TV, equivalent to the national average.

Pointing to Tuesday's 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in NCTA's challenge of Maine's public, educational and government access channel carriage provisions, state Attorney General Aaron Frey (D) said community-run TV stations “are a priceless public resource,” and the ruling "will go far in ensuring their continuing vitality by protecting against marginalization by cable television operators." Judges Sandra Lynch, David Barron and Allison Burroughs, in an opinion (docket 20-1431) penned by Barron, agreed with a lower court that the Cable Act doesn't preempt state law provisions. NCTA said Wednesday it's reviewing the opinion. Public Knowledge Legal Director John Bergmayer said states “have the authority to enact consumer protection laws and have stepped up to promote privacy, broadband affordability, and net neutrality” and the ruling “should give state lawmakers some assurance that industry lawsuits are often grasping at straws.” PK filed an amicus brief.

Discovery+ has “strong traction,” with 130% year-over-year revenue growth and 17 million paid direct-to-consumer subscribers globally at the end of Q2, said Discovery CEO David Zaslav on an earnings call Tuesday. “We are really pleased with the cadence and monetization” of discovery+, “notwithstanding the seasonally slower summer period, only exacerbated by the post-COVID reopening,” he said. The company had 13 million discovery+ subscribers in Q1.

Fiscal Q2 revenue in Harmonic’s video segment was up 34% year over year, including 68% growth in streaming software-as-a-service revenue, said CEO Patrick Harshman on a quarterly call Monday. The quarter ended July 2. The scaling of “existing customer usage,” plus new customers, drove the streaming revenue growth, he said. “The streaming market continues to grow,” and “streaming brand awareness” keeps improving, said Harshman. “We're pleased to see continued resurgence in broadband project activity worldwide.” Revenue growth “reflected overall broadcast market resilience and happened with nearly no 5G bandwidth reclamation contribution, as Q2 was between 5G-driven projects," he said. The stock soared 23% Tuesday, closing at $10.63.