Altice sees no need for an appeals court to review the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities’ challenge of a preliminary injunction awarded Altice in January by U.S. District Court in Trenton (see 2007220034), the cable company said (in Pacer) Tuesday at the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Altice, challenging the New Jersey board requirement that cable operators prorate bills for canceling customers, urged the 3rd Circuit to hold the appeal in abeyance pending the outcome of district court proceedings. Briefing at the lower court will be done by early October, and a decision on the merits will likely follow well before the 3rd Circuit finishes weighing the board’s appeal, Altice said. “It would be an inefficient use of judicial and litigant resources to continue to brief and adjudicate the preliminary injunction appeal when a decision on the merits is likely to supersede the PI Order before this Court rules on the pending.” New Jersey's attorney general office declined comment Wednesday.

The family that controls Canadian cable ISP Cogeco rejected Altice and Rogers Communications' bid. Cogeco said Wednesday that Gestion Audem, a company controlled by Audet family members with majority voting rights in Cogeco, rejected the unsolicited takeover. The $7.8 billion offer for Cogeco's shares "is very attractive and in the best interest of all shareholders, and we look forward to hearing from the Board," Altice emailed. Under the proposed deal announced Wednesday, Altice would buy Cogeco and sell its Canadian assets to Rogers, leaving Altice with Atlantic Broadband. Altice said the deal would expand its East Coast footprint in 11 states adjacent to its existing Optimum and Suddenlink territories. New Street Research's Jonathan Chaplin emailed investors that the Audet family has resisted offers in the past and their support "is essential."

AMC Networks hasn't shown it will be irreparably harmed without a standstill order preserving its current program carriage agreement with AT&T pending resolution of AMC's program carriage complaint against the MVPD, the FCC Media Bureau said in an order in Tuesday's Daily Digest denying the programmer's standstill petition (see 2008100048). AMC emailed it's disappointed, but its carriage complaint remains pending "and we look forward to a favorable resolution at the conclusion of the process. As an independent programmer, we are simply asking AT&T to not use their size and scope to competitively disadvantage our business and our programming, and to treat our networks fairly and in the same manner they treat their own services and networks."

U.S. District Judge George Wu in Los Angeles denied Charter's motion to dismiss the second amended complaint brought by Entertainment Studios (ES) and the National Association of African American Owned Media, in a ruling Friday (in Pacer, docket 16-cv-00609). Charter is accused of racial animus in opting not to carry ES. Charter emailed us Monday it's "disappointed by the ruling and stand[s] by our position that race played no role whatsoever in our programming decision regarding these networks and we will continue to vigorously defend against these false claims.” It said carriage decisions "are based on business considerations, such as cost, quality, uniqueness of content, and customer demand."

Two John Malone-chaired public companies, GCI Liberty and Liberty Broadband, seek FCC OK to combine under Section 214 of the Communications Act, per an application Monday. GCI Liberty would become part of a Liberty Broadband subsidiary, with its operating companies keeping the GCI brand and its Anchorage management and headquarters. The deal was announced in August.

Major media and entertainment companies have developed stable delivery models to support their streaming services but see challenges ahead, said a June Comcast Technology Solutions sponsored report released Wednesday. It is part of Comcast’s TV 2025 Initiative, an international research program looking at obstacles and opportunities for streaming. Hurdles include multi-platform native application development, maintaining quality of experience -- especially with premium live experiences such as sports -- and delivering complex streaming services like virtual MVPD offerings reliably at scale, said industry participants. International expansion can also be challenging, it said. By 2025, the streaming market will include light-touch services delivering content mostly via third-party streaming platforms and channel marketplaces in a self-service model on one end and fully featured, high-end streaming services on the other, it said. The best streaming TV services, it said, will benefit from an environment that supports delivery of streaming services -- live and on demand -- at scale to major markets around the world; an integrated approach to advertising that allows linear and nonlinear TV and streaming services to be seamlessly transacted at scale; an artificial intelligence-powered industry that uses machine learning and automation to improve workflows, customer experience, content curation and monetization; and more agile, cloud-based broadcasting operations that support a faster pace of innovation.

Many LFAs are flouting the Cable Act limits on local franchising authorities, and the FCC's 2019 LFA order now under legal challenge (see 1909120028) implements the plain reading of the act, NCTA told the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in an intervenor brief Monday (in Pacer, docket 19-4161) on behalf of the FCC. Even if the Cable Act was ambiguous on LFAs not being able to regulate telecommunications or information services, the LFA order's mixed-use rule is reasonable, the NCTA said.

Charter Communications and Maine disagree on what the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit's 1995 Time Warner decision means for the cable company's challenge to Maine's cable prorating law (see 2005210004). "Rate structure" in that decision is defined entirely differently than how Charter is defining it in its opposition to Maine's motion to dismiss, and thus no support for its argument, the state said Tuesday in a supplemental brief (in Pacer, docket 20-cv-00168) in support of its motion to dismiss. It told the U.S. District Court in Bangor the prorating law isn't rate regulation because it lets Charter charge whatever it wants to as long as it's providing cable services, and it's when that service is canceled that the state legislature uses "its traditional police powers to protect its citizens from having to pay for cable services they will never receive." Charter in a brief (in Pacer) last week said Time Warner confirms that regulation of rate structure is rate regulation, and thus not allowed under the Cable Act when there's effective competition. It said the Maine law, contrary to state claims, affects pricing of Charter rates by blocking Charter from offering different daily and monthly rates.

The cable leased access revised rate structure adopted at the FCC's July meeting (see 2007160045) takes effect Sept. 21, a Media Bureau public notice said Thursday.

The FCC Wireline Bureau is extending until Sept. 2 the comment deadline on Charter Communications' request that the FCC sunset its data cap and usage-based pricing restrictions from its Time Warner Cable/Bright House Networks purchases next year (see 2006180050), it said Tuesday in a public notice. The bureau said it's also seeking comment on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit's decision last week on the Competitive Enterprise Institute's challenge of some TWC/BHN conditions (see 2008140040). Backing Charter's petition, Mediacom, in a docket 16-197 posting Tuesday, said the free market should determine how internet service is offered, rather than regulatory mandates. Not allowing a company to create different tiers of internet service with different caps can mean low users of data end up subsidizing heavy users, it said.