Grain Management expects to close on its buy of Ritter companies by year-end, said an application Monday seeking FCC approval for transfer of Telecom Act Section 214 authorizations to a subsidiary of private equity firm Grain. Ritter Telephone, Tri-County, Millington, Ritter Cable and MTel will operate under the same names and terms, and there will be no change in customer service or billing contact information, the application said. Ritter is a cable ISP and telecom serving Arkansas, Tennessee and Texas.

Charter Communications is selling its managed cloud services business Navisite to RDX, it said Monday. The move is part of "prioritization and refinement" of its portfolio. The deal is expected to close within weeks.

Fox Sports Regional Networks and Cox signed a long-term renewal for distribution of the Fox Sports regional sports networks, Cox said Wednesday.

The FCC Media Bureau should reject beIN Sports' emergency appeal of the bureau’s dismissal of beIN’s carriage complaint against Comcast, the MVPD said in an opposition filing posted Monday in docket 18-384 (see 1908020007). The bureau “acted well within its discretion in ruling on the merits based on the written record, which beIN itself had urged the Bureau to do,” Comcast said. “It was not a close call.” BeIN's argument that the case should be referred to an administrative law judge is incorrect, Comcast said. “The Commission’s program carriage rulemaking orders vest the Bureau with discretion to dispose of cases on the pleadings,” Comcast said. The beIN application for review mischaracterizes the law and the factual record, Comcast said.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision to remand a lower court decision throwing out claims of racial discrimination in Comcast's programming decisions (see 1811190023) conflicts with the plain meaning of Section 1981 of federal anti-discrimination law. That's the argument of docket 18-1171 amicus briefs filed Thursday with the Supreme Court on behalf of Comcast. Section 1981, saying all people have the same rights to make and enforce contracts regardless of race, is most naturally read to require but-for causation, and background common-law principles confirm that a but-for rule applies, DOJ said. Other appellate courts have adopted a burden-shifting framework where a plaintiff can make a prima facie case of a Section 1981 violation by showing race played a role in a challenged decision and the defendant has the burden to show the same decision would have been made regardless of race, but the section doesn't authorize a shift in the burden of persuasion and a plaintiff must prove all elements of a claim including but-for causation, it said. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, National Federation of Independent Business and National School Boards Association said the 9th Circuit decision turns Section 1981 into a tool for plaintiffs who weren't discriminated against to impose litigation burdens and settlement demands on businesses, local governments, school districts and other contracting entities merely by alleging race was a factor in the challenged decision. They said the 9th Circuit's "mixed-motive standard" that even if racial animus weren't the but-for cause for not getting a contract but a factor in the decision would "invite tenuous allegations of discrimination" that would be tough to resolve on summary judgment, putting pressure on defendants to settle even claims that lack merit just to avoid litigation costs. Limited government public-interest law firm Washington Legal Foundation said the 9th Circuit's conclusion that Section 1981 allows an exception to the but-for standard is a misread of the statute's text and history. The text focuses on conduct and not motives implies a but-for causation standard, and Congress wasn't interested in looking at the many motivations that were part of a defendant's decision-making, it said. The Center for Workplace Compliance said SCOTUS reasoning in other cases suggests but-for causation applies to Section 1981 claims the way the court has ruled it applies in Title VII retaliation claims.

A 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejection of Comcast's appeal in a fight over compelled arbitration in a complaint about advertised cable-TV pricing conflicts with Supreme Court precedent, said CTIA in a docket 18-15288 amicus brief Friday (in Pacer). The group backed a Comcast ask for rehearing en banc (see 1908120009). A practical effect of the 9th Circuit decision is it could bar enforcement of millions of consumer contracts "including virtually all cell phone contracts," the association said. It said that because many companies rely on standardized contracts, the ruling could affect those companies' operations nationwide, not just in California. Consumers would face higher prices and "lose the benefit of an inexpensive and efficient forum for resolving disputes," it said. Outside counsel for the plaintiff-appellee didn't comment.

Charter Communications and Disney signed a distribution agreement that opens the door to Charter distributing Disney streaming services and them partnering on piracy mitigation to tackle such issues as password sharing, they said Wednesday. They said Charter's Spectrum TV platform also will offer ESPN's ACC Network when it launches Aug. 22. The agreement covers Disney's newly acquired FX and Nat Geo networks.

The largest cable and telco providers, with 96 percent of the market, tacked on 370,000 broadband internet subscribers in Q2, reported Leichtman Research Group Tuesday vs. about 480,000 in Q2 2018. Cable companies have 66.2 million broadband subscribers; phone companies, 33.7 million, it said. Top cable companies added about 530,000 subscribers in the quarter, while telephone companies had a net loss of about 160,000, it said. Comcast led cable companies with 27.8 million subscribers at the end of Q2, followed by Charter with 25.9 million. Among telcos, AT&T lost 39,000 broadband subscribers in the quarter to 15.7 million; Verizon lost 5,000 to 6.9 million and CenturyLink lost 56,000 to 4.7 million, it said. Frontier had the largest subscriber exodus of all broadband providers, losing 71,000, leaving 3.6 million, it said.

Pay-TV providers with 93 percent of the market lost 1.5 million net video subscribers in Q2, vs. a net loss of about 420,000 subscribers in the year-ago quarter, reported Leichtman Research Group Monday. Over the past year, top pay-TV providers had a net loss of about 5 million vs. a loss of about 1 million a year earlier, it said. Only Sling TV had subscriber gains in Q2, with 48,000, while DirecTV Now lost 168,000. The top seven cable companies lost about 455,000 video subscribers vs. about 275,000, more than any quarter since Q2 2014, LRG said. Satellite TV services continued to lead all categories with subscriber losses of about 855,000, vs. a net loss of 480,000; DirecTV lost 778,000 for its fifth consecutive quarterly loss, said the researcher. The top phone providers lost about 100,000 video subscribers vs. a loss of about 45,000 subscribers. Top providers reported 86.6 million subscribers: seven cable companies had 46.5 million video subscribers, satellite TV services reported 27.5 million, phone companies 8.8 million and the top publicly reporting vMVPD pay-TV services had 3.8 million, it said.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has shown "hostility" to arbitration and repeatedly applies an approach to Federal Arbitration Act pre-emption that the Supreme Court repeatedly rejected, defendant appellant Comcast said in a docket 18-15288 petition for rehearing and rehearing en banc posted Friday. The court in June rejected Comcast's appeal of a U.S. district court denying Comcast's motion to compel arbitration in a complaint (in Pacer) alleging false advertising of cable TV pricing. Comcast said the lower court and 9th Circuit wrongly agreed the arbitration act doesn't pre-empt California's McGill rule regarding arbitration enforcement and that McGill isn't grounds for revocation of any contract. Outside counsel for the plaintiff-appellee didn't comment Monday.