Comments are due June 4, replies June 11, on the transfer of control application as part of Cable One's purchase of various Fidelity Communications subsidiaries, the FCC Wireline Bureau said in a docket 19-20 public notice Wednesday. The $525.9 million deal has U.S. antitrust approval (see 1905200058).

The FCC should look into routes to lowering the 5 percent franchise cap on fees charged to cable ISPs in an effort to avoid excessive and duplicative fees that can slow deployment of broadband services, Latin-American technology advocacy organization ALLVanza told Commissioner Brendan Carr, relayed a docket 05-311 posting Monday. It put its support behind NCTA's broadband mapping proposal (see 1903220036), saying while "not perfect [it] presents an effective plan."

U.S. antitrust authorities cleared the way for Cable One to buy Fidelity Communications, said an FTC early termination notice dated Friday and released Monday. Cable One said in April it had struck a deal to buy the Missouri-based cable ISP for $525.9 million cash.

Midcontinent Communications could support FCC use of Connect America Fund Phase II-like auction processes for the next high-cost fund, the cable ISP told Wireline Bureau staff. Last month, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said a $20 billion Rural Digital Opportunity Fund plan is coming (see 1904160057). Midco suggested the FCC provide shapefiles of geographical information systems and mapping data during any future auction, in a filing posted Thursday in docket 17-182.

The New York Public Service Commission wants comment by July 8on the state's pact with Charter Communications (see 1904190059), the PSC said Wednesday in case 15-M-0388. To avoid having to exit the state, Charter agreed last month to expand broadband to 145,000 homes and businesses entirely in unserved and underserved areas of upstate by Sept. 30, 2021, and to spend another $12 million on additional broadband deployment. At the PSC's meeting Thursday, Commissioner Diane Burman dissented from an order on the consent agenda that confirmed Chair John Rhodes' April 19 order that further extended the deadline for the filing of rehearing petitions to July 18 and Charter's six-month exit plan to Aug. 15.

While pay-TV subscriber numbers slide, broadband subscriptions continue rising, with 945,000 net additions in Q1 vs. 815,000 in the year-ago quarter, Leichtman Research Group reported Wednesday. The top broadband cable and telco providers, representing 95 percent of the market, accounted for 98.7 million subscribers, led by cable with 65.3 million. Cable added 925,000 subs; telcos added 20,000, with Q1 the first for net broadband additions since Q1 2016. AT&T reported 36,000 net adds to 15.7 million and Verizon 12,000 net adds to 6.97 million. On the cable side, Charter had the most net adds in the quarter, 428,000, to bring its total base to 25.7 million, while Comcast, with 375,000 net adds, ended Q1 with a 27.6 million subscriber base. The past year saw about 2.6 million net broadband adds, vs. about 2 million in the prior year, said Principal Bruce Leichtman.

BeIN Sports' application for a review of a Media Bureau order dismissing the programmer's third carriage complaint against Comcast (see 1903290054) asks the FCC "to turn a blind eye to ... deliberate gamesmanship" by beIN, the MVPD said in a docket 18-384 posting Wednesday. The operator said rules don't allow additional pleadings without showing extraordinary circumstances or FCC OK, and neither happened with the latest complaint. It said the commission's procedural rules were set up at the direction of Congress, and regardless, the second and third complaints arise from the same claim and operative facts and thus the third should have been included in that earlier pleading. BeIN, in its application for review, said its second and third complaint brought separate, stand-alone claims and didn't arise from the same "nucleus" of facts. It also said the third complaint was not an additional pleading requiring extraordinary circumstances or agency OK.

U.S. pay-TV providers lost more than 1.3 million net video subscribers in Q1, compared with 305,000 net losses in the year-ago quarter, said Leichtman Research Group. Subscriber count at the top pay-TV providers, representing 95 percent of the market, is at 87.8 million, breaking out to 46.7 million for cable, 28.3 million satellite, 8.9 million for phone and 3.9 million for the top publicly reporting internet-delivered vMVPD pay services. Satellite TV services more than doubled subscriber losses to 810,000, with direct broadcast satellite net losses reaching a new high and marking the fourth consecutive quarter of record losses. The top six cable companies shed 50,000 more subscribers vs. last year’s drop, reaching 335,000; top phone providers lost 105,000 video subscribers vs. 50,000 a year ago; and vMVPD services Sling TV and DirecTV Now swung to a drop of 75,000 subscribers vs. 405,000 net adds. Sling TV posted a net gain of 7,000 subscribers, while DirecTV Now had 83,000 net losses, Leichtman said. AT&T saw a net loss of about 625,000 subscribers -- 47 percent of the industry’s Q1 net losses across DirecTV, AT&T U-verse and DirecTV Now -- compared with a net gain of about 125,000 subscribers. Charter led cable losses with 145,000 net, followed by Comcast (120,000) and Cox (35,000). Q1 marked the third consecutive quarter of record pay-TV losses, coinciding with decisions by AT&T and other providers “to increasingly focus on long-term profitability when acquiring and retaining subscribers,” said Principal Bruce Leichtman. Also Tuesday, Kagan reported the shift from traditional multichannel video services, “on full display” for the past decade, is expected to increase moderately the next 12 months. The loss of content exclusivity is expected to shift the consumer base toward OTT video and fuel the growing ranks of online-only video households, Kagan said. While price hikes affected vMVPD subscriber growth, combined households relying on traditional and virtual multichannel services for video entertainment are still expected to account for 64 percent of occupied homes through 2023.

Discovery purchased from Conde Nast for $35 million Golf Digest as it looks to extend its golf media business. Discovery said Monday that adding the magazine and its multiplatform content to its GolfTV offerings comes as it's also signed a new content and sales relationship deal with the PGA Tour.

TiVo signed a multiyear deal to license its intellectual property to “a major social media company, our first in this growing space,” said CEO Raghu Rau on a Q1 call Thursday evening. The DVR maker will separate its product and IP licensing businesses into two publicly traded companies by first-half 2020. It hopes the deal will be “springboard” for future licensing agreements in those segments, he said. Several "web-based ad platforms" use video as a "form of communication," he said. On plans to “spin out” its product business and keep the remaining company as an IP licensing operation, “for many years, it was synergistic to have our product and IP licensing businesses combined,” said Rau. In “today's rapidly evolving market landscape,” the two businesses, “as stand-alone separate entities unconstrained by each other, will be better positioned to pursue growth opportunities,” he said. IP licensing “is a highly profitable business with revenue of $295 million in 2018, and a high percentage of this is recurring revenue,” he said. As video consumption “continues its shift beyond” traditional and pay TV into the “internet, social media and mobile domains,” the IP licensing business needs to be able to “diversify beyond traditional video content discovery and recording domains, into new consumer applications and functionalities,” the executive said. The stock closed down 14 percent Friday at $7.56.