When determining if a community has effective cable competition, it's not necessary that census household data and direct broadcast satellite subscriber data be contemporaneous with one another, said an FCC order Wednesday denying a New Jersey Division of Rate Counsel (DRC) application for review of a previous Media Bureau order. DRC appealed a bureau order granting a Time Warner Cable petition seeking determination that five New Jersey communities were subject to effective competition. FCC members said the bureau order satisfied the agency's competing provider test and dismissed DRC arguments against using five-digit ZIP code household data instead of ZIP code+4 household data. Charter Communications now owns TWC. The state didn't comment Thursday.
The U.S. District Court that permitted AT&T buying Time Warner "well understood" the flawed economics behind DOJ's bargaining theory that was the basis for its opposing the deal, the now-combined companies said in a U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit appellee brief (in Pacer, docket 18-5214) Thursday. It was empirical evidence, such as analyses of prior comparable transactions, not a misunderstanding of business principles, that caused the lower court to reject DOJ's argument, the companies said. They said it was "fatal" to DOJ's case that U.S. District Judge Richard Leon of Washington accepted Justice's bargaining model but found the agency hadn't shown the model actually predicts a net increase in retail prices. The merged parties said among the model's flaws is that it relied on "highly disputed real-world facts" like how many customers would go to a different MVPD if certain programming were dropped and that the agency sometimes relied on flawed figures. DOJ didn't comment. Justice's appeal -- based largely on the argument Leon's decision was flawed in its handling of the economics of bargaining and its application of the idea of corporatewide profit maximization -- is seen facing dicey odds (see 1808070025).
Liberty Global's Horizon 4 TV platform includes a set-top box that supports 4K resolution, a voice remote and an upgraded version of the Go app that ties to the set-top, the company said Wednesday as it unveiled the platform. It said Horizon 4 will debut in coming months in the Netherlands, Switzerland and Belgium with a wider rollout to follow. It said the Horizon 4 set-top already is available in the U.K. as the V6 box, and close to two million customers are using it in combination with TiVo software, but the Horizon 4 platform combines the set-top with the Horizon 4 user interface.
Comcast and Ticketmaster launched an integration Tuesday, enabling Xfinity X1 customers to find performers' tour dates and request concert tickets from their TV through Ticketmaster’s open ticketing platform. The companies announced the launch with singer Kelly Clarkson’s 28-city Meaning of Life tour, to begin Jan. 24 in Oakland. Xfinity customers can speak the name of the tour into the X1 voice remote to call up a presale window on the TV screen. Customers are taken to a dedicated Clarkson destination, powered by Ticketmaster’s platform, with a promotional tile enabling them to review performances and dates at nearby venues. They can initiate the online ticket-buying process and opt to receive a text message with a unique code to complete the purchase online. Dan Armstrong, Ticketmaster general manager-distributed commerce, called it “groundbreaking” and said the company will expand functionality to more live events soon. At the Clarkson destination, viewers can stream her music on TV via Pandora and watch her music videos, appearances on The Voice, and clips from previous tours.
DOJ's Antitrust Division finished its response to the Protect Democracy Project's Freedom of Information Act request for any White House communications about AT&T's Time Warner buy (see 1803060004) and is working with the group to provide information about material withheld from production, said a docket 17-cv-2409 joint status report (in Pacer) filed Friday with U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The report said DOJ's Office of Information Policy finished processing all results located in its initial searches but recently learned that a technical issue may have affected an initial search of email records and it now needs to re-run its email search. It will need at least three months to complete the remedial search and process records retrieved from the search.
Saying AT&T's DirecTV Now virtual MVPD service operates like cable TV, Charter Communications wants 32 Massachusetts franchise areas and Kauai, Hawaii, to be declared effectively competitive, said an FCC docket 12-1 petition Monday. Charter said DirecTV Now satisfies the LEC test by offering comparable video programming service in areas substantially overlapping with Charter's franchise area. Charter said the Massachusetts and Hawaii markets remain subject to regulation even after the 2015 effective competition order because of revised certifications filed by those states after the order. NAB, NATOA and the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities didn't comment.
Beyond just limiting the ability of local franchise authorities to add fees and other requirements that deter broadband deployment, the FCC should consider whether the Permanent Internet Tax Freedom Act bars licensing fees on cable modem services over public rights of way, Citizens Against Government Waste said in a docket 05-311 posting Thursday. In backing the LFA Further NPRM on September's agenda (see 1809050056), CAGW said restricting LFAs' ability to put franchise and fee requirements on non-cable services offered by franchise cable operators will stop those localities "from gaming the system and holding up future broadband deployment."
With the FCC denying the Competitive Enterprise Institute petition for reconsideration of conditions on Charter Communications' buys of Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks (see 1809100048), CEI's petition for writ of mandamus on the recon petition is dismissed as moot, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ordered (in Pacer) Thursday in docket 17-1261.
TiVo added German, Italian and Portuguese language support to a module within its content discovery platform, the company said Wednesday. The platform provides natural-language understanding technology, relevant results and a personalized entertainment experience.
The Competitive Enterprise Institute plans to appeal FCC denial of its petition for reconsideration regarding conditions put on Charter Communications' buys of Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks. In a letter (in Pacer, docket 17-1261) Wednesday to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, CEI agreed with the FCC that the agency's recon petition denial (see 1809100048) moots the writ of mandamus it had filed to force the agency to act on that petition. That agreement "is not a waiver of these standing arguments that will be addressed in a successive appeal," the group said.