Comcast Advertising announced the AudienceXpress brand, which allows U.S. advertisers to buy TV advertising on an audience basis across broadcast, cable, digital and connected TV. Comcast's FreeWheel team will come under the AudienceXpress brand, said the company. The offering includes the ability to measure and report on campaigns in “near real time”; integration with major MVPDs; use of aggregated Comcast viewership data, along with first- and third-party data; and incremental reach and attribution.

Charter Communications and Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey (D) asked U.S. District Judge Jon Levy of Portland to grant judgment in the state's favor in Charter's challenge of the state's cable TV rate prorating law, per a proposed final judgment Thursday (docket 1:20-cv-00168). The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in January reversed Levy's finding that the Cable Act preempted the state law (see 2201040072).

Charter Communciations' "all-in" price claims for its Spectrum Mobile service are supported, but it should drop its disparaging claim that AT&T deceives consumers about its wireless service pricing, the Better Business Bureau's National Advertising Division (NAD) said Tuesday. AT&T challenged the Charter TV ad. NAD said Charter indicated it would comply with the recommendations, though it disagreed with some of the findings. Charter didn't comment.

Cable ISPs dissuading consumers from using their own equipment such as modems, often by not troubleshooting subscribers' service disruptions when those modems are used, results in a de facto requirement that consumers rent equipment they would prefer to own, Consumer Reports (CR) said in docket 21-501 Tuesday. Reply comments were due Monday on Television Viewer Protection Act implementation. The cable industry said results of TVPA implementation were mixed (see 2202040055). CR said the FCC should investigate such modem rental tactics. It said the law's requirement that providers inform customers of the total price with all fees included "is a step towards greater transparency," and helps people understand the service's true cost rather than advertised rates, which often don't include taxes, surcharges and fees. Nexstar disputed ACA Connects claims that it and the National Cable TV Cooperative didn't reach terms on a retransmission consent agreement because the broadcaster wanted to limit the size of NCTC members participating in any agreement. ACA didn't comment.

Following sale last year of five of its 19 markets (see 2111010005) and using proceeds to pay down debt, WideOpenWest now is focused on growth and expanding its footprint, Chief Financial Officer John Rego said in a Raymond James investor conference Monday. He said it “would be really difficult” to sell more markets. He said beyond the previously announced expansions into Seminole and Orange counties in Florida (see 2202240012), WOW will announce this year at least one other "greenfield" expansion into an area where it doesn't currently operate. He said WOW's growth focus is on such greenfield overbuilding, as well as edge-outs of its network into adjacent territory and more commercial enterprise services. WOW used to spend $30 million to $40 million a year on edging out, but that nosedived to $5 million during the COVID-19 pandemic, he said. Most new residential connections are taking 500 Mbps or higher, he said. Numerous customers moved to higher speed tiers during the pandemic, and it isn't anticipated many will level back down as they start returning to the office, he said. WOW's partnership with Reach Mobile on offering WOW-branded mobile service (see 2202220045) is a way of giving WOW a new product bundle for reducing churn as well as a means of testing mobile "to see if it's something we want to go deeper into," Rego said.

Both Charter Communications and music labels suing it for contributory copyright infringement clearly lost, deleted or otherwise didn't preserve data and documents relevant to the case, said U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael Hegarty. Citing that "practical equilibrium," Hegarty in a recommendation Monday (docket 19-cv-00874) said Charter should be precluded from disputing the "numerosity of the infringement notices" during the upcoming trial, and the plaintiffs should be allowed to put on evidence that the lost Charter Abuse Tracking System data hinders their ability to how the revenue earned from repeat copyright infringers. He said Charter should be allowed to introduce evidence of missing forensic information for purposes of contesting how much the jury should accept the labels' proof of copyright infringement by Charter customers.

Cable One will end its 100 Mbps broadband tier this spring and migrate all customers to its 200 Mbps tier, raising their bill by $5 per month, CEO Julie Laulis said in a quarterly earnings call Thursday. Twenty-two percent of its residential customers have 100 Mbps speeds now, she said. Nearly 80% of new customers choose tiers of 200 Mbps or higher, she said. Chief Financial Officer Steven Cochran said as part of its increased broadband focus it will unwind its bulk video offerings to places like hotels and condominium buildings, eliminating time and resources spent on an unprofitable product offering.

WideOpenWest will spend $40 million over the next two to three years on extending its fiber network to parts of Orange County, Florida, CEO Teresa Elder said during a call Thursday announcing its latest quarterly results, in addition to $60 million it will spend over the next two to three years on fiber expansion to greenfield areas of Seminole County, Florida, announced earlier this month. Elder said the Orange County focus will be on the northern suburbs rather than the Orlando metro area. Chief Financial Officer John Rego said construction should start in the second half of this year, with the first Greenfield customers expected to come in early 2023. He said the two projects combined will take its network past 100,000 new homes. WOW said it ended 2021 with revenue from continuing operations of $725.7 million, down $45 million. It said it finished the year with 511,700 high-speed data subscribers, up 12,900 year over year. It said broadband generated $399.1 million for the year, up $40.1 million from 2020. Rego said that partially offset year-over-year declines in video and telephony revenue of 13% and 12.1%, respectively. WOW stock closed at $16.96, down 3.8%.

WideOpenWest is partnering with Reach Mobile to offer Reach mobile service to WOW subscribers, WOW said Tuesday. The partnership includes discounts to WOW data customers who buy Reach/WOW mobile, and bundling mobile service with WOW broadband.

The Supreme Court denied Eugene, Oregon's petition for a writ of certiorari on the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision upholding part of the FCC's cable TV local franchise authority order (see 2111010048), it said Tuesday in SCOTUS docket 21-661.