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.

Newsmax relies on its over-the-top streaming video feed to reach Charter Communications subscribers who don't watch its traditional linear video feed, and ending the data cap and interconnection conditions on Charter from the Time Warner Cable/Bright House Networks purchases will hurt the network's chances of reaching them while giving Charter more gatekeeping power. That according to Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy in a phone call with FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, said a docket 16-197 ex parte posting Monday. Ruddy also said Charter submitted a new economic declaration containing information that should have been provided as part of the cabler's initial FCC petition to have the conditions dropped, and there should be a comment period on the declaration. And he repeated Newsmax arguments that Charter's petition was put on public notice months too early (see 2007090009).

ACA Connects, saying it might sue, asked the FCC to change staff's lump sum C-band payment determination. The commission’s C-band order requires the payout to include the estimated expense of “necessary changes that will allow the earth stations to receive C-Band services on new frequencies or from new satellites” after relocation, ACA noted. The Wireless Bureau determination "violated that directive by excluding the cost of integrated receivers/decoders" that earth stations "undisputedly" require to continue getting such service, said an application for review of staff's July 30 public notice (see 2007300053). "The Bureau’s lump-sum determination was also arbitrary and capricious and involved prejudicial procedural error," said the AFR posted in docket 18-122 Friday. ACA wants the agency to stay the Aug. 31 lump-sum election deadline. That would "give earth station owners adequate time to demonstrate -- in court, if necessary -- that the" bureau finding was inconsistent with the order, "was developed in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act’s public-notice and disclosure requirements," and had other shortcomings, said an ACA release Friday. Commission spokespeople didn't comment.

Charter Communications' interconnection market power seems to have increased since its buy of Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks, so the FCC's finding in approving that deal that Charter would be able to extract excessive interconnection fees is still true, Incompas officials told an aide to Commissioner Geoffrey Starks, said a docket 16-197 ex parte posting Wednesday. Incompas said the flourishing online video distribution market makes it even more likely Charter would extract access fees if the TWC/BHN merger conditions were lifted as Charter asks (see 2006180050). It said the FCC should gather more evidence about how the interconnection market has been affected by conditions on Charter and on AT&T/Time Warner, and by FCC oversight of interconnection agreements during the net neutrality regime. Charter didn't comment.

Amid shelter-in-place mandates, the largest U.S. pay-TV providers lost about 1.2 million net video subscribers, with Q2 the sixth consecutive quarter of one million-plus net losses. That compares with a net loss of about 2.1 million in Q1 and 1.3 million in the year-ago quarter, said a Wednesday Leichtman Research Group report. Comcast lost 478,000 video subscribers and Cox 50,000; Charter bucked the trend with 94,000 net adds. DirecTV shed 846,000 subs and Dish 40,000. Cable lost half a million video subscribers vs. 455,000 in Q2 2019; top telco providers lost 157,000 vs. 95,000 in Q2 2019, led by Verizon Fios with 80,000 cancellations. Among vMVPD services, Hulu+ Live TV added 100,000 net subscribers while Sling TV and AT&T Now dropped 56,000 and 68,000 subs, it said. Though the pay-TV industry continues to lose subscribers “rapidly,” the wide disparity among top providers in Q2 shows "the significance of individual corporate strategies,” said Bruce Leichtman.

The return of live sports may temporarily reduce pressure on the cord-cutting cycle of fewer subscribers resulting in higher prices, but another wave of cord cutting "more damaging than the first," may be coming, MoffettNathanson's Craig Moffett wrote investors Wednesday. As people leave traditional pay TV for direct-to-consumer alternatives, the best content follows them, thus helping accelerate cord cutting, he said. The current rate of cord-cutting is 7.7%-8.3% a year, up from 5.4% last year, meaning the traditional pay-TV bushiness could disappear in 12 years, he said. Cord cutting is exploding, but some dropping of cable subscriptions may only be temporary due to the pandemic, CCG Consulting President Doug Dawson blogged Wednesday. Sports "will eventually come back to TV," and sports fans will re-up their subscriptions, he said. As the economy picks up, people also will find it easier to justify the monthly cable subscription, he said. The pandemic's shutdown of creation of new programming content also is hurting subscriptions for now, he said.