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.

The FCC said it received prohibited written presentations in the local franchise authority proceeding in which commissioners at Aug. 1 adopted an order on franchise fee definitions and LFAs' ability to levy them on non-cable services over cable infrastructure (see 1908010011). The seven presentations in docket 05-311 were from Massachusetts, Oregon and Arkansas communities, Maryland's Montgomery College and individuals, said a public notice Monday, saying presentations to decision-makers are generally not allowed from the day after release of the meeting's sunshine agenda until the text of the item is issued. The presentations "will be associated with, but not made part of the record," it said.

The cable industry hopes for at least incremental improvements in the retransmission consent regime via the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act reauthorization that Congress likely will act on later this year, said America's Communications Association Chairman Patricia Jo Boyers in the latest ACA Connects podcast, released Thursday. She said bigger hopes are tied to the Modern TV Act (HR-3994) and the possibility of its repeal of the retrans regime. She said what's spent on retrans cuts into what ISPs can spend on extending or upgrading their networks. "It's real for me," said Boyers, the president of Boycom Vision.

The cable industry continues "to whine, bitch, moan and complain like little children" about the supposed burden of cable leased access rules yet "happily" takes money for providing that leased access, said the Leased Access Programmers Association (LAPA) in a docket 07-42 posting Tuesday. Cable operators say leased access rules violate their First Amendment rights, but the Constitution doesn't give "the right to big business to control what the media may choose to disseminate or not to disseminate to the American public," LAPA said. It said the FCC's eliminating the requirement cable operators offer leased access on a part-time basis (see 1906060029) leaves most programmers without options since they can't afford to pay for a full-time channel. It said cable operators never presented evidence they were losing money by offering part-time access.

Comcast is boosting eligibility of its Internet Essentials program of broadband access for low-income subscribers, with new criteria opening it up to an estimated 3 million more households in its footprint, the company said Tuesday. It said about 7 million households now are eligible, and 2 million households have signed up since it launched the program in August 2011. It's adding as eligible applicants who are participating in one of a variety of government assistance programs such as Medicaid, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and Supplemental Security Income, it said. The Free State Foundation applauded the move.

The FCC Media Bureau rejecting beIN Sports' Comcast carriage complaint (see 1907020056) instead of referring it to an administrative law judge was an unprecedented departure from agency precedent "and offends the Constitution," the programmer said Friday in a docket 18-384 emergency application asking the agency to review the bureau order. The FCC didn't comment. In the redacted filing, beIN said the bureau finding that Comcast's carriage decision had legitimate commercial reasons didn't give it any opportunity for discovery and accepted Comcast's position based on beIN's not providing evidence that could be obtained only through discovery. It also said Comcast actions run contrary to that company's assertions about making its decision not to carry beIN due to business considerations.