The FCC Media Bureau granted a Massachusetts Department of Telecommunications and Cable petition for reconsideration of a previous bureau order finding effective cable competition in the town of Templeton, northwest of Worcester. In the Thursday docket 13-172 order, the bureau said Comcast didn't oppose the recon petition.

Charter Communications is opposing a Massachusetts Department of Telecommunications and Cable (MDTC) request that Charter's petition for determination of effective competition in Massachusetts and Hawaii communities based on the presence of DirecTV Now be held in abeyance. Charter said MDTC's argument about DirecTV Now's declining subscriber numbers relies on information that's both speculative and immaterial because the local exchange carrier test doesn't have a penetration requirement, in a docket 18-283 opposition posted Friday. It said if the FCC grants its petition and DirecTV Now ceases to compete in Hawaii and Massachusetts, those states can seek recertification to regulate it. MDTC in its abeyance petition said minus a turnaround there's no guarantee of DirecTV Now's continued viability. It also said the FCC instead should finalize its proposed changes to basic tier regulation by local franchise authorities (see 1810230037), which could make the Charter petition moot.

Small ISPs are between a rock and a hard place on offering cable TV because it's unlikely to generate a net operating margin, but many subscribers still want traditional cable service and will gravitate to ISPs that can bundle it with broadband, CCG Consulting President Doug Dawson blogged Wednesday. Finances are different for big ISPs that are able to get programming more cheaply, meaning they have wider operating margins so each cable customer adds to the bottom line, he said.

Three 2020 Democratic presidential hopefuls urged FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and DOJ Antitrust Division head Makan Delrahim Tuesday to review Sinclair's buy of 21 regional sports networks and Fox College Sports from Disney (see 1905030059) “and the effects it would have on consumers.” Disney's sale of the sports networks follows their acquisition as part of the buy of most of the assets of 21st Century Fox (see 1901140039). “We are particularly concerned that adding ownership of these [sports networks] to its existing local television stations could allow Sinclair to increase fees on consumers and be used by the company as leverage to allow it to force its partisan political messaging on a larger swath of the American population,” wrote Sens. Cory Booker, D-N.J.; Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.; and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. “It is clear that Sinclair has an explicit interest in, and commitment to, relaying partisan political messages to its viewers -- making its recent anti-competitive expansion attempts into millions of additional households all the more concerning.” Distributors “understand the value of live sports and the limited number of un-bundled live sport streaming options available to consumers leave ‘sports fans ... tethered to their cable bundle,” the senators said. “Therefore, the agreement with Disney offers Sinclair an opportunity to charge consumers more by packaging their cable and broadcast programs.”

Amazon Music launched on Xfinity X1, Comcast said Thursday, the first time the service will be available directly on a TV via a pay-TV provider. It rolls out over the next few weeks for broadband customers and will be accessible alongside live, on-demand and web content, Comcast said. Amazon’s music service is also available on the $5-per-month Xfinity Flex (see 1903210038), Comcast’s recently launched internet-only service that includes a streaming TV box and voice remote. Xfinity X1 and Flex customers can say “Amazon Music” into their voice remote to browse, discover and listen to “millions of songs and thousands of playlists and stations,” it said. Last year, Comcast and Amazon launched Prime Video on X1. Meanwhile, iHeartRadio pushed radio in a Thursday announcement, saying the medium continues to reach more people daily than others, citing an Ipsos study. Broadcast radio reaches 85 percent of consumers, more than other audio channels including social media (68 percent) and live TV (56 percent); it has twice the daily listening of streaming services, reaching 69 percent of consumers vs. streaming music’s 34 percent. Millennials and Gen Z listen the most at more than 18 hours per week and 2.6 hours per day. Most audio listening, 65 percent, is outside the home and 65 percent of that is done in the car. The rise of smart speakers has made radio “more prominent than ever in the home,” it said, with smart speaker owners spending 47 percent more time listening to radio 8-10 p.m. than listeners without smart speakers. The study, done by Ipsos for iHeartMedia in March, surveyed 6,016 consumers 13-64 who listen to at least one audio platform once a week. Podcast listening is up 48 percent among 12-24-year-olds, said iHeartRadio, citing an Edison Infinite Dial study.

Petitioner Comcast and respondents Entertainment Studios Networks and the National Association of African American Owned Media are asking 14 extra days to file opening briefs in the MVPD's Supreme Court appeal regarding litigation alleging the operator had racial animus in programming decisions. The court granted a cert petition for part of Comcast's appeal this month (see 1906100024). Comcast in a docket 18-1171 letter posted Tuesday said it was seeking an Aug. 8 deadline, and the respondents -- consenting to the extension -- wanted a Sept. 23 deadline.

Comcast cable customers can get eye control via the X1 remote, said the company Monday. That lets people with physical disabilities control basic TV functions with eye gazes. "Changing the channel on a TV is something most of us take for granted but until now, it was a near-impossible task for millions,” said Tom Wlodkowski, vice president-accessibility. It works with existing eye gaze hardware and software, sip-and-puff switches and other assistive technologies.

CommScope closed Friday down 3 percent at $15.90 after Raymond James analyst Frank Louthan downgraded it to "outperform," citing expectations Arris will do worse than expected. Commscope closed on its $7.4 billion Arris buy in April (see 1904040054). Louthan said the evolution of cable networks toward virtualized architectures, which began years ago, is hitting an inflection point, while Arris "has been slow to embrace the transition" even as it expects to put out a virtual product. Commscope didn't comment.

NCTA wants the FCC to address unresolved questions about how new broadband mapping programs would collect data in the real world, said a posting in docket 19-126 Friday. USTelecom has a competing proposal through the Broadband Mapping Consortium, which the cable group said wasn't as good as its plan (see 1904150059). Executives from NCTA and Charter Communications, Cox Communications and Midco met Tuesday with 11 officials from the Wireline Bureau and the Office of Economics and Analytics about NCTA's proposal to retire census block reporting in favor of polygon shapefile data (see 1905030060). The FCC should better define areas deemed served by a provider, NCTA said, such as by whether adding a new customer would entail a standard installation or if the location in question would require a network extension at a customer's expense. The association proposes mapping data incorporate crowdsourcing to supplement Form 477 filings, with consumer-reported data, especially on broadband speeds, being verified. It questions whether the FCC should "devote time and money" to creating its own location fabric but suggested it could use data from other federal agencies and not just provider information, and decide how to verify "accuracy of the roughly 150 million locations" cataloged across the country and how such data will be updated as new houses are built and others lost through natural disasters. NCTA wants the FCC to adopt the shapefile proposal at commissioners' Aug. 2 meeting so the new data collection tools can be used in a September 2020 Form 477 filing cycle.

Since the 2008 leased access order being challenged by petitioner NCTA has been vacated, the case should be dismissed, respondent FCC told the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Thursday in a docket 08-3369 filing (in Pacer). The agency order was vacated as part of the leased access report and order adopted at the June 6 meeting (see 19060620029). A June 5 filing by the Leased Access Programmers Association will be associated with, but not part of, the record in the agency's leased access rules update since it came during the sunshine period, the Office of General Counsel said in a public notice In Thursday's Daily Digest.