Altice closed on its $200 million acquisition of news company Cheddar (see report, May 1), it said Thursday. It said Cheddar founder and CEO Jon Steinberg will be president of Altice News, overseeing Cheddar, News 12 and i24News. Altice CEO Dexter Goei said the deal is a big step toward being "a news leader by offering a full range of hyperlocal, national, business and international news across digital, mobile and linear TV formats."

The leased access item on Thursday's FCC agenda (see 1905160066), with its Further NPRM seeking comment on whether changes in technology and the distribution market left those rules on shaky First Amendment ground, "rightly gives due respect" to free speech interests burdened by these rules, Free State Foundation Senior Fellow Seth Cooper blogged Wednesday. He has argued for years that the rationale for leased access rules no longer holds.

Comcast investors rejected a shareholder-brought proposal that would require the company annually prepare a lobbying report that includes its lobbying policies and spending and its membership in any organization that writes model legislation, at its annual shareholder meeting Wednesday, the company said Wednesday. They also voted against a shareholder proposal for an independent board chairman instead of a joint CEO/chairman. The board recommended "no" votes on both. Such communications industry shareholder proposals typically face an uphill battle (see 1706140023).

Universal Electronics Inc. CEO Paul Arling considered hypothetical solutions at a Tuesday investor conference in response to analyst questions on the company’s plans for manufacturing in light of the Trump administration’s plans to impose tariffs next week on goods brought in from Mexico. UEI was “a little surprised -- unpleasantly surprised” to hear of Donald Trump's plan for tariffs on goods imported from Mexico (see 1905310033) with the company in the midst of moving “a good percentage” of manufacturing from China to a facility in Monterrey, Mexico, Arling said. The company has historically produced goods such as remote controls in China, but it began last year shifting “nearly half of our units” out of China because “we do not wish to absorb a 25 percent increase; nor do our customers.” On how UEI plans to respond to Mexican imports, set to kick in at 5 percent Monday and rise incrementally to 25 percent in October, Arling said, “we’re going to play that by ear.” He referenced the company’s past efforts to find production locations “other than China,” listing the Philippines, where it has some operations, and Vietnam as options. It took six months to move from China to Mexico, Arling said. UEI looked at opening a factory in the U.S. “a few years back” but decided “you’d be so cost uncompetitive that you wouldn’t be able to compete -- you wouldn’t even be close on price,” Arling said.

President Donald Trump raised the idea of an AT&T boycott, to influence CNN coverage. "It is so unfair with such bad, Fake News!," he tweeted Monday, saying "if people stoped [sic] using or subscribing" to AT&T, it "would be forced to make big changes" at CNN. "Why wouldn't they act," he said. AT&T didn't comment.

Some 74 percent of U.S. TV households have at least one internet-connected device, such as smart TVs, streaming sticks, set-top boxes, connected videogame systems and connected Blu-ray players, reported Leichtman Research Group Friday. That’s similar to last year’s penetration and up 5 points from 2017, LRG said. Fifty percent of TV households have at least one stand-alone streaming device, up from 40 percent two years ago. Thirty-one percent of adults in U.S. TV households watch video daily on a TV via a connected device vs. 25 percent two years ago, 11 percent in 2014 and 1 percent in 2010. Among adults with a pay-TV service, 25 percent watch video via a connected device daily vs. 49 percent of consumers who don’t subscribe to pay-TV.

The argument Charter Communications is complicit in copyright infringement due to piracy by its internet subscribers "stretches vicarious liability beyond the breaking point," it said in a motion to dismiss the vicarious liability claim (in Pacer, docket 19-cv-00874) filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Denver. It said the music label and publisher plaintiffs' contributory infringement claim also will fail since they can't prove direct infringement of their copyrights but that it was challenging only vicarious liability in the motion. It said the vicarious liability claim lacks any plausible allegation Charter directly saw financial benefit from the alleged infringing activity or that it can control that alleged infringement since it can't monitor and control its subscribers' internet use. Outside counsel for the music industry plaintiffs didn't comment Wednesday. Some of the same plaintiffs suing Charter (see 1903250004) also are suing cable ISPs Grande Communications (see 1802080001) and Cox Communications (see 1808020009).

That cable and telecom combined surpasses any other U.S. industry in level of infrastructure investment comes as "no surprise," NCTA blogged Tuesday, citing a Progressive Policy Institute report showing that sector eclipsing such others as internet/technology and utility/energy distribution. NCTA said that spending -- more than $290 billion over the past 20 years -- reflects ISPs' work to improve their networks' speeds and capacities, and 10 GB means "more transformation is yet to come." Telecom/cable capital expenditures were $54 billion in 2017, up 4.6 percent from 2016, while internet/technology capex was $46 billion, a 16 percent increase.

ALLVanza is making its way across the FCC's eighth floor, urging commissioners to look into routes to lowering the 5 percent franchise cap on fees charged to cable ISPs, according to a docket 17-108 ex parte posting Friday recapping a meeting between CEO Rosa Mendoza and Commissioner Mike O'Rielly. It also championed NCTA's broadband mapping plan. The group had similarly met with Commissioner Brendan Carr (see 1905200039).

Charter Communications wants until July 3 to oppose Minnesota’s petition for writ of certiorari at the Supreme Court in a case about whether the state may regulate interconnected VoIP (see 1905010191). Respondents’ brief is due June 3, but Charter expects amicus briefs will be filed in support of the petition, and the company needs extra time to consider those arguments, said Charter counsel Ian Gershengorn in a Wednesday letter to the court.