Dolby expects the first pay-TV set-top boxes with Dolby Atmos and Vision to hit the market this year, an effort to get more live sports content in each format, said CEO Kevin Yeaman on a call about the quarter ended March 29. Profit rose about 16 percent to $73.4 million from the year-ago quarter, with sales up 13 percent to $338.3 million. Mobile generated 22 percent of revenue; broadcast, 39 percent; among other categories, said Chief Financial Officer Lewis Chew Wednesday evening.
Making clear rights-of-way fees fall under Cable Act's 5 percent cap on franchising fees charged cable operators will free up financial resources for network deployment, Free State Foundation Senior Fellow Seth Cooper blogged Thursday. He said authority to access the rights of way for distributing video content is "inherent" in the cable franchise concept and states and local franchise authorities must be blocked from levying two or more sets of fees as a way of sidestepping Congress' limit.
The latest version of the Altice One operating system includes a sports programming hub and optional voice command, the MVPD said Wednesday. It said the sports hub features an overview of games scheduled for the next 48 hours and the ability to select favorite teams for a customized view.
The Supreme Court will decide May 16 whether to consider related appeals by Comcast and Charter Communications about alleged racial discrimination in their programming decisions (see 1811190023). The court announced Tuesday both cases are to be distributed then (see here and here). In a reply brief Monday, petitioner Comcast repeated its arguments the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversal of a lower court's dismissal of the suit conflicts with other appellate court and Supreme Court decisions about but-for causation and plausibility of claims for relief. But-for causation "remains the 'default' standard today" for Section 1981 federal rights law, Charter said in its reply brief. Outside counsel for respondents Entertainment Studios Networks and the National Association of African American Owned Media didn't comment Wednesday.
Viacom networks will launch on its Pluto TV free streaming service starting May 1, the programmer said Monday. BET, Comedy Central, MTV and Nickelodeon will feature library content. Viacom is rolling out digital-only series for the service.
Cable-TV rule revisions mandating cable operators no longer need maintain a current channel lineup listing at their local office or as part of their online public inspection files are in effect, says Wednesday's Federal Register. Commissioners approved the changes at their April meeting (see 1904120058).
The “pay video service arena is turbulent to say the least,” said Harmonic CEO Patrick Harshman on a Q1 call Monday evening. “We have several large customers who are in the midst of a variety of M&A activities, all fighting ferociously with each other as well as a whole host of new players.” A “dimension” of that competition involves “quality of service,” he said. “Incumbents” and “new players” are making “significant investments in new streaming capabilities,” he said. Quality is “a big deal,” he said. “Consumers more than ever are expecting high-quality services.” Streaming is an “opportunity-rich area,” he said. “You see some of our customers on the defense and some of them are on the offense.” They have “more flexibility than they've ever had to go to market with in this really rapidly changing environment,” he said.
Slipping DirecTV Now subscriber numbers mean it has a penetration level well below the 15 percent needed to constitute effective competition, Hawaii said in an FCC docket 18-283 posting Monday. Online video distributors, regardless of whether affiliated with LECs, don't have the inherent market power telcos do in communities served by that facilities-based infrastructure, it said, so the FCC should make clear Congress intends for its statutory LEC test to apply just to facilities-based video programming offerings of LECs and deny Charter Communications' petition for determination of effective competition. The Massachusetts Department of Telecommunications and Cable, filing in the docket, recapped meetings with aides to all five commissioners at which it said it's not arguing that streaming services can't provide competition to cable, but that DirecTV Now doesn't pass the LEC test for effective competition. It said granting Charter's petition would "provide the elemental framework necessary" to claim all streaming video providers are MVPDs, and broadcasters could put retransmission consent obligations on streaming services and let streamers put nondiscriminatory program access requirements on cable operators. Massachusetts also said the FCC should focus more on the basic cable rates regulation Further NPRM proceeding as a route for easing cable regulatory burdens but without all the regulatory uncertainty. The states have argued against Charter's petition (see 1810260026).
Cable operators won't easily get out of the bundle business, and it won't be until they drop the penalty for canceling video service -- where the price for remaining services in subscribers' bundles go up -- that it's clear they're serious about it, CCG President Doug Dawson blogged Friday. He said the service bundle is likely eventually doomed because profit margins for video are nothing or even negative, due to both programming costs and operational expenses such as service calls to deal with customer complaints about such issues as picture quality.
If Verizon markets YouTube TV at a “meaningful bundled discount,” it could “accelerate subscriber growth” for the streaming video service, which ended 2018 with about 1 million subscribers and raised monthly fees from $35 to $45 to $50 within the past 12 months, BTIG's Richard Greenfield wrote investors Friday. Verizon said Tuesday it's bringing YouTube TV to customers across platforms this year. Greenfield cited Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg saying the provider wants to focus on the network, platform and integration but not invest in a TV platform or content. He touted Verizon’s distribution, network and brand for being able to attract partnerships like Google’s with YouTube TV. “Time will tell how serious Verizon is about marketing YouTube TV,” said Greenfield, but if it does push hard, pay attention, because its marketing muscle could “make a huge dent” in a 5 million subscriber threshold required for Google to impact the overall broadcast-cable ecosystem. He imagined YouTube TV having enough future clout to win rights to something as high-profile as NFL Sunday Ticket, which AT&T/DirecTV owns through 2022. YouTube TV’s recent price hike “gave us pause,” said the analyst, who believes there’s more to Google’s strategy than being “just another distributor of the bloated legacy bundle.” He believes Google finds a way to scale the service to where it can have leverage. YouTube TV provides “one area of consumer data Google is missing today,” said Greenfield. It also gives Google a route to the access TV ad spending, which Greenfield pegged at $70 billion in the U.S.; the ability to mingle YouTube content with linear TV content; and an opportunity to "replace Nielsen’s antiquated measurement standard.”