Charter Communications faces a tougher road than it knows or acknowledges in getting regulatory approval to buy Bright House Networks and Time Warner Cable, BTIG analyst Richard Greenfield said in a note Wednesday. While the White House is particularly focused on promoting broadband competition, the pricing history of Comcast and TWC points to "size/scale ... not leading to the fastest speeds at the lowest prices," Greenfield said. "The government is concerned that new Charter will replicate the behavior of Comcast and Time Warner Cable." Pointing to a transcript of an internal Charter video of a talk between Charter CEO Rob Marcus and TWC CEO Tom Rutledge, Greenfield said Rutledge "appears to completely disagree with President [Barack] Obama, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, the FCC and the [Department of Justice]'s viewpoint that there is no meaningful broadband competition, which creates monopoly power." Post-deal Charter "can complete against the great powers in the world ... the Verizons and the AT&Ts and the Comcast and others," Rutledge said in the chat. "Charter does not appear to appreciate how painful approval will be, if it is even possible," Greenfield said. Comcast withdrew its planned buy of TWC after likely DOJ and FCC opposition. Charter had no immediate comment Wednesday.

Cablevision hopes to block some experts and evidence that Game Show Network claims bolsters its carriage complaint against the cable company. Cablevision motions were posted in docket 12-122 Friday as it sought FCC administrative law judge orders blocking or partially blocking various pieces of evidence. In Cablevision's crosshairs is the testimony of Hal Singer, Navigant Economics' managing director, on his analysis of the profit supposedly given up by Cablevision when it moved GSN in 2011 from its basic cable tier to its Sports & Entertainment tier. Cablevision has argued that the move was for cost savings, with lower affiliate fees. Singer's work "is based on groundless assumptions and flawed methodologies that do not meet the basic legal tests of admissible expert testimony,” Cablevision said in its motion. It said Singer’s calculations about customer churn and lost goodwill were based on assumptions instead of actual data. Four categories of evidence also should be declared inadmissible, Cablevision said: evidence about the alleged similarities of GSN and Cablevision's affiliated networks WE tv and Wedding Central; what Cablevision called hearsay testimony from some GSN witnesses; written testimony that didn’t come from firsthand factual knowledge; and some GSN exhibits. GSN declined to comment Monday. A hearing before FCC Chief ALJ Richard Sippel regarding GSN's complaint is scheduled to commence July 7.

Most of Time Warner Cable's residential video customers will go all digital by year's end, the cable company said Friday. The TWC Maxx program -- a series of broadband and cable upgrades -- was announced in early 2014. So far this year, close to 2.4 million new set-top boxes, digital adapters and new modems have been installed as part of the conversion of analog video to digital, TWC said. Metropolitan areas already converted are New York City, Los Angeles, Austin/Central Texas, Kansas City and Dallas, with Raleigh and Charlotte to be complete before summer's end and San Antonio by year's end. San Diego is to be finished early in 2016, TWC said.

Global over-the-top video service subscription revenue will more than double from nearly $9 billion in 2014 to over $19 billion in 2019, said a Parks Research report Thursday. OTT service penetration among broadband households is 57 percent in the U.S. and U.K., 29 percent in Spain and 24 percent in Germany, said Parks. Some 8.4 million U.S. households, roughly 7 percent, subscribe to broadband and at least one OTT video service but not to pay TV, it said. In other Western countries, comparable rates are 4 percent or less, Parks said, and operators are introducing their own OTT services to appeal to consumers. Citing the “rapid rate of change” in the OTT services market, Director-Research Brett Sappington said, “While operator attempts at TV Everywhere have made little impact, OTT video services are experiencing a boom.” New operators entering the market with their own OTT video services include Bell Canada, Dish Network, Rogers Communications and Sky. “How the industry responds to this change will ultimately affect the fundamental structure of the video industry for years to come," Sappington said.

The application deadline for copyright holders seeking payout of 2013 royalties they're owed by cable companies and satellite carriers is July 6, the Copyright Royalty Board said. The money is collected twice yearly by the Copyright Office for the license to transmit terrestrial TV and radio broadcast signals via cable and satellite. A notice about the deadline and application process for 2013 royalty payments was published in the Federal Register after judges determined "controversies exist" about the distribution, based on previous comments from such organizations as the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, Canadian Broadcasting Corp., Motion Picture Association of America, NBA, NFL, Office of the Commissioner of Baseball and PBS. A CRB notice Thursday publicized the June 5 Federal Register notice.

The FCC should carve out protections from the Telephone Consumer Protection Act for businesses that call wireless numbers that turn out to have been reassigned to someone else, NCTA said in an ex parte notice posted Thursday in docket 02-278. NCTA representatives met with FCC officials to discuss the 1991 TCPA's liability, proposing that if callers find out the numbers they reach aren't the intended recipients, they could take steps to disassociate that phone number from the account or to provide information to the person called on opting out of future calls. "There is no practical way to know that a wireless number has been reassigned," NCTA said, saying it continues to back an FCC declaration that callers aren't liable when autodialed or prerecorded calls are made to wireless numbers that have since been reassigned, under TCPA. The FCC also should clarify that an automatic telephone dialing system's “capacity” is limited to what it can do at the time the call is placed, without modification. Next week, commissioners vote on a draft TCPA declaratory ruling (see 1506030043).

In an effort to create easier access to online help for its customers, Comcast recently redesigned and relaunched its support forums, the company said in a blog post Tuesday. The new forums have updated search engines, improved home page and related content features, and a focus on "peer-to-peer" interaction, it said. Comcast also said the forums will include increased participation by its Digital Care team.

Most Xfinity Voice customers don't want spare batteries for their residential phone service, so the company has opted not to provide them, Comcast said in an ex parte filing posted Tuesday in docket 14-174. FCC staff had asked for information about Comcast's backup battery policy for Xfinity Voice customers, and the company sells them for about $41 for its voice modem, Comcast said. Before February 2013, those batteries were free, and customers were notified when a battery was depleted and needed replacement, the company said. But only 13 percent of customers would follow through and get the replacements, and in 2014 fewer than 1 percent of Xfinity Voice customers bought backups, the company said. "It would be inequitable to require its entire residential voice customer base to support the significant costs of providing backup batteries to all customers when only a small fraction of those customers valued the batteries."

Streaming Showtime is headed to more devices, as the premium channel's new streaming option will be available via Roku and the PlayStation Vue next month, Showtime said Monday. Showtime announced its streaming service earlier this month, saying it would be available initially via Apple products when it starts in July (see 1506030026). The monthly subscription cost, whether on an iPad or via Roku Vue, would be the same at $10.99 a month. Showtime's streaming service follows HBO's April announcement of a similar streaming option.

It’s an “indisputable reality” that the video market has changed “dramatically” since the 1992 Cable Act, said Free State Foundation President Randolph May in a blog post Monday praising FCC adoption of a nationwide rebuttable presumption of cable competition (see 1506040053). “Considering the competition that has existed in the video marketplace for many years, the Commission could have -- and should have -- taken this deregulatory step long ago,” May said. “Deregulatory presumptions” like the FCC rule change are pro-competition and pro-consumer, he said.