Comments are due June 22, replies July 6, on the FCC’s proposal to expand the number of markets in which commercial broadcasters must meet described video requirements (see 2004230046), says Thursday's Federal Register. The item also seeks comment on replacing the term “video description” with “audio description” and doing away with "outdated" references in the text of the rules.
The headline in the May 19 edition about a requested rehearing of a 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision (see 2005180049) should have referred to a market modification, not marked modification.
The Montezuma County, Colorado, Board of Commissioners' satellite TV market modification request for KUSA Denver (see 2004100063) falls short of the requisite evidentiary requirements, the FCC Media Bureau said Monday, dismissing it without prejudice. It invited the county to refile.
VMVPD gains in Q1 from Hulu with Live TV and YouTube TV were erased by declines from Sling TV and AT&T TV Now and Sony’s shuttering of PlayStation Vue in January, Kagan reported. Broadband-delivered services lost 261,000 subscriptions, a 2.8% drop, to 9.2 million. Subs to MVPDs fell 2.4%. In a revised outlook, Kagan noted the “cruel irony” that home isolation should have slowed multichannel defections, but programming interruptions and “ensuing economic turmoil” are expected to “blunt the benefits.” The researcher forecasts an 11% drop in MVPD subs this year, with household penetration under 56% by year-end. Virtual services, which have “narrowed their cord cutter appeal,” will be in less than 10% of occupied households (nearly 11 million) by year-end, it said Friday. Households filling entertainment needs with online-only services are expected to rise to 24.7 million (19%) by Dec. 31.
FCC rules on good-faith negotiation of retransmission consent now allow retrans negotiations between MVPD buying groups and large station groups, said a 5-0 order Wednesday. The buying group draft order, stemming from the TV Viewer Protection Act, went on circulation last month (see 2004100064) ACA Connects said the approval "will benefit both the MVPD members of such buying groups and the broadcasters with whom such buying groups negotiate."
The FCC Public Safety Bureau’s report Tuesday on the 2019 nationwide emergency alert system test shows the test’s largest problem was a failure to retransmit by the source stations that are monitored by other broadcasters (see 1908070074). The simulation “was successful in that it demonstrated that the nationwide broadcast-based EAS distribution system would largely perform as designed, if activated without the availability of the Internet” but also revealed some deficiencies, the report said. More than 2,600 test participants, 13.3%, reported they didn't receive a signal from their monitored sources, the report said. FCC staff found many participants included incorrect information in their filings to the emergency test reporting system, with hundreds of broadcasters giving the wrong EAS designation for their stations. The report showed participation in the test slightly increased to 78.6% from 76.3% in 2018. Radio broadcaster participation improved to 82% from 78.7% and TV increased to 68.2% from 65.5%. Participation by cable systems, IPTV and wireline video systems fell to 73.4% from 76.4%. The report also laid out the bureau's plans to address issues with the test, such as encouraging EAS participants to monitor multiple sources to reduce failures. Due to the complications with monitoring assignments and inaccurate reporting, the bureau will “engage in further analysis of the 2019 test performance” and state EAS plans, the report said. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is also taking steps to improve the test, the document said. “To ensure more accurate origination of national messages, FEMA intends to review and update its alert origination procedures, as well as conduct additional testing.”
President Donald Trump tweeted complaints about Comcast and NBC reporter Chuck Todd at the FCC and Chairman Ajit Pai several times Sunday and Monday, appearing to be urging the agency to take action against Todd or his employers. “He should be FIRED by Concast [sic]. If done by a Republican, would be ‘prosecuted,’” Trump said in one tweet in which he tagged Pai. The tweets appeared to be a response to an NBC segment about Attorney General William Barr. “Sleepy Eyes Chuck Todd should be FIRED by ‘Concast’ (NBC) for this fraud. He knew exactly what he was doing.” said the tweet, before including the twitter handles of Pai and the FCC itself, along with: “Public Airwaves = Fake News!.” Trump has invoked the FCC in tweets against media companies in the past (see 1710110075) but no FCC action apparently has resulted. At the time, Pai said the agency doesn’t have the authority to revoke a broadcaster’s license over the content of a newscast (see 1809040051). “This is not how our rules work,” tweeted Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel. “The FCC doesn't sanction stations for what journalists say.” The commission didn't comment.
Cable’s 600,000 subscriber losses in Q1, down 4% year on year, look “positively gentle” compared with overall traditional pay TV's 1.8 million losses (7.6%), also a record, MoffettNathanson reported. Pay-TV penetration is at 1995 levels, with as many nonsubscribing households as subs in 1988, the analysts said Friday. More distressing is where those customers didn’t go, wrote analyst Craig Moffett. VMVPDs, once viewed as “the last line of defense for cable networks, imploded in Q1,” and Moffett estimates the vMVPD category lost about 341,000 subscribers. Sony’s half a million PlayStation Vue service customers appear to have gone “nowhere” after the service shut down in January; AT&T TV Now, Sling TV and fuboTV lost subs, he said. Disney’s Hulu Live TV appears to “have hit a wall” after price increases, growing by about 100,000, “an abrupt deceleration from their recent torrid growth,” said Moffett. Numbers will drop this quarter, with sports off the air and unemployment taking hold, Moffett said. Combined traditional and vMVPDs subscriptions are shrinking 5.3% yearly, also setting a new low. Q1's sub loss "was hardly a surprise. No one has tried harder to avoid this outcome than ACA Connects and" its MVPD members, emailed the association's spokesperson. "Programmers and broadcasters have only themselves to blame. They demanded untenable rate increases year after year, forcing MVPDs to provide their customers with dozens of programming channels they didn’t want." The cost for "pay TV programming is four times higher than local TV, even though broadcast ratings dwarf that of cable," emailed an NAB spokesperson. He cited SNL Kagan data. NCTA didn't comment on MoffettNathanson's predictions. COVID-19 is stoking the cord-cutting trend, said Moffett, and even the return of sports is unlikely to bring back pay-TV customers who left traditional or vMVPDs. “The underlying causes for the defections are not transitory,” he said, raising the possibility of a “rapid death spiral for the entire category.”
More ViacomCBS networks join the YouTube TV lineup under an agreement announced Thursday: BET, Comedy Central, MTV and others. The deal covers continued carriage of CBS stations and CBS Sports Network, The CW and others.
Content companies alleging video piracy by IPTV service Nitro TV (see 2004060063) got a default judgment against named defendant Alejandro Galindo after he failed to plead or otherwise defend, said a clerk order (in Pacer, docket 20−cv−03129) entered Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles.