Atlanta TV stations available to direct broadcast satellite subscribers in Elbert County, Georgia, under an FCC Media Bureau market modification order Friday, are WSB-TV, WAGA, WXIA and WGCL. Residents of the county east of Atlanta generally have received only North and South Carolina TV stations, it said. The petition was unopposed, it said.

DOJ's reviewing ASCAP and BMI consent decrees (see 1906050060) nearly five years later “is inexplicable in its timing or reason,” Public Knowledge Policy Counsel Meredith Rose said Wednesday. Less than one year from passage of the Music Modernization Act, which presumed the decrees will remain, Justice should “refrain from sweeping changes to the current model” until a new system is in place, she said.

Both Comcast and Rovi are claiming partial victory in an International Trade Commission administrative law judge's initial determination Tuesday on patent violation complaints by Rovi against Comcast. ALJ MaryJoan McNamara said of the three patents, Comcast had infringed on one, one was invalid and Comcast hadn't infringed on the third. Rovi parent TiVo said Wednesday the decision followed a 2017 ITC final ruling on Comcast infringing on Rovi patents for remote record functionality, with Comcast subsequently removing the feature from its products. Comcast in a statement said McNamara's initial determination was a win because there was no violation with two of the patents, and five other patents had been previously withdrawn from the case. It said even if ITC full review later this year on the remaining patent goes against it, a minor modification of a search feature screen should fix that without impacting customers or its business. "We will continue to resist Rovi’s efforts to force Comcast and our customers to make unreasonable payments for aging and obsolete patents," it said. TiVo closed down 6.9 percent Wednesday at $6.93.

Esports, once on the fringe of gaming culture, has “exploded in popularity” in recent years, with major competitions attracting more than 100,000 spectators and streaming channels including Twitch drawing millions of viewers for esports broadcasts, said Futuresource Tuesday. Overall industry revenue is forecast to exceed $900 million this year, with an 18 percent compound annual growth rate to $1.8 billion through 2023. As key events attract viewing numbers comparable to tier 1 sporting competitions, securing exclusivity of major esports events will become important for traditional sports broadcasters and large esports streaming platforms, it said.

The FCC should act quickly on wireless provider C Spire’s retransmission consent complaint against Gray Television, said America's Communications Association President Matthew Polka. The complaint alleges CBS and Gray are preventing C-Spire from airing Gray’s WLOX Biloxi, Mississippi, in the Diamondhead market unless C Spire also pays to retransmit another CBS affiliate, Tegna’s WWL-TV New Orleans. “At issue is whether CBS can force the citizens of Diamondhead to pay for two CBS signals, one of which is of little to no interest to the local community, simply so that citizens can receive the in-state, local and significantly viewed station,” said the complaint. “By forcing the citizens of Diamondhead to watch a CBS affiliate in New Orleans instead, CBS is blocking access to local news and programming for a small rural Mississippi community,” Polka said, calling it third-party interference in retransmission consent negotiations. “The complaint is totally without merit,” emailed Gray Vice President-Government Relations and Distribution Rob Folliard. “Gray bent over backwards to accommodate C-Spire and did everything we could to get our stations on their new system in Diamondhead.” CBS didn’t comment. Retrans also came up Tuesday during a House Communications Subcommittee hearing on renewing the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act (see 1906040057).

Meeting with FCC Media Bureau Chief Michelle Carey, counsel for America's Public TV Stations, PBS and CPB urged elimination of the requirement that qualified noncommercial educational TV stations refile satellite carriage requests every three years since they can only request mandatory carriage anyway, said a docket 17-317 ex parte posting Friday. They said satellite carriage rules for noncommercial stations should follow the cable carriage rules for noncommercial stations. They said noncommercial stations should have to notify MVPDs only if they seek to retract their current mandatory carriage requests or make a new or revised request due to a change in circumstances.

The Alliance for IP Media Solutions (AIMS) is promoting a single set of common, ubiquitous protocols for interoperability over IP in the pro AV industry that’s based on the SMPTE ST 2110 standards suite for video, audio and data transport, it said Friday. The pro AV industry is facing issues the broadcast industry confronted three years ago in transitioning to IP infrastructures and the decision whether to adopt proprietary technologies and closed systems or to unite behind an open standards approach, said David Chiappini, AIMS Pro AV working group chair. An IP technology infrastructure based on open standards “provides the industry with the maximum agility and flexibility to adjust business models, capitalize on new revenue opportunities, and add new capabilities and services without having to constantly rebuild workflows,” Chiappini said.

LG began activating Amazon Alexa voice control in its 2019 TVs that feature artificial intelligence, said the company Wednesday. LG is the only TV brand that comes equipped with the two leading voice control platforms, said Tim Alessi, LG head-home entertainment product marketing. It added Google last year.

NCTA President and TV Parental Guidelines Oversight Monitoring Board (TVOMB) Chairman Michael Powell should adopt FCC recommendations to make the TV ratings system more transparent (see 1905160085), said Parents Television Council President Tim Winter in a letter to Powell released Tuesday. “History suggests the industry members of TVOMB will resist any major efforts to bring greater transparency” and “cherry pick a recommendation or two” to “placate federal officials,” said Winter. “A tweak or two to the system will not suffice.” PTC wants the definition of rating categories independently reviewed, TV public service announcements to educate the public about the system, term limits for board members, digital distributor participation and regular, public ratings board meetings. “It is time for the TV content ratings system to reflect the realities of today’s entertainment media technologies,” Winter said. TVOMB and NCTA didn’t comment.

VMVPD subscriber growth slowed in Q1 to 5.8 percent from the end of Q4 compared with 11.8 percent growth in the year-ago period, Kagan reported Friday. VMVPD subscriptions reached 7.9 million at the end of March, accounting for 8.2 percent of overall video subs, it said. Dish Network's Sling TV and AT&T's DirecTV Now, accounting for 50 percent of vMVPD subscribers, continued to show signs of slowing momentum, with DirecTV Now logging a second straight quarter of negative growth. Combined cable, direct broadcast satellite and telco subscriptions fell by 1.4 million in the quarter, making it the largest single-quarter decline ever for MVPDs, it said. Satellite accounted for the bulk of MVPD declines, as quarterly net losses for DirecTV and Dish approached 1 million, said the researcher. Some 68 percent of U.S. households subscribed to an MVPD service in Q1; adding virtual subscriptions into the mix pushed the number to 75 percent, it said.