Dish Network customers in the U.S. Virgin Islands should be able to view their PBS affiliate instead of a station from Puerto Rico, FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn said in a blog post Monday. “While I cannot compel carriage of WTJX as an FCC Commissioner, I do believe it is the right thing to do.” Dish carries PBS station WMTJ out of Puerto Rico in lieu of WTJX-TV Charlotte Amalie, Puerto Rico, Clyburn said. “Geographically, Puerto Rico is just over 100 miles from the Virgin Islands, but make no mistake they are very different communities, not to mention that they have a different dominate [sic] language.” Because the Virgin Islands isn't in a Nielsen designated market area, WTJX can’t use must carry or retransmission consent to get carriage on satellite providers, Clyburn said. “We owe it to the people of the Virgin Islands to ensure they have access to local public broadcasting, just as those living in the continental United States, Hawaii, and parts of Alaska have come to expect and I call on the powers that be to make it happen, now.” Dish didn’t comment.

The FCC Media Bureau rejected a complaint by a pair of Pennsylvania broadcasters that Campus Televideo (CTV) is reselling DirecTV signals without consent (see 1610040027). In a memorandum opinion and order Thursday in docket 16-246, the bureau said DirecTV -- and not CTV -- retransmits Erie's WSEE-TV and WICU-TV to nearby Edinboro University for distribution, with CTV only acting as DirecTV's sales agent. Any retransmission consent or network non-distribution rules complaint by station licensees Lilly Broadcasting of Pennsylvania License Subsidiary and SJL of Pennsylvania License Subsidiary "should be directed against DirecTV and not its sales agent," the bureau said. The broadcasters didn't comment.

TV networks are increasingly creating programming in which teenagers and children use "overtly sexualized and adult language," said a Parents Television Council news release on a PTC study. Between February and May, PTC found kids and teens on TV used bleeped expletives and sexual words such as "'erections,' 'boobs,' 'penis,' 'masturbating, 'nymphomaniac,' 'ass,' and more," the release said. PTC found that ABC had the most instances of children saying expletives and sexualized words, "with 81 instances of profanity and 42 instances of sexual dialogue." Fox had the second most, the study said. Neither network commented. “Historically, such instances of child-delivered vulgarity were few and far between," PTC President Tim Winter said. "This type of language can lead to sexual objectification of females and other undesirable outcomes.” Winter told us Monday that he wants the FCC to handle outstanding indecency complaints and review the content ratings system (see 1611140055).

NAB, NCTA and MPAA visited the FCC last week to lobby for more relaxed video description rules than were previewed in the NPRM on the subject, according to filings in docket 11-43. The groups met with aides to Chairman Tom Wheeler and Commissioners Jessica Rosenworcel, Ajit Pai and Mike O’Rielly, according to ex parte filings. The draft item is seen as very close to the NPRM (see 1611020059), and includes increases to the amount of description required and number of companies that must provide the service, and a “no backsliding rule.” All three associations said the FCC lacked the authority to increase the requirements to the degree suggested in the NPRM, and trumpeted industry’s existing video description efforts. Without more flexible rules, “MPAA members and other networks may find it challenging to meet the new 87.5-hour threshold,” the association said. The FCC proposals go beyond what Congress intended, said NCTA. “The record contains only a scant few anecdotal compliments of video description, and is utterly devoid of any data or survey of actual consumer use,” said NAB. The item is set for a vote at Thursday's commissioners' meeting.

Harmonic is “finally seeing real signs of life" for Ultra HD and high-dynamic-range “channel deployments” among major pay-TV providers, CEO Patrick Harshman said on an earnings call. “Although coming slower than we had originally anticipated, a maturing ecosystem, new channel launches and growing television sales and consumer interest and continuous innovation in video quality and bandwidth efficiencies are all now coming together, giving us confidence the global trend of Ultra HD and HDR adoption is finally arriving,” he said Wednesday. “Despite the late arrival of 4K, Harmonic continues to invest in enabling R&D and ecosystem integration work, and consequently we are well positioned to take advantage of the 4K wave.”

Tuesday night's presidential election coverage was the largest single news event Akamai ever streamed, the company said in a news release Wednesday. “Live video streaming traffic specific to the election peaked at 7.5 Tbps on the Akamai Platform shortly before midnight Eastern Time on Tuesday, November 8th, eclipsing previous news events, and placing it among the highest video traffic peaks for any individual event delivered by Akamai.” Traffic on its network during the 2004 presidential election coverage peaked at 21 Gbps, while the 2009 Obama inauguration reached 1.1 Tbps and the 2011 British royal wedding hit 1.3 Tbps, it said. The first 2016 presidential debate peaked at 4.4 Tbps, Akamai said. “Not only are more people watching online in general, they’re watching at higher quality, which contributes to the increasingly higher peaks in traffic that we’re observing,” said General Manager of Media Bill Wheaton.

Virtual reality motion sickness, a topic at the Society of Motion Picture and TV Engineers conference (see 1610270023), came up in 60-plus patents granted over 20 years, our search at the Patent and Trademark Office found. New applications on cures and prevention are being filed. Disney, Hughes, Intel, Kodak, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Microsoft, Mitsubishi, Olympus, Philips, Panasonic and Raytheon are among those getting patents. A Kodak patent from 2010 (US 8594381) described motion sickness as “a significant obstacle for users of immersive and virtual reality systems and head-mounted displays, limiting their widespread adoption despite their advantages in a range of applications in gaming and entertainment ... and augmented reality.” A wide range of VR technologies can cause motion sickness, said two 1994 Disney patents (US 6007338 and 5551920). Causes of VR motion sickness are “various,” said a Sony application published by PTO in August (2016/0246057).

Dish Network is predicting Hillary Clinton will win the presidency and the House will remain in GOP hands. In a news release Monday, Dish pointed to its predictive model, based on customer viewership data from Internet-connected set-top boxes. Dish said the model used the relationship between programs Dish customers watched in 2014 with the state-by-state outcomes of the 2014 House elections as well as the relationship between House party control and presidential party affiliation historically, and that, when tested against 2014 House elections, called results at a 98 percent reliability point. The company said its modeling showed Republicans taking 245 of the 435 House seats, giving Democrats a two-seat gain.

DirecTV's claims that Campus Television is just its sales agent and third-party biller don't clear up what precisely is CTV's role in delivering video programming -- including two Erie, Pennsylvania, broadcasters' signals -- to nearby Edinboro University, Lilly Broadcasting of Pennsylvania License Subsidiary and SJL of Pennsylvania License Subsidiary said in a filing Friday in docket 16-246. The two are the licensees, respectively, of WSEE-TV Erie and WICU-TV Erie and are pursuing a complaint with the FCC alleging CTV is reselling DirecTV signals without consent (see 1610040027). CTV "has asserted a wide range of roles" regarding video content delivery to Edinboro end users, Lilly/SJL said. The licensees also said the retransmission agreement with DirecTV doesn't give the direct broadcast satellite company right to retransmit the TV stations' signals to Edinboro on a bulk-billed basis, though DirecTV in a filing last month indicated it provides bulk programming services to the college. Lilly/SJL also asked the Media Bureau to continue an investigation and take action to ensure they receive compensation for the stations' retransmission to the college. DirectTV parent AT&T and CTV didn't comment Monday.

The FCC should impose conditions on Nexstar's buy of Media General, including third-party oversight of retransmission consent agreements, said representatives of Dish Network, ITTA and the American Cable Association in a meeting Friday with Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake, Video Division Chief Barbara Kreisman and bureau staff, according to an ex parte filing in docket 16-57. The deal will “increase Nexstar’s ability to harm consumers by raising retransmission consent fees and causing blackouts in the conduct of retransmission consent negotiations,” and will trigger clauses in existing retrans agreements with Media General stations that will raise their rates to Nexstar's levels, ITTA, Dish and ACA said. “The triggering of after-acquired station clauses is, by definition, a merger-specific harm as, but for the merger, the clauses would not be operative.” To keep Nexstar from abusing the new scale granted by the transaction, the FCC should impose conditions similar to AT&T/DirecTV, the entities said. The agency should use an independent third party to oversee retrans agreements and merger conditions, and include a periodic reporting requirement, the filing said. “The goal of this compliance program is to relieve [multichannel video programming distributors] of some of the burden of policing Nexstar’s behavior postmerger.”