The FCC asked some follow-up questions of proponents of the pay-TV backed set-top-box proposal, pay-TV officials and an agency official told us. The questions are part of a recent spate of meetings and calls with stakeholders about the proposal, the officials said. Proponents of the pay-TV plan are expected to provide answers to the questions before the end of this week, officials said. The list of questions included queries about whether the licensing agreement for pay-TV apps would allow programmer apps to be included in the universal search function on an equal basis, and whether the pay-TV apps involved would be able to be used on different devices and operating systems. Microsoft visited the FCC and met with Chief Technologist Scott Jordan and Media Bureau staff July 18 on set-top matters connected with licensing agreements, said an ex parte filing. Some of the language in the FCC Unlock the Box set-top plan would interfere with Microsoft's Play Ready content licensing system, said the filing posted Thursday in docket 16-42. Earlier questions from the FCC on the pay-TV plan had led officials on both sides of the issue to say the alternative, the Ditch the Box plan, had momentum (see 1607110042).

DTS:X tools for digital media content professionals will be available worldwide the first week of August through the company’s website and via its authorized distribution partners, Jargon Technologies and Scenarist, DTS said in a news release Wednesday. It said the software-based tools enable professionals to create DTS:X immersive audio streams for Blu-ray Disc, Ultra HD Blu-ray and streaming media. Tuesday, the company said it and Paramount are releasing the first titles on Blu-ray with DTS:X object-based immersive audio.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit shouldn’t rule on FilmOn X’s appeal of a lower court decision denying it a compulsory license until after the 9th Circuit decides a similar FilmOn X case in California, the streaming video company argued in an appellant brief (in Pacer) filed Monday. Oral argument in the California case, which also concerns FilmOn X’s right to a compulsory copyright license, is scheduled for Aug. 4. Though it wants the D.C. Circuit to wait, FilmOn also asked the court to reverse the lower court ruling and to disregard the opinion of the Copyright Office. “Not only do the Office’s informal and inconsistent policy opinions fall short of formal rulemaking, they reflect open hostility to the compulsory copyright licensing regime Congress Established,” FilmOn X said.

Fifteen Meredith-owned local stations in 11 markets faced a blackout on Dish Network, to have started Saturday, with the companies yet to agree on a carriage agreement, said Meredith. Dish didn't comment Friday.

Some of the conditions suggested for a joint NCTA/American Cable Association FCC petition for approval to email customers such information as instructions and services offered would make electronic notification more burdensome and actually undermine the benefits sought in the petition and should be rejected, NCTA/ACA said in a joint filing Friday in docket 16-126. The petition drew a variety of suggested conditions (see 1606130028). "Most problematic" is an opt-in consent requirement before cable operators could send notices electronically, since cable operators already have that and the point of the petition was for Media Bureau approval to not have opt-in consent, the two said. Seeking and obtaining individual opt-in consent from customers runs contrary to the paperwork-saving benefits of the petition, they said, adding the FCC hasn't required opt-in consent for other electronic notifications to customers, such as annual backup power notices. They said they agree with a collection of local governments that the emailed version include a route for opting out. But NCTA/ACA said the bureau needn't specify that route "so long as the option chosen is readily available and not difficult to exercise." They said local governments' suggestion cable operators be banned from selling or marketing with those customer email addresses would be superfluous: "There is no basis -- and no history of email abuse -- to support these conjectural concerns." They also said use of customer email addresses already is regulated. NCTA/ACA said some suggested clarifications are unobjectionable -- for example, a requirement that customers can withdraw their consent at any time, as suggested by NATOA and Minnesota Association of Community Telecommunications Administrators; or the local governments' suggestion for what would constitute a "verified email address."

Sky promises the U.K.’s “most comprehensive Ultra HD service” on Sky Q Silver when it launches the service Aug. 13, the entertainment company said in a Thursday announcement. It requires a subscription and a Sky Q Silver set-top box, Sky said.

NCTA, which has had concerns about a Globalstar broadband plan, discussed those issues with an aide to FCC Commissioner Mike O'Rielly, joined by an executive at Charter Communications. A two-sentence ex parte filing posted Tuesday in docket 13-213 said the cable representatives and Justin Lilley of TeleMedia Policy Corp. last week discussed with the aide what the document said was described in a filing last month in the docket. In that earlier filing, NCTA with Cox Enterprises met with the aide to say "open questions about interference caused by Globalstar warranted additional investigation." The cable representatives said then (see 1606070044) that issuing special temporary authority for Globalstar's technology and joint testing that CableLabs had proposed would be better than a pending draft order. O'Rielly and Commissioner Mignon Clyburn didn't initially vote on the order about the company's terrestrial low-power system (see 1606240056). Globalstar didn't comment Wednesday.

Twitter will live-stream the GOP and Democratic national conventions under a partnership with CBS News, the companies said in a news release Monday. Twitter will present video of the entire convention alongside tweets related to the event. Twitter and CBS News previously partnered for two presidential debates during the recent primaries.

Warner Bros. Home Entertainment settled FTC allegations for allegedly not telling customers it paid online "influencers ... thousands of dollars" to post positive videos on social media sites like YouTube to promote the videogame Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor, said the commission Monday in a news release. Commissioners voted 3-0 to issue an administrative complaint and accept the proposed consent agreement, which will be published in the Federal Register soon and available for public comment through Aug. 10. The consent order said Warner Bros. must "make such disclosures in the future and cannot misrepresent that sponsored content, including gameplay videos, are the objective, independent opinions of video game enthusiasts or influencers," the release said. In 2014, the company's ad agency Plaid Social Labs hired online influencers "to develop sponsored gameplay videos" and post them on YouTube, and promote them on Facebook and Twitter -- videos that were viewed more than 5.5 million times, the FTC said. It said Felix Kjellberg, who's known by his YouTube alias "PewDiePie," alone garnered more than 3.7 million views. The company paid influencers anywhere "from hundreds to tens of thousands of dollars," provided a free game in advance and instructed them to promote it "in a positive way and not disclose any bugs or glitches they found," the commission said. Not only did Warner Bros. fail to disclose it paid influencers, but the FTC alleged the company didn't tell influencers "to include sponsorship disclosures clearly and conspicuously in the video itself where consumers were likely to see or hear them." Instead, the influencers were told to post disclosures in a box below the video -- less likely to be seen by consumers, the commission said. In an emailed statement, Warner Bros. said it "always strives to be transparent with our customers and fans when working with social influencers, and we are committed to complying with the related FTC guidelines."

Charter Communications is distributing Univision content under the terms of a Time Warner Cable contract that should end Dec. 31 but that Charter insists runs through June 2022, Univision said in a lawsuit filed Friday in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan. The suit asks for a declaratory judgment that its agreement with Charter expired June 30, its TWC agreement ends as of Dec. 31, and the license fees in Univision's TWC agreement apply only to the legacy TWC system and only through the end of this year. According to Univision, it tried to talk contract renewal terms with Charter before the May close of its TWC and Bright House Networks acquisitions but was rebuffed. The broadcaster alleged that after the TWC/BHN takeover, Charter said it was electing to distribute Univision programming across its combined Charter/TWC system under the terms of the TWC agreement until June 2022 and under the fee terms of that agreement. Univision said a multiple-system operator acquisition clause in its Charter contract should terminate its TWC agreement at the end of this year. Univision said Charter "rested [its] claims upon the blatant fiction that TWC -- and not the pre-Acquisition Charter team running New Charter -- now 'manages' all of those cable systems." In a statement Friday, Charter said it has a long-term contract with Univision "and we expect them to honor it.”