Mediacom spelled out specifics on how a cooling off period/mediation in retransmission consent negotiations might work, it said in an ex parte filing Friday in docket 15-216 on a meeting with FCC staff including Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake. The company made suggestions for changes to the totality of circumstances test of good-faith retrans talks (see 1512020029). In the filing, Mediacom urged the FCC to consider a rule wherein not agreeing to extend an expiring agreement -- short of talks being at an impasse -- is evidence of bad-faith negotiating, while an impasse declaration would trigger a 60-day cooling off in which the existing arrangement stays in place and the multichannel video programming distributor could arrange for a substitute station. During that cooling off, refusing to submit to a fast track mediation would be presumptively bad faith, Mediacom said. It also suggested an alternative wherein the cooling off period/mediation requirement kicks in 90 days before the expiration date, with mediation required if no agreement is reached during the first 30 days of that 90-day period. Mediacom also detailed its suggestions that insisting on a contract expiration date that differs from the end of the three-year retrans consent cycle should be a presumptive violation of good-faith negotiation, and its proposal that the agency adopt a rule requiring a bargaining party to give a reason -- and substantiation for that reason -- for rejecting the other side's offer. And it suggested the FCC adopt a rule making it a presumptive good-faith violation to refuse to negotiate for retrans consent on a local station or local system basis. That "would mitigate a station group's ability to use the leverage it has ... to bring up the price obtained for less valuable properties," Mediacom said. Its representatives at the meeting included General Counsel Joseph Young. In a separate filing Friday in the docket, NAB fired back at American TV Alliance proposals (see 1602190044) for retrans consent rules. "The more ATVA objects to criticisms that pay TV providers’ primary goal in this proceeding is to lower their programming costs, the more glaringly apparent that goal becomes," NAB said. "We can think of no instance in which the Commission, of its own volition, has injected itself into the marketplace in the manner that ATVA and pay TV providers desire; namely, to purposefully reduce the ability of one industry to compete in the marketplace in a manner that will serve the profit-minded interests of another industry." In a statement, ATVA said, "The evidence here speaks for itself. When broadcasters charge crazy prices for their supposedly 'free' signals, our members have to pass that on to viewers. If new FCC rules provide some relief, our members can, too.”

The FCC International Bureau is pushing back by one year identification requirement for digital video uplinks, to Sept. 3, 2017, to allow more time to update the record on costs of compliance and if any relief is needed, it said in an order Friday in docket 12-267. The external modulators needed to upgrade equipment to the new Automatic Transmitter Identification System rule "have not become available," and many earth station operators wouldn't be able to upgrade their transmitters as required, the FCC said.

Pointing to their having negotiated more than 200 retransmission consent agreements last year with only three resulting in any service disruptions, a group of local broadcasters met with FCC staff to urge the agency not to tilt negotiation power in the favor of multichannel video programming distributors, said an ex parte filing posted Thursday in docket 15-216. It recapped meetings involving Quincy CEO Ralph Oakley, Bayou City Broadcasting CEO DuJuan McCoy and Morgan Murphy Media CEO Elizabeth Murphy Burns on one side, and FCC officials including Commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Ajit Pai, Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake and Chairman Tom Wheeler's senior counselor, Philip Verveer. The filing said the broadcasters said they "have every incentive to successfully negotiate retransmission consent agreements" to maximize viewership, but MVPD consolidation has favored pay TV operators over small broadcasters in negotiations.

Sinclair finished its $350 million buy of the Tennis Channel, Sinclair said in a news release Wednesday. A week before, the FTC said it wouldn't try to block the deal (see 1602250044), which Sinclair said it expects to help it boost the number of pay-TV households that can see the formerly independent channel (see 1601280019).

Starz thinks it’s “a very good time to be a premium provider of non-advertising-supported content with a subscription-based model,” CEO Christopher Albrecht said on a Thursday earnings call. Though the “core” Starz business continues to grow, “we must take advantage of new distribution opportunities that are now the realities of the television ecosystem,” Albrecht said. For example, the distribution agreement that Starz signed with Amazon in December, enabling Amazon Prime users to subscribe to Starz, among other services, as part of Amazon’s Streaming Partners program (see 1512080052), is for Starz yielding “very encouraging” results in the “early data on subscriptions,” he said. “After taking this first step with Amazon, we are now actively engaging with additional new distributors that want to provide the Starz experience on their platforms.” Starz also is nearing completion of its own “stand-alone app, which we plan to deploy in the coming months,” he said. The app “will assist us in securing opportunities to distribute Starz on non-MVPD platforms and will also help us innovate with traditional distribution partners,” he said of multichannel video programming distributors. “Early indications” show that Amazon is “a very good partner,” Albrecht said in Q&A. “This is a business that they are interested in growing, and we couldn't be more pleased that we chose them as our first partner outside of traditional MVPDs.”

Several broadcasters and cable operators visited the FCC to discuss their dispute with PMCM over that company's channel assignment, said an ex parte filing posted Thursday in docket 14-150. The Media Bureau’s decision “must be erroneous” because it requires PMCM's WJLP Middletown Township, New Jersey, to be “allocated to two different markets but not the one where it actually is allocated by the Table of Allotments,” PMCM said. It recounted in the Feb. 22 meeting that CBS and Meredith said that by using its over-the-air channel as its program and system information protocol channel, PMCM was “inappropriately attempting to ride on the channel 3 'brand' that they had built up over the years.” Though PMCM said that TV sets in its area don't direct to its assigned channel 33 when tuned to 33, CBS said this could be fixed by educating viewers to tune to 33.1, the filing said. “The educational effort necessary to get the word to all viewers in the market that they must press 33.1, rather than the customary 33, would be financially crushing,” PMCM said. It said that Cablevision, Ion and Time Warner Cable were also represented at the meeting.

Mediacom's complaints about "additional station" provisions in retransmission negotiations are a tempest in a teapot -- "fantastic tales designed to encourage [the FCC] to come rushing to its aid as they negotiate private contracts with local broadcasters," NAB said in a filing Tuesday in docket 15-216. It and Mediacom have been in a war of words over "additional station" language -- which refers to when a broadcaster's retrans deal with a pay-TV company lets the broadcaster expand the deal to include any stations it acquires during the pendency of the contract. The cable company has urged the FCC to add such language to its review of the totality of circumstances test (see 1602160054); NAB has dismissed Mediacom as trying to game retrans consent rules in its favor (see 1602120020). In its latest filing, NAB said the "additional station" dustup and proposed changes to retrans consent rules are equally an effort by pay TV to "play this endless 'gotcha' game to gain regulatory advantage." What "matters is that broadcasters have no ability to unilaterally demand terms and conditions from pay TV operators like Mediacom," NAB said. "A retransmission consent overhaul would require the Commission to delve deeply and frequently into the quagmire of thousands of negotiations and to judge the validity of tens of thousands of different proposed terms, even those terms that are never accepted." "Our efforts to alert the Commission to the new hunting license tactics of the broadcasters has really concerned their industry lobbyists," emailed Mediacom Group Vice President-Legal and Public Affairs Tom Larsen Wednesday. "I don’t know if I have ever seen NAB go to such lengths to distort the truth about a real issue that is occurring today in the retrans marketplace."

Samsung’s Korean parent applied Feb. 15 to register the “VR” trademark for five international classes of goods and services, Patent and Trademark Office documents show. Samsung foresees using the trademark for a wide variety of purposes, from “computer application software” for smartphones and tablets that enable users to stream music, to set-top boxes, DVD players and even 3D glasses, said its application (serial number 86908035). The colors black, white and "sea blue" are “claimed as a feature” of the mark, which consists of a sea blue square with rounded edges enclosing the "VR" in black block letters on a white background, Samsung’s application said. Though "VR" is the common abbreviation for virtual reality, there is no mention of virtual reality goods or services in the application.

Consumer confidence in the overall economy and in tech spending dipped in February as financial conditions worsened “across a number of metrics,” CTA said in a Tuesday report. Its index of consumer expectations, which measures consumer sentiment about the U.S. economy as a whole, and index of consumer technology expectations, which measures consumer expectations about tech spending, both fell about three points, it said. Consumer sentiments are turning negative, “despite a strong foundation for consumer spending coming from employment gains, wage growth and solid consumer wealth,” CTA said.

A 2005 public TV digital cable carriage agreement was renewed by the Association of Public Television Stations, NCTA and PBS, they said in a news release Sunday. The original agreement, signed before the transition to digital broadcast, provided that cable companies would carry at least one public broadcast station in digital, as well as HD and multicast channels (see 0502010133), and ensures those multicast channels still will be carried, the parties to the deal said. While the renewal is for 10 years, it also has language bringing the parties back to look at the terms in three years because of the rapid technological changes in broadcast, APTS told us Monday. APTS changed its name Monday to America's Public Television Stations.