Dish Network still hopes to reach a retransmission consent deal before a Tegna contract expires Wednesday, leading to a blackout of 51 local channels in 39 markets, the satellite company said Saturday. “Since we offered to retroactively true them up when new rates were agreed upon, Tegna has nothing to lose and consumers have everything to gain from an extension of our existing contract that would allow negotiations to continue,” said Warren Schlichting, Dish senior vice president-programming. “Tegna has not accepted our offer and has chosen to use consumers to gain leverage for the economic benefit of Tegna, while potentially causing substantial harm and disruption to the lives of those very same consumers who ultimately will bear the brunt of the unfair price increases sought by Tegna.” In response, Tegna said in a statement that Dish subscribers and its viewers "are best served through a long-term contract for carriage of our local stations. If both parties remain 100 percent focused on productive, market-based negotiations there is no reason a deal cannot be reached before the contract expires. Tegna remains entirely committed to that goal."

Consumer viewership information provider Rentrak bought big data platform company SponsorHub, the acquirer said in a news release Friday. The acquisition allows Rentrak to offer products that measure the effect of social media on TV, dynamic advertising insertion, online video ads, movies and branded content integration, it said.

NAB is wrong about the American Cable Association's position on ending the broadcast TV exclusivity rules, ACA said. In a statement Thursday, ACA CEO Matthew Polka challenged NAB's assertion that ACA favors the FCC "outlawing exclusive broadcaster arrangements altogether" -- as Rick Kaplan, NAB executive vice president-legal and regulatory affairs, said in a blog post Wednesday (see 1509230037). "ACA’s position has always been that should the FCC repeal the exclusivity rules, it should seek to protect traditionally offered out-of-market stations, like significantly viewed stations, at the same time, and does not need to limit other types of exclusivity arrangements," Polka said. "Such a blatant mistake warrants policymakers who read the NAB blog to fact-check all of NAB’s claims in the blog to make sure they are not also mischaracterized.”

Doing away with the network nonduplication rule should be put on the back burner until the FCC first tackles possible changes to the totality of circumstances test and until the GAO has finished a proceeding on whether compulsory copyright licenses should be eliminated, NBCUniversal said in an ex parte filing posted Thursday in docket 10-71. Network nondupe protects against network programming duplication, helping preserve the value of programming and ensuring local broadcasters have the dual revenue stream of advertising revenue and retransmission consent fees that they rely upon, NBCUniversal said. The rule also "serves as an essential counterweight" to compulsory copyright licensing, giving a route for protecting nonduplication rights, and Congress has been clear that it sees value in the protections that come with the exclusivity rules, NBCUniversal said. "It is a hollow argument to suggest that the Commission's limited role in enforcing nonduplication protection is no longer needed because the parties can craft private remedies and then, in a separate and ongoing proceeding, proposed to eviscerate those same remedies," NBCUniversal said, pointing to the FCC's looking at changes to the totality of circumstances test. The filing recapped meetings between a variety of NBCUniversal executives and Commissioners Michael O'Rielly, Ajit Pai and Jessica Rosenworcel, and Commissioner Mignon Clyburn's chief of staff.

Broadcast and wireless broadband will “demonstrably interfere with each other,” and repacking broadcasters into the duplex gap will make that worse, Sinclair Broadcast Group said in comments filed in docket 12-268 and posted online Tuesday. A study by the European Broadcasting Union on potential sharing of wireless LTE and broadcast spectrum concluded that “such sharing is impractical; LTE cannot share spectrum with digital broadcasting,” Sinclair said. “Interference prevention is the raison d'être of the FCC,” Sinclair said. “The laws of physics have not changed and repacking broadcasters in bands reserved for mobile wireless broadband highlights the Commission’s challenge.”

The status quo of network nonduplication and syndicated exclusivity rules has much going for it, including the efficacy of the enforcement mechanisms, while repealing them would lead to challenges in enforcing private contractual rights, given the lack of a direct copyright claim that comes with the compulsory license, Disney said in an FCC ex parte notice posted Friday in docket 10-71. It recapped meetings between executives -- including Ben Pyne, president-global distribution, Disney Media Networks, and Rebecca Campbell, president-ABC Owned TV Stations -- with Commissioners Mignon Clyburn, Ajit Pai and Jessica Rosenworcel, and Media Bureau staff. The Disney and ABC representatives also pushed for a long transition period due to the length of current contracts that incorporate FCC rules, and pushed for the agency to clarify the effect and legality of existing contractual provisions between broadcast networks and affiliates.

By relocating broadcasters into the duplex gap, the FCC is creating a situation where “serious problems are probable, not remote,” wireless mic company CP Communications said in comments posted Monday in docket 12-268 in response to the NAB’s petition for reconsideration of auction procedures (see 1509110050). Relocating TV stations in the duplex gap is inconsistent with prior FCC decisions and will leave the “key markets” where spectrum is most in demand without enough for wireless mics, the company said. There is only a finite amount of spectrum, CP said. “You cannot do something with nothing,” CP said. “You have to dance the rumba on a dance floor, not in a shower stall.”

Amazon rolled out streaming media players and tablets for the holidays. The company began taking pre-orders Thursday for the four Fire HD tablets and three Fire TV media streaming players, including Amazon’s first gaming player. The new Amazon Fire TV, 75 percent more powerful than its predecessor, streams 4K Ultra HD movies and is the first media player to include an HEVC encoder, said Amazon. It adds voice control via Amazon’s Alexa, which allows users to find music or TV shows or query for information such as weather and traffic, it said. The player has add-on storage capability up to 128 GB with a microSD card slot. Amazon said it has access to more 4K Ultra HD movies than any other streaming media player, with 4K content from Netflix, Amazon Video and Prime Video. Fire OS 5 will debut in the new tablet lineup, offering a overhauled user interface, “deep integration” with Amazon services and a multitude of upgraded features, said Amazon.

Leverage in retransmission consent negotiations is skewed so heavily in broadcasters' favor that regulatory reform "must occur," BTIG analyst Richard Greenfield wrote investors Thursday. Despite growing numbers of U.S. households, multichannel video programming distribution subscription numbers are shrinking because of bundle prices and cost-motivated cord cutting, Greenfield said. Retrans fees cable MVPDs pay to broadcasters are increasingly being used to start cable networks -- such as Tribune's WGNA -- and pay for national broadcast programming through reverse retrans, "neither of which retrans was ever intended for," Greenfield said. Comparing retrans fees and cable network affiliate fees is "apples and oranges" since MVPDs share advertising revenue with cable networks they carry, while broadcast TV ad revenue isn't shared with MVPDs, he said. Greenfield said that the FCC, as it takes comments in docket 10-71 on retrans negotiation rule changes, "cannot simply look at the cost of each broadcast station, but [has] to think how the retrans negotiating process has impacted cable video pricing in totality." Congress' 1992 passage of the Cable Act, enacting retrans consent instead of must-carry rules, had a local focus, involving stations and local programming, noted the analyst. But market dynamics have changed dramatically since 1992, with multiple MVPDs serving a given market, broadcast groups often having control of multiple big four networks in a single market, and retrans fees funding national programming, Greenfield said.

Videogame software remains free from the advanced communications services (ACS) requirements of the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act, under a CVAA waiver posted Wednesday by the FCC Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau and included in Thursday's Daily Digest. The waiver, requested in May by the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) in docket 10-213, extends a class waiver granted in 2012 that was to expire in October; it now will run through 2016. Section 716 of CVAA requires ACS providers to make their products usable and accessible to people with disabilities. ESA argued in its petition that while videogame software is capable of accessing ACS, it's designed for something else -- game play -- the bureau said in the waiver order. Pointing to materials for such games as Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare and Diablo III, the bureau said these show "that video game software marketing currently emphasizes game playing, not ACS." ESA's waiver request was shorter than the eight-year waiver it sought in 2012 and this time didn't cover game consoles and peripherals. "The increased availability of accessible console and platform-level ACS features is likely to help game developers and publishers address their ACS compliance obligations if such additional time is granted to achieve such compliance," the bureau said in the waiver order.