The Communications Equity and Diversity Council’s Tuesday media ownership diversity symposium will open with remarks from FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks, says an agenda in Friday’s Daily Digest (see 2301240038). The event will also have panels on access to capital, grooming new diverse owners and on the difficulties of the media marketplace. Along with Starks, speakers at the event include Beasley Media CEO and CEDC member Caroline Beasley, Urban One CEO Alfred Liggins and NAB Chief Diversity Officer Michelle Duke.

Nexstar proposed “outrageous” terms and refused to negotiate on retransmission consent for Mission Broadcasting’s WPIX New York, Comcast said in a heavily redacted reply filing posted Monday in the FCC’s good faith complaint proceeding, docket 22-443 (see 2301180034). Nexstar’s arguments that because it withdrew the terms and the parties reached an agreement there was no violation don’t hold water, Comcast said. “That was too late. Defendants had already violated the good faith rules,” said the filing. Though the details of Nexstar’s terms are almost completely redacted, the filing appears to say Nexstar’s terms included provisions involving other Nexstar stations and the now-settled breach of contract lawsuit between the companies (see [Ref:2212130029). “This further demonstrates the gamesmanship that the 'sidecar' model has afforded Nexstar and Mission, resulting in collusive and outrageous negotiation tactics,” the filing says. “Defendants’ take-it-or-leave-it position resulted in a negotiating framework for WPIX that Comcast contends -- and the Commission should find -- is unlawful.”

The FCC Media Bureau further extended filing deadlines for documents to be uploaded to broadcast, cable and satellite online public inspection files (OPIF) due to “ongoing technical issues adversely affecting the responsiveness of the OPIF and Licensing Management System,” said a public notice Friday. The Jan. 1 due date for documents was extended to Feb. 28, including for children’s programming reports and license renewals, the PN said. The bureau extended the deadlines earlier this month due to a problem described as “intermittent operation.” Attorneys told us documents uploaded to public files would vanish or be listed as not having been uploaded. An upgrade was supposed to address the problem, the FCC said then (see 2301090050). The agency didn’t comment on whether this is the same technical issue.

Expect streaming services to up their investments in the rights to sports events, NPAW blogged Thursday. It said the streaming industry shift to incorporating a bigger advertising business model will accelerate, with hybrid models combining a premium ad-free tier with a cheaper or free ad-supported tier becoming more ubiquitous. It predicted more embracing of a multiple content delivery network strategy and work on better streaming analytics and intelligence tools.

DirecTV's dropping of Newsmax this week (see 301250042) is getting conservative criticism. A Donald Trump Jr. tweet Wednesday urged a boycott of DirecTV majority owner AT&T. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., tweeted that dropping Newsmax "is a mistake" and said Rep. Wesley Hunt, R-Texas, "is working to reverse this." Rep Mary Miller, R-Ill., tweeted "AT&T and DirecTV are engaging in partisan politics by banning Newsmax for challenging the Biden Administration & broadcasting President Trump's rallies. This is the totalitarian Left in action!" National Religious Broadcasters CEO Troy Miller said Thursday that DirecTV said economics rather than ideology drove its decision, but "the question of why low-rated, left-leaning networks like MSNBC and CNN receive retransmission fees and remain on the platform needs to be answered. DirecTV serves a sizeable subscriber base that skews conservative and religious. This viewership deserves access to diverse programming, including options aligned with their points of view." DirecTV said Thursday it's adding conservative commentary network The First. Newsmax in a statement called it "a pathetic attempt to deal with millions of angry viewers. You can’t replace a Cadillac with a Honda."

The FCC should issue a public notice refreshing the record on whether streaming services such as Hulu and Fubo should be classified as MVPDs, said the Television Operators Caucus, a broadcast lobbying group, in separate meetings this week with Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel and Commissioners Geoffrey Starks, Brendan Carr and Nathan Simington, according to ex parte filings posted Thursday in docket 14-261. The video programming and distribution marketplace “has changed dramatically” since comments were last solicited in the docket in 2014, said the lobbying group, which includes Hearst Television President Jordan Wertlieb and Morgan Murphy Media Vice President Business Development Chris Cornelius. Local broadcasters can't negotiate directly with streaming services over carriage the way they do with cable and satellite companies, the group said. “The current model effectively allows the national television Networks to dictate the economics of distribution agreements with [virtual MVPDs],” the filing said. Since MVPD subscriptions and thus retransmission consent revenue is declining, “affording local stations the right to negotiate fair compensation” is “important to the long-term health of local stations,” the filing said.

Newsmax went dark on DirecTV's channel lineup at the end of Tuesday, the MVPD said Wednesday. A DirecTV spokesperson emailed that the MVPD has repeatedly indicated it wanted to continue carrying the network "but ultimately Newsmax's demands for rate increases would have led to significantly higher costs." "We expect DirecTV, and its majority owner AT&T, to treat Newsmax on a fair and equitable basis in relation to all of the channels it carries, especially after both companies de-platformed OAN last year," a Newsmax spokesperson emailed. The network's being dropped has been a subject of House Republican criticism (see 2301240032).

The Communications Equity and Diversity Council scheduled a media ownership diversity symposium on “Expanding Digital and Media Ownership Opportunities for Women and Minorities” Feb. 7. The event will feature panels on competitive hurdles for minorities in media, strategies for cultivating diverse media leaders, and ways to improve access to capital for would-be minority owners, said a public notice in Monday’s Daily Digest. An agenda will be released before the event, the PN said.

The FCC Media Bureau seeks comment on a proposal from consumer groups on what factors the agency should consider when deciding whether closed caption display settings are accessible for some devices and MVPDs, said a public notice in docket 12-08 Tuesday. Under the proposal (see 2202180065), the FCC would consider what it described as four factors when gauging caption accessibility: “proximity, discoverability, previewability, and consistency and persistence.” Proximity involves how many steps it takes to access the closed captions, and discoverability concerns how intuitive that process is. Previewablity measures whether the selected closed caption appearances can be previewed, and “consistency and persistence” concern whether the settings are consistent across multiple devices and persistent over time, the PN said. The Media Bureau seeks feedback on whether those factors should be considered with those meanings, and whether other factors should be considered, the PN said. The proposal stems from 2022 filings by groups including Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing and the National Association of the Deaf. The Media Bureau seeks further comment on the matter in part because CTA “expressed concern about the proposed factors, and asserted that further public comment was necessary,” the PN said.

The FCC’s competition report “wholly neglects to articulate agency actions necessary in response to the acknowledged dominant position of streaming services,” said a blog post by Free State Foundation Senior Fellow Andrew Long Tuesday. The report (see 2301060048) acknowledges viewers are leaving traditional media for streaming services but doesn’t recognize “the inequitable role that the lopsided regulatory status quo plays in anointing these winners and losers,” or a need for a deregulatory response, Long said. “The report presents a compelling factual case for MVPD deregulation,” he said, urging the FCC to eliminate set-top box rules, network nonduplication, and program carriage rules.