The tone of the federal court's temporary injunction against the streaming sports joint venture of ESPN/Fox Sports/Warner Bros. Discovery (see 2408160040) might indicate channel bundling could come under attack as FuboTV's suit against the JV heads to trial, LightShed Partners' Rich Greenfield blogged Monday. He wrote the legality of bundling wasn't addressed in the injunction, but the U.S. District Court for Southern New York's decision said bundling practices "are bad for consumers." Greenfield added that while the partners know the Venu JV could cannibalize subscribers from existing multichannel video programming distributors and virtual MVPDs, the programming trio believes that if even one in four subscribers is new, Venu will be meaningfully additive financially to them.

A weak first half of 2024 in linear TV points to Warner Bros. Discovery likely finishing the year with revenue down, S&P said Friday. Linear faces a challenging advertising environment and ongoing subscriber losses, it said. WBD's potential loss of NBA broadcast TV rights after the 2024-2025 season could add to linear challenges, it said. Netflix and Amazon are positioned as streaming market leaders, it said, with legacy media companies competing to be the third, fourth or fifth service consumers subscribe to. "This presents a significant challenge for WBD and its peers as they all need to scale their [streaming] businesses to meaningfully offset declines in linear."

The New York County Supreme Court was right to side with DirecTV on its breach of contract claim against Nexstar regarding WHAG Hagerstown, Maryland, and its lost NBC affiliation. A state Supreme Court Appellate Division panel ruled Thursday that the New York County court's grant of summary judgment in favor of DirecTV on the breach of contract claim, and denial of Nexstar's branch of contact counterclaim, came from a straightforward interpretation of the parties' agreement. The appellate court also found that the county Supreme Court was correct when it decided that DirecTV's fraudulent inducement cause of action gave it a basis for recovering unlaunched station fees. DirecTV sued after Nexstar refused to refund $10.5 million in license fees the satellite TV operator paid for WHAG. DirecTV paid the fees without knowing the station had gone independent and no longer was affiliated with NBC. Nexstar didn't comment Friday. WHAG was rebranded WDVM.

NAB and the Motion Picture Association want the FCC to allow more time for comments in the AI political ad disclosure proceeding (see 2407250046), according to a motion posted Friday in docket 24-211. Comments are currently due Sept. 4, replies Sept. 19. NAB and MPA want a 30-day extension for comments, to Oct. 4, and 14 more days for replies, which would then be due Nov. 4. The presidential election is Nov. 5. The trade groups want more time “to provide meaningful comment on the Notice because it raises significant, novel factual and legal issues that will entail extensive factfinding and research,” the motion said. Moreover, other FCC processes on AI haven’t been as rushed, the motion said. The time crunch has been exacerbated because the FCC “pushed the Notice through the Federal Register process in near-record time,” didn’t release a public draft version, and delayed the final version’s release for two weeks after it was voted, NAB and MPA said. “There is simply no need to rush through the process under a notion that a decision could somehow be relevant for the 2024 election,” the motion said. “The 2024 election cycle is in fact already well underway. There is no chance an adopted item could have any impact.” Without an extension, the current timeline gives groups fewer than six weeks from the release of the NPRM to the deadline for initial comments. “This is an extremely short turnaround for a proceeding of this significance and complexity,” NAB and MPA said.

The FCC emergency alert system test reporting system (ETRS) is now accepting Form One filings from EAS participants, a Public Safety Bureau public notice said Monday. The forms are due Oct. 4. EAS participants have to renew their identifying information required by ETRS Form One annually, the notice said.

Comments on a recent FCC NPRM requiring disclosure when generative AI is used when creating political advertisements are due Sept. 4 in docket 24-211, a public notice in Monday’s Daily Digest said (see 2407250046). Replies are due Sept. 19.

NAB and the News Media Alliance praised the release of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich from a Russian prison Thursday. Russian authorities arrested Gershkovich on espionage charges in March 2023 and convicted him in a trial that the U.S. government condemned. “Evan was wrongfully detained for simply doing his job: reporting the news,” NAB CEO Curtis LeGeyt said. “This situation serves as a stark reminder of the importance of journalism and the First Amendment. No journalist should face violence, fear, intimidation or detainment for their commitment to keeping the public informed.” NMA CEO Danielle Coffey said: “We are thrilled at the news of Evan Gershkovich being released and look forward to his imminent reunion with his family, friends, and colleagues ... . We are deeply appreciative of President [Joe] Biden and the administration’s tireless efforts to secure his release and their dedication to protecting journalists and the freedom of the press.”

Warner Bros. Discovery's lawsuit against the NBA faces long odds under New York state case law, LightShed Partners blogged Tuesday. It said USA Network's failed suit in 2000 against World Wrestling Federation Entertainment "feels very relevant" to WBD's recent suit against the NBA. USA sued when WWF ended its carriage deal and chose Viacom. LightShed said WBD's litigation, filed last week with the New York Supreme Court in New York County, alleges the NBA is violating WBD's contractual right to match any third-party offer for future NBA telecast carriage. The NBA announced carriage deals with Amazon, Comcast's NBCUniversal and Disney last week. LightShed said the NBA apparently rejected the WBD matching offer because it didn't meet all the material terms of the Amazon arrangement. Amazon proposed streaming games via Prime Video. WBD's Turner offered a combination of linear distribution on TNT and the Max streaming service, the blog post said. Similarly, LightShed said the WWF's decision to choose Viacom's CBS instead of USA was based on USA's failure to match every material term tied to WWF media rights.

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump's campaign released a statement Wednesday warning the “media” that “biased and rude treatment” of Trump will “backfire massively” and will be its "undoing." The statement came after ABC News reporter Rachel Scott interviewed Trump at a National Association of Black Journalists conference, where she began by asking Trump why Black voters should trust him in light of his birther attacks against President Barack Obama, meetings with white supremacists and other incidents and comments. Trump berated Scott at length for the question, and the Trump campaign later called her behavior “unacceptable": “You would think that the media would have learned something from their repeat episodes of fake outrage ever since President Trump first came down the escalator in 2015, but some just refuse to ‘get it,’” said the news release. “This will be their undoing in 2024." Trump has repeatedly called for the FCC to take action against news outlets over their reporting, both as president and as a candidate (see 2401170050).

The U.S. District Court that dismissed DirecTV's antitrust claims against Nexstar and its Mission Broadcasting and White Knight sidecars (see 2403220061) misunderstood the harms of price fixing, the Justice Department said. In an amicus brief filed Wednesday with the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (docket 24-981), DOJ said the lower court's "unduly narrow understanding" of the potential anticompetitive effects from price fixing conspiracies resulted in the court misunderstanding the harms to DirecTV. Even if the lower court were correct that DirecTV's claims of damages for lost subscribers were too speculative, the same wouldn't necessarily be true for its argument for a potential injunction, Justice said. DOJ urged the 2nd Circuit to remand the case to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, so the lower court can "consider application of the antitrust-standing requirements on a full and proper understanding of the harms caused by price-fixing conspiracies."