Spotify is unveiling a parental guide and has joined the Tech Coalition, with the aim of better protecting young users, Spotify platform integrity head Marcelina Siota blogged Friday. She said the parental guide "can help explain how parents can curate the experience that’s right for their families." The parental guide suggests steps such as skipping explicit content or controlling playback of certain artists and gives directions on how to do so.
DirecTV's use of early termination fees allows the company to let subscribers pay over time for the equipment necessary to receive satellite TV service and associated installation costs, company representatives told multiple 10th-floor FCC offices, according to a docket 23-405 filing Friday. Those equipment and installation costs can run $500 to $700 per subscriber, DirecTV said. Without ETFs, DirecTV might have to require those costs be paid upfront, raise monthly prices or both, the company said. Pointing to NCTA arguments for focusing solely on "unjust or unreasonable" ETFs (see 2406200031), DirecTV said ETFs that let consumers pay for upfront costs over time "should be considered at least presumptively just and reasonable." DirecTV said it spoke with the offices of Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel and Commissioners Brendan Carr, Nathan Simington and Anna Gomez.
That so many public affairs programmers have departed since the last time the FCC examined the challenges independent programmers face speaks to the difficulty of getting linear carriage in a market where big programming conglomerates dominate, Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy wrote Tuesday in docket 24-115. In addition, the loss also points to the challenge traditional multichannel video programming distributors face in competing with unregulated virtual MVPDs, he wrote. Gone are programmers such as One America News, TheBlaze and Black News Channel, Ruddy noted. Further regulating MVPDs while giving "a regulatory free pass" to vMVPDs will only increase the imbalance of that competition, meaning traditional MVPDs have even fewer resources to put toward indie programmers, Ruddy wrote. Pointing to the FCC's proposed ban on most-favored-nation contract terms, he argued for a focus on unconditional MFNs. Conditional MFNs entitle an MVPD to certain contractual rights that a programmer has offered another MVPD, as long as the first MVPD also accepts related terms and conditions contained in the agreement with the latter MVPD. Unconditional MFNs aren't obligated to also accept the related terms and conditions.
Five people behind the Jetflicks streaming pirate site face prison after their conviction last week following a trial before a federal court in Nevada, DOJ said. A jury found defendants Kristopher Dallmann, Douglas Courson, Felipe Garcia, Jared Jaurequi and Peter Huber guilty of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement, Justice said. Moreover, the jury found Dallmann also guilty of two counts of money laundering by concealment and three counts of misdemeanor criminal copyright infringement. Dallmann faces up to 48 years in prison, while the other four could receive as much as five years each. It said a sentencing date has not yet been set. The indictment said Dallmann was the primary operator of the site, which trawled other pirate sites for illegal copies of TV episodes that Jetflicks then downloaded and hosted on its servers. The others helped Dallmann with management, customer service and billing operations and technical aspects, including coding, it said.
Sports leagues, once hesitant to have major packages exclusively on streaming platforms, will be more interested in engaging with streamers as viewing continues shifting to streaming, S&P Global said Tuesday in a note. Streamers in turn are likely to aggressively pursue major sports packages as advertising becomes more central as a streaming monetization strategy, it added. As such, those dynamics will help drive up the cost of premium sports content, it said. The marquee sports league, the National Football League, has awarded more packages to digital platforms, but most are on linear networks and will remain there at least through the 2029-2030 season, S&P said.
Pointing to the FCC's pending pay-TV early termination fee (ETF) proceeding, EchoStar representatives urged that the agency instead adopt the billing practices in Dish Network's 2009 agreement with 46 state attorneys general. That approach would ensure consumers are fully educated about the terms of any pay-TV plan, Dish parent EchoStar representatives told FCC Media Bureau Chief Holly Sauer, according to a docket 23-405 filing Tuesday. EchoStar said the 2009 measure covers such turf as requiring that ads promoting an ETF plan must conspicuously disclose minimum terms of agreement. A split FCC 3-2 adopted the ETF NPRM in December (see 2312050007). EchoStar said the FCC's proposed mandatory rebates in the event of retransmission consent-related programming blackouts would worsen the retrans negotiating power imbalance with broadcasters that spurs blackouts. Instead, the agency should revise the retrans consent regime, EchoStar said. The blackout rebate NPRM also received a 3-2 approval (see 2401100026).
Liberty Global will acquire Warner Bros. Discovery's stake in the Formula E electric car racing series. Liberty said Thursday the transaction would give it a 65% ownership share and controlling interest in Formula E. Liberty Global CEO Mike Fries said Formula E "has a massive potential for further growth." Financial terms weren't disclosed.
The popularity of Fox's WTXF Philadelphia TV station is immaterial to whether the license applicants, Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch and Fox, have shown the character required of broadcast licensees, Fox critics said in docket 23-293 this week. The filers backed the Media and Democracy Project's request for nonpublic evidence submitted in court cases against Fox by voting machine companies (see 2403040080). Signatories to the filing include former FCC Chairman Alfred Sikes, former Weekly Standard editor William Kristol and William Reyner, former regulatory counsel for News Corp. and Fox. The filing was in response to filings by the Philadelphia Phillies professional baseball team, 76ers professional basketball team and Flyers professional hockey team in support of the Fox affiliate station.
Cable news network Newsmax plans a public stock offering and listing on the New York Stock Exchange or Nasdaq later this year or early in 2025, it said this week.
Free, ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) viewing is starting to rival gaming and cable TV in prime time, Xumo and FASTMaster Consulting said. They said a third of U.S. adults report regularly watching FAST channels during prime time. In addition, the average FAST viewer spends 100 minutes watching FAST channels in the evening, they said, while gamers typically spend 102 minutes on gaming and cable TV subscribers view cable programming for 118 minutes during the same time frame. Moreover, 47% of pay-TV subscribers say they also regularly watch FAST, compared with 46% of cord cutters and 35% of cord nevers. The findings come from a survey Xumo commissioned. FASTMaster conducted the survey that gathered responses from 4,000 U.S. adults between Q3 2023 and Q1 2024.