Master Quality Authenticated (MQA) has the attention of many in the recording industry, said panelists at CE Week last week in New York. Moderator Marc Finer, senior director-Digital Entertainment Group, cited the role MQA can play in boosting sound quality of streaming music. MQA is important for addressing “what the consumer wants” in the digital music age, said Howie Singer, chief strategic technologist at Warner Music Group. That historically came at the price of quality as compression reduces music files to manageable sizes for portable players while discarding useful music information. Universal Music Group is enthusiastic about MQA as a recording technology, said Jim Belcher, vice president-technology and production, global digital business. “We’re looking at it as a transport solution.” Sony Music’s Mark Piibe, executive vice president-global business development, said he would “love to see MQA in the market” for the positive impact it could have on digital music quality.

Pointing to WGN America's original series Underground being part of the Tribune Broadcasting content blacked out on Dish Network, the Rainbow PUSH Coalition is urging Dish to "act on Tribune Media's ... fair-market offer that all other cable, satellite and telco distributors have agreed to." In a letter to Dish CEO Charlie Ergen the coalition released Friday, Rainbow PUSH President Jesse Jackson Sr. said Dish is "disparaging the network that created Underground and counting out millions of African Americans who watch the show." In a statement, Dish said it's "proud of its record of providing a wide variety of diverse programming choices for the American consumer at a reasonable price," and Jackson "was only listening to the Tribune side of the story." Dish also said Jackson and Tribune CEO Peter Liguori hadn't responded to a lunch invitation from Ergen, "where it was our hope that, with all the facts on the table, there could be a sharing of ideas that would have allowed DISH and Tribune to reach an agreement that was fair to our subscribers and to Tribune." Tribune and Dish repeatedly blamed one another for the blackout of 42 Tribune channels in 33 markets (see 1606150053) and Dish is suing Tribune for a blackout-related ad campaign (see 1606210070).

Fewer than 30 percent of U.S. broadband households know where they can buy smart home products or services, said a Parks Associates survey report Friday. Two in five U.S. broadband households familiar with smart home products or services learned about them from TV or the Internet, said analyst Eddie Accomando, while 27 percent learned about them via radio. Thirty-one percent of respondents said they would prefer a home security provider, 23 percent said an ISP and 12 percent opted for the pay-TV provider choice, said Parks. “To move the smart home from early adopters to the mass market, companies and industry players must address low consumer awareness,” said Accomando.

The only retransmission-related blackouts Graham Media Group ever sees come from "an extended lack of responsiveness" from some multichannel video programming distributors, which is exactly why the FCC needs to reject the lopsided totality of circumstances test changes being proposed by some MVPDs, Graham said in an ex parte filing Thursday in docket 15-216. Even if the FCC had the authority, for example, to require stations to enter into binding arbitration -- which it doesn't -- arbitration is prohibitively expensive and such a requirement would make retrans "more cumbersome," Graham said. It was critical of proposals to restrict after-acquired stations provisions. It said retrans fees usually aren't the most difficult issue in negotiations, but rather MVPD demands for alternative distribution rights or most-favored-nation provisions. The ex parte recapped meetings between Graham CEO Emily Barr and General Counsel Heidi Schmid Whiting and FCC Commissioner Mike O'Rielly, Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake, aides to Commissioners Ajit Pai and Jessica Rosenworcel, an aide to Chairman Tom Wheeler and others.

With its lawsuit against Tribune Broadcasting for bashing it in advertisements (see 1606210070), Dish Network "has really outdone itself this time," said NAB Associate General Counsel Patrick McFadden in a blog post Friday. NAB calls Dish "the common denominator" in close to 75 percent of all blackouts stemming from retransmission consent loggerheads at the same time the company actively has been lobbying for the FCC to change its good-faith negotiating rules. "It’s not at all uncommon for us to find ourselves marveling at DISH’s signature cocktail of chutzpah and hypocrisy," NAB said. It called Dish's complaint "disingenuous" because the company advertises to try to get other pay-TV providers' customers to switch. Calling the suit "a dishtraction" from the fact the company tries to pay below-market rates for programming, NAB said Dish "might consider engineering fewer service dishruptions that deprive customers of their desired programming." Dish didn't comment Friday.

An FCC proposal to eliminate the last remaining physical public file requirements for broadcasters and a requirement that cable carriers keep the address of their headend on file were published in the Federal Register, making comments on the proposal due July 22, replies Aug. 22. Channel-sharing rules for low-power TV and translator stations also took effect Wednesday, according to the Federal Register.

Dish Network is engaged in a "campaign of delay and distraction" instead of negotiation, Tribune Broadcasting said Tuesday in response to Dish's lawsuit (in Pacer) filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Denver. In the suit, Dish claimed Tribune launched a "false, deceptive and defamatory" campaign of websites and commercials to try to force renewal of its distribution agreement with the direct broadcast satellite company. Dish said the campaign, including multiple DumpDish websites (see here and here), cause harm by getting some subscribers to cancel, thus "deliberately and purposefully interfering with Dish's contracts with its subscribers as well as with Dish's prospective economic advantage." The suit asks for unspecified damages. Tribune's statement called the suit "baseless." Tribune and Dish repeatedly have blamed one another for the blackout of 42 Tribune channels in 33 markets (see 1606150053).

NBCUniversal and Dish Network are calling off a pair of reciprocal civil lawsuits, including the last of the suits filed against Dish over its advertisement-skipping Hopper technology. A notification (in Pacer) filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Chicago said a stipulation (in Pacer) filed by Dish and NBCU meant Dish's breach of contract claim on screen crawls warning Dish subscribers of the possible dropping of NBC programming (see 1603150053) was being dismissed with prejudice and with each side bearing its own costs and attorney fees. Terms of settlement weren't provided. It followed a stipulated dismissal (in Pacer) filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles by NBCU and Dish on NBCU's 2012 Hopper-related copyright infringement complaint against Dish. Terms of that settlement agreement also weren't made public. Similar ad-skipping suits by CBS and Disney settled similar in 2014 (see 1412100057) and by Fox earlier this year (see 1602110012).

The average window between a film’s theatrical debut and its release on physical home-video products has declined by more than four weeks in the past decade, IHS said in a Friday report. In 2015, theatrical titles needed only 118 days on average before their release on physical media, compared with a 149-day window in 2005 -- a nearly 21 percent decline, IHS said. “Movies are arriving on discs 31 days sooner than a decade ago, despite a wider industry assertion that theatrical to home video window has remained largely unchanged,” said the researcher. The theatrical to digital download window, IHS said, has shrunk even faster -- by nearly 29 percent in just the past four years. IHS sampled 313 titles released in 2015 on digital formats, and of those, 25 percent were available for digital purchase day-and-date with their physical street date, it said. More than 60 percent were available for digital download an average of 24 days sooner than their respective physical video street date and an average of 97 days after opening in cinemas, it said. The remaining 14 percent were available on digital formats the same day as theaters or shortly before opening in theaters, it said.

The FCC should keep its presumption that bundling doesn't violate antitrust laws and in fact is a pro-competitive, pro-consumer practice, Disney executives told FCC officials in a series of meetings about the agency's examination of the totality of circumstances test for good-faith negotiating, said an ex parte filing Friday in docket 15-216. Its arguments responded to issues raised by some distributors about inclusion of stations and affiliated programming in retransmission consent talks. Disney said in the meetings it also took issue with an analysis by Columbia University Professor Michael Riordan (see 1604280058), saying the conclusions depend heavily on assumed valuations, those conclusions change as the valuations do, and it doesn't reflect market realities of bilateral negotiations for content. Disney said it also pointed to the growing video content market as additional evidence of why the FCC shouldn't change its bundling presumption. The meetings with Disney Vice President-Government Relations Susan Fox included Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake and Commissioners Ajit Pai and Jessica Rosenworcel. In a separate filing Friday in the docket, WTA recapped a meeting with its members and Commissioner Mignon Clyburn Chief of Staff David Grossman, to say stations shouldn't be allowed to demand compensation for retransmission consent for consumers or multichannel video programming distributors outside the reach of free over-the-air broadcast signals. WTA representatives discussed the possibility of requiring MVPDs to offer networks on an a la carte basis and backed an exemption in the set-top box NPRM for rural phone companies and small providers. The association's representatives said the proposed set-top rules "are likely to be the straw that breaks the camel's back for many small providers" since they would bring additional service costs related to dealing with problems of customers' off-the-shelf gear.