Discovery Communications and Hulu signed a new distribution agreement giving Hulu subscribers access to Discovery programming. Hulu will gain exclusive subscription VOD rights to the Discovery Channel's series Deadliest Catch, Discovery said Tuesday in a news release. The deal also includes programming from several networks, like Animal Planet, Investigation Discovery and TLC, it said.

Pay-TV consolidation is a response to programmer consolidation and the large content bundles they require multichannel video programming distributors to buy, said The Weather Channel in a meeting with FCC Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake and other Media Bureau staff last week, according to an ex parte filing in docket 11-131. Independent programmers “have suffered from more limited carriage opportunities and demands for significant price cuts because of the greater role of bundling,” said the Weather Channel representatives, who “expressed support” for a Mediacom petition asking the FCC to restrict programmers’ ability to bundle content. The Weather Channel also attacked some MVPD business practices as hindering independent programmers. “Unreasonable provisions” in affiliation agreements required by MVPDs include prohibitions on alternative distribution methods for content, limitations on the sale of local advertising; and “complex and interconnected most favored nation clauses (“MFNs”) that impede innovation,” the filing said.

ISPs provided significant increases in average speeds for Netflix streaming since November 2013. In the U.S., the average speed for the top 10 cable and fiber ISPs increased to 3.07 Mbps, up from 2.03 Mbps in the same period last year, Netflix said Monday in a blog post. That's due in part to Cablevision, Charter, Cox and other ISPs increasing their average speeds significantly "without requiring additional payment to reach mutual customers," it said. "Additional interconnect capacity also helped normalize performance across these ISPs." In the U.K., speeds increased from 2.62 Mbps in November 2013 to 3.31 Mbps since then, it said.

The FCC will conduct an open and transparent review process for the proposed AT&T/DirecTV transaction, Chairman Tom Wheeler said in letters to the leaders of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights. Wheeler responded to a letter from Chairwoman Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and ranking member Mike Lee, R-Utah. "Your views will be taken into consideration, and your letter will be made part of the record," he said in separate letters to the lawmakers. Klobuchar and Lee led a hearing on the deal in June.

The National Association of African-American Owned Media, representing an anonymous African-American-owned programmer, sued AT&T and DirecTV for $10 billion alleging racial discrimination in program carriage and contracting decisions. The complaint was filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. “In cahoots with the FCC and non-media civil rights advocacy groups, the major white-owned video programming distributors have concocted ways to perpetuate the exclusion of truly 100 percent African-American-owned networks,” the complaint said. AT&T/DirecTV has declined to pay to carry the programmer’s channels, but has entered into carriage agreements with “other, similarly situated white-owned channels,” the complaint said. The programmer at the heart of the lawsuit has offered seven channels to AT&T/DirecTV, including a 24-hour news channel, but was offered carriage only for large fees, the complaint said. “Although Defendants’ African American subscribers pay very substantial subscriber fees, and constitute a significant advertising target for Defendants, Defendants pay nothing to 100 percent African-American-owned media for channel carriage and nearly nothing for advertising,” the complaint said. The complaint also attacks the FCC and some civil rights groups for contributing to the exclusion of African-American-owned media companies. “AT&T is paying off non-media, so-called African-American civil rights groups … in order to ‘buy’ their endorsement for its acquisition of DirecTV,” the complaint said. “Diversity is a top priority for AT&T,” the telco said in a released statement. DirecTV didn't comment. An AT&T spokesman said the company spent $15.5 billion “with diverse suppliers” in 2013, and most U-Verse customers have access to several African-American-oriented networks and Justice Central, a 100 percent African-American-owned television network. AT&T has agreed to buy DirecTV.

Southern Cloud, an over-the-top platform provider, will use Level 3's content delivery network services. The CDN will distribute paid content via Southern Cloud's International TV platform, Cloudio TV, over multiple devices such as set-top boxes, Connected Smart TVs and Blu-ray players, Level 3 said Wednesday in a news release. This will allow Southern Cloud to migrate satellite subscribers to an IP-based delivery model, Level 3 said. New capabilities will allow broadcasters "to improve their overall cost structure, which can translate into lower entry points for end-users," it said.

Pandora released a beta version of a new mobile interface for its customers, said a company news release Tuesday. The interface, which will roll out to all Pandora users over the next several months, is available for 3 percent of Pandora’s iPhone and Android smartphone users.

AOL acquired Vidible, a cross-screen video platform for the exchange of digital media, said a joint news release Tuesday. The terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. Vidible has 300,000 videos that garner 800 million plays per month, it said. AOL has 1 million premium videos in its library.

The FCC will form a new Disability Advisory Committee to "provide a vehicle for consumers and other stakeholders to provide feedback and recommendations to the Commission on a wide array of disability issues,” the FCC said in a news release Tuesday. The committee will hold its first meeting in Q1 2015, “coinciding with a year-long celebration of both the 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the 5th anniversary of the Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act (CVAA),” the FCC said. The issues the new body will consider include access to emergency information, device accessibility, and the IP and other network transitions, the release said. The committee is expected to recommend policies to the FCC and keep it apprised of “current and evolving communications issues for persons with disabilities,” the release said. Nominations for two-year terms on the committee will be accepted until Jan. 12 and information about such nominations is here. “Organizations are encouraged to nominate CEOs, CTOs and other qualified persons,” the FCC said.

Aruba Networks, Broadcom Corp. and other technology vendors formed an alliance to meet industry demand for higher ethernet speeds. The companies making up the Multi-Rate Gigabit Ethernet Base-T Alliance, put their support behind efforts at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) to bring 2.5G and 5G ethernet speeds to enterprise access points and other systems relying on unshielded twisted-pair cabling, MGBASE-T said Monday in a news release. The specification adopted by the alliance "leverages many of the fundamental technologies in Ethernet standards as defined in the IEEE 802.3 10GBASE-T, enabling faster time to market with minimal research and development efforts for ecosystem vendors," it said.