The Communications Act is clear, and Dish Network responses to CNZ Communications' must-carry complaint are effectively asking the FCC Media Bureau "to stand on one foot, put on a pair of oversized sunglasses, and spin around five times, to try to find a different meaning," CNZ said Monday in docket 12-1. In its December complaint, CNZ, the licensee of WGBP-TV Opelika, Alabama, urged the agency to compel carriage in the Columbus-Opelika and the Atlanta designated market areas. In its answer last week, Dish said the rules give WGBP the power to elect mandatory carriage in the entire Columbus DMA -- the DMA containing its community of license -- or in the Atlanta DMA plus the county in the Columbus DMA incorporating WGBP's community of license, but that Dish isn't obligated to carry the station through two entire DMAs. Nielsen assigns the station to the Atlanta DMA. Mandatory carriage requirements have never extended to full DMAs, Dish said. In its response Monday, CNZ said the bureau in a must-carry complaint brought against DirecTV made clear that the station could assert mandatory carriage rights in the Atlanta and Columbus markets. It termed meritless Dish's concerns that a requirement for the station to be carried through the Columbus DMA would result in a deluge of similar requests from other stations. The Media Bureau denied the DirecTV must-carry complaint (see 2201050031).

Comments are due Feb. 5, replies March 5, concerning the FCC's proposal banning charging early termination fees for cable TV and direct broadcast satellite and mandating prorated refunds for canceled service, said a notice for Friday's Federal Register. The docket is 23-405. The FCC adopted the MVPD fees NPRM 3-2 during its December meeting (see 2312130019).

Nexstar agreed on a multiyear distribution agreement with streaming TV network FuboTV, the broadcaster announced in a news release Wednesday. The deal covers 89 Nexstar TV stations: 37 CW Network affiliates, 25 MyNetworkTV affiliates, 23 ABC affiliates and four independent television stations. The agreement also extends Fubo’s carriage of Nexstar’s NewsNation cable network. Financial terms weren't disclosed.

Altice sold its Cheddar streaming news network to media company Archetype, Cheddar said Thursday. The deal also includes the Rate My Professors digital property, Cheddar said. It declined to release the transaction's financial terms.

Lionsgate purchased Hasbro's eOne entertainment platform for $375 million in cash, Lionsgate said Wednesday. The deal gives it 6,500 additional film and TV titles, as well as film development rights to Hasbro's Monopoly brand, Lionsgate said.

MSNBC should continue to be exempted from the FCC's audio description rules applicable to the largest national nonbroadcast networks because it provides fewer than 50 hours per quarter of prime-time programming that is not live or near-live, parent NBCUniversal said Tuesday in a docket 11-43 exemption request.

The FCC's proposed requirement for reporting broadcast station blackouts due to failed retransmission consent talks (see 2312210061) should be expanded to include blackouts during pending special relief petitions, One Ministries said Tuesday in docket 23-427. An expansion would raise the visibility of such blackouts, it said. Broadcasters also should be able to request they be listed as falling under broadcast station blackouts when an MVPD "simply refuse[es] to return phone calls and emails" and when a must-carry station doesn't get carriage in part of a market that an MVPD covers.

National Amusements, the movie chain operator and controlling shareholder of Paramount Global, notified customers last week of a 2022 hack that compromised data of more than 82,000 people, it told the Maine Office of the Attorney General. It said the hack happened in December 2022 and was discovered in August. It said individuals with an affected Social Security number are receiving 12 months of credit monitoring and identity theft services through Experian.

Lionsgate plans to spin off its studio business, which will then combine with publicly traded Screaming Eagle Acquisition and launch as Lionsgate Studios Corp., the company said Friday. Lionsgate's studios business consists of a TV studio and motion picture group segments, and includes film and TV libraries. Lionsgate said the Starz platform will remain with it and not go with Lionsgate Studios. Lionsgate will hold 87.3% of the combined company's shares, while Screaming Eagle shareholders and founders and financing investors will own the remaining 12.7%, according to a news release. The deal values Lionsgate Studios at about $4.6 billion. Lionsgate said it also will receive $350 million in gross proceeds as part of the transaction, which is expected to close in spring.

A draft order on collecting broadcaster and cable workforce diversity data using form 395-B was circulated to the 10th floor just a week after a call for action from 27 Democratic lawmakers and Commissioner Geoffrey Starks, according to FCC officials and the agency’s circulation webpage (see 2312150051). The equal employment opportunity item was teed up by a 2021 NPRM and has long been a focus for Starks. Public interest groups and NAB disagreed about how the data should be handled after the FCC collects it. Groups like Common Cause want the data to be publicly available in an online portal searchable by station. Meanwhile, broadcasters said they want the information anonymized. It's unclear what position the draft takes. The circulated item includes a report and order and a Further NPRM, according to the circulation listing. The FCC’s data collection using the form was suspended in 2001 after two court cases raised constitutional concerns. It was never revived. “It’s been the law for decades that the FCC was supposed to collect this data,” said United Church of Christ Media Ministry attorney Cheryl Leanza in an interview. “Data has never been more important than now. How will we know if we’re going in the right direction without data?”