AT&T and DirecTV met with FCC staff April 16 to discuss substantial, direct and verifiable benefits the AT&T/DirecTV acquisition will have for tens of millions of consumers, AT&T and DirecTV said in an ex parte notice Monday. The acquisition will bring "improved bundles of services and enhanced and expanded broadband services for millions of Americans," it said. The combined company will have incentives to promote third-party online video distributor services, it said. AT&T and DirecTV urged the commission to promptly approve the transaction.

Aereo reached a $950,000 bankruptcy settlement with the broadcasters whose TV signals Aereo appropriated for its streaming TV service, a motion filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York said. The broadcasters, which include ABC, CBS, Univision, WNET and numerous others, had sought $99 million in damages for copyright infringement and attorney’s fees after winning a decision over Aereo in the U.S. Supreme Court last year. In March, Aereo filed a complaint arguing that through a “tortious conspiracy,” broadcasters had kept its assets from selling for their real value (see 1503100073). Aereo’s patents were sold to RPX Corp., a company specializing in defensive patent acquisitions, for $225,000; its trademarks and customer lists to TiVo for $1 million; and portions of its equipment to Alliance Technology Solutions for $320,000, according to court documents. Under the settlement, the broadcasters' claims will be satisfied with Aereo’s payment of the $950,000, Aereo will drop its conspiracy complaint, and all outstanding court proceedings in other jurisdictions will be resolved, the motion said.

Federal and state regulators should “make a goal-line stand” and block Comcast 's planned buy of Time Warner Cable, said the Sports Fan Coalition in a news release Tuesday. The coalition opposes the deal because both companies have a track record “of acquiring and hoarding the rights to sports programming, and then restricting fans' access to telecasts of local teams,” said the group. The deal would give Comcast “the leverage and incentive” to restrict the availability of over-the-top programming from competitors, said the group. "The facts and economics clearly show that this proposed merger would empower Comcast to engage in even more of the anticompetitive behavior sports fans have faced in markets throughout the country," said coalition Chairman David Goodfriend. The Department of Justice is giving close scrutiny to the deal (see 1504200049).

The FCC should deny a petition for reconsideration filed by consumer groups representing the hearing impaired challenging the commission's accessibility rules for programming guides and user interfaces, CEA said in an ex parte filing posted online Friday. The consumer groups, which include the National Association for the Deaf, disagree with the FCC stance that using voice or a gesture command to activate closed captions is reasonably comparable to using a button, key or icon. A CEA-conducted poll of its TV manufacturer members received no responses indicating plans to provide access to captions only through voice or gesture commands, CEA said.

There are many more narrow ways the FCC could fulfill the provisions of the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act Reauthorization without making effective cable competition a “rebuttable presumption,” said a joint filing from NAB, Public Knowledge, Common Cause and American Community Television. The FCC could reduce the filing burden or strip away some of the required data, the groups said, or provide a shot clock for the ruling of effective competition to be granted. In a meeting with Media Bureau staff Wednesday, the American Cable Association said it supports the commission's more sweeping plan to assume all cable faces effective competition, according to an ex parte filing. Concerns voiced by NAB and others about how the FCC rule change would affect broadcasting are unfounded, ACA said. “There are a variety of factors, including marketplace forces and compulsory license costs, that make it unlikely that cable operators will reduce the availability of broadcast signals to subscribers,” ACA said.

The “attention” that has ensued as new competitors such as HBO Now and Sony Vue enter the over-the-top space “is only creating a bigger ecosystem, drawing more and more people into thinking, ‘Hey I’ve got to check that out and try this Internet TV thing,'” Netflix CEO Reed Hastings said Wednesday in the company’s quarterly online interview. Though “linear TV” has had an “amazing 50-year run,” Internet TV is starting to grow now, and “clearly over the next 20 years Internet TV is going to replace linear TV,” Hastings said. “And so I think everyone is scrambling to figure out how do they do great apps.” The ecosystem “will just keep getting built up and so it's a transition into figuring out the Internet,” Hastings said. “And the way people do that is to get involved with us, with our competitors, to try to start to learn what are the new patterns and modalities because Internet TV is the way that people will consume video in the future.” Netflix is “super-happy right where we are” on its pricing plans relative to the new competition, Hastings aid. “We’ve got a great mix of pricing plans and options for those who get a new 4K television and they are excited about 4K content. We are the leading service in the world for 4K and that plan is a little more expensive at $11.99. So as more 4K TV is sold, we will get people to upgrade to the $11.99 plan.” Of the company’s “total pricing structure,” Hastings said: “We couldn't be happier with the way it creates an incredible value for the consumers. It feels fair to them and it's propelling our growth.” Netflix has seen smart TVs “just continuing to grow and grow in usage and sales,” Hastings said. “Virtually every new TV sold now is a smart TV, at least at the middle and high-end, and it's natural for people to use. Now, do they also watch on tablets? Yes, and on phones. So really all those categories are experiencing absolute hours growth, but on a percentage basis, smart TV is one of our fastest-growing categories.” Netflix is “very encouraged” with the “general consumer perspective” at the FCC that “broadband access is so important that it is a utility,” Hastings said, of the commission's decision reclassifying broadband as a Communications Act Title II service. “It is like power distribution where it's a natural monopoly in the last mile. There should be one fiber or one cable going to a home with super high speed and that's the architecture of the future. So everything around it being a utility is great for Internet companies like ourselves and it's great for consumers.”

Triton Digital, a technology provider to the auto industry, completed the annual Media Rating Council audit for its Webcast Metrics (WCM) and Webcast Metrics Local (WCML) products, the provider said in a news release Thursday. The accreditation process proves that Triton's measurement products comply with relevant industry standards and produce reliable metrics, it said. WCM is census-based and measures usage without estimates, while WCML is a market-specific measurement product, it said.

Pandora said it began offering a digital mixtape of Rolling Stones songs in the lead-up to the band’s upcoming “ZIP Code” tour, which begins May 24. The digital mixtape’s release coincided with a joint Pandora-AEG Live’s Concerts West presale Thursday of the Rolling Stones tour, four days before the Monday start of the tour’s general sale. Pandora said Thursday it will also release on Monday an interview of the Rolling Stones conducted by journalist Anthony DeCurtis. A preview of the interview is available on Pandora’s blog.

A third of sports fans report interest in watching live sports on their mobile devices, up from 20 percent in 2010, said a sports and technology report from CEA. TV remains the top consumption screen for sports, at 90 percent interest, while 40 percent of sports fans have viewed or listened to sports online using a computer, tablet or smartphone within the past 12 months, said the report. Nearly 20 percent of sports fans have consumed sports content on social media platforms such as Facebook or Twitter, it said. Sports fans are also using CE devices for second-screen viewing, with 23 reporting using a mobile device for sports-related activities while watching TV. Some 21 percent said they’ve used a DVR to pause or rewind portions of a game, and 21 percent have used a recording method to record another game being played simultaneously, said the report. Among fans who watch sports on TV, 62 percent own TVs with a screen size of 40 inches or larger, compared with 38 percent of nonsports fans, it said.

The FCC Media Bureau rejected a joint request from NAB and Public Knowledge and won’t delay Thursday’s deadline for comments on a proposal to make it a rebuttable presumption that cable companies face effective competition, the bureau said in an order Tuesday. Extending the comment deadlines for the proceeding would “render it impossible” for the FCC to meet a June 2 deadline imposed on the commission by the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act Reauthorization, it said. STELAR requires the FCC to provide relief from effective competition rules for smaller cable companies, but the proposed solution is much broader, NAB and Public Knowledge said (see 1503300062). “The Commission has determined that the most administratively efficient approach in this proceeding is to consider all issues raised in the NPRM,” the order said. NCTA and the American Cable Association submitted filings urging the bureau to reject the request from NAB and Public Knowledge. Comments are due Thursday, replies April 20.