Opposition filings to the more than 30 petitions for reconsideration of the FCC’s incentive auction order are due Nov. 12, said a listing in the Federal Register Monday. Replies to those oppositions are due Nov. 21, the listing said. Once the FCC rules on the petitions, those who filed them will be able to seek judicial review of the order, said a blog post on Fletcher Heald’s website. "If (as may reasonably be expected) this leads to more appeals on the spectrum auction front, there's no telling what impact that might have on the start date of the auctions,” the blog post said.
Objections from content companies to outside counsel for Dish Network, Netflix and others accessing confidential documents in the Comcast/Time Warner Cable and AT&T/ DirecTV deals are based on programmers’ disagreement with FCC policy rather than problems with Dish and Netflix filings, the two companies said in separate filings posted in docket 14-57 Monday (see 1410220058). “These Objections are frivolous,” said Dish. “There is no basis for the assertion that Dish’s outside counsel and experts are engaged in Competitive Decision-Making, and the assertion is, in fact, untrue.” The objections are “nothing more than the pretext for a collateral attack” on the FCC modified protective order in the transaction proceedings, Netflix said. Both companies said the objections should be denied, and that their lawyers need access to the contract data at the heart of the dispute. “The Video Programming Confidential Information is essential to the thorough evaluation of arguments made by the Applicants, DISH, and others in these proceedings,” Dish said.
Consumer use of digital media and entertainment products in the U.S. is growing, said a Computer & Communications Industry Association-commissioned report released Thursday (http://bit.ly/1se2sx8). The report’s authors used several sources for the report, including the MPAA, the Pew Research Center and BookStats, it said. Music consumers legally bought 118 billion songs in 2013, it said. The video industry, which is “driven by online services,” is projected to exceed $36 billion revenue by 2017, it said. The e-book market grew from a $64 million industry in 2008 to $3 billion in 2012, it said.
The average U.S. broadband home watches more than 17 hours of nonlinear video per week, compared with 11.5 hours of linear video, according to research from Parks Associates (http://bit.ly/1DEx7fE). Nonlinear video accounts for 49 percent of the video consumed on the TV and is 60 percent of TV video viewed by consumers aged 18-24, said Barbara Kraus, research director. Nearly 40 percent of U.S. broadband households that use a smart TV as their primary connected device spend at least one hour per week using Facebook on the connected TV, she said. The number of hours reflects personal viewing by the head-of-household rather than aggregate viewing for the entire household, a spokeswoman told us.
The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court ruling that Redbox’s sharing of customer service data with Stream Global Services, the company to which it outsources that function, doesn’t violate laws against sharing customer video rental information, in an opinion released Thursday (http://1.usa.gov/ZJTgKc). “Redbox’s actions fall within the statutory exception for disclosures in the ordinary course of business,” said the opinion. Redbox has been sued by two customers who argued that providing the customer service data to a second party violated the Video Privacy Protection Act. “Congress enacted the VPPA in 1988, before the advent of automated kiosks,” and couldn’t have anticipated the need for a separate customer service company to service such kiosks, the opinion said.
Dish Network again said Comcast's planned buy of Time Warner Cable presents serious competitive concerns for the broadband and video markets and should be denied. The combined company would control half of the broadband pipes in the U.S. that have speeds of at least 25 Mbps, Dish said Thursday in an ex parte filing in docket 14-57. The company also “will be on a path to virtual dominance of the high-speed broadband market” because it will pass close to 70 percent of pay-TV households, it said. If the deal is approved, the company would offer only a single over-the-top service, “or perhaps forego altogether launching a nationwide OTT service, thus depriving consumers of important competitive choices,” it said. No conditions “would remedy the serious competitive harms posed by this merger,” Dish said. The filing pertained to meetings with several FCC staff, including from the Media Bureau, Chairman Tom Wheeler’s office and Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel.
U.S. District Court Judge Alison Nathan granted a nationwide preliminary injunction barring Aereo from streaming broadcast content while it's still being aired by broadcasters, in an order released Thursday (http://bit.ly/1yr2szD). Though broadcasters also had requested that the injunction bar Aereo from offering a time-shifted stream of broadcaster content (see 1410150094), Nathan said that at previous stages of the case and before the Supreme Court, the plaintiffs limited their arguments to content that was being rebroadcast live. “Plaintiffs will be held to their earlier decision, strategic or otherwise, to seek a preliminary injunction limited in scope to enjoining retransmission of their copyrighted works while the works are still being broadcast,” the order said. The judge dismissed Aereo’s arguments that it shouldn’t be enjoined because the Supreme Court’s Aereo decision had classified it as a cable system. “While all cable systems may perform publicly, not all entities that perform publicly are necessarily cable systems, and nothing in the Supreme Court's opinion indicates otherwise,” Nathan said. She said the high court’s decision did not contradict the ivi decision that online video providers aren’t multichannel video programming distributors, and the justices' silence on whether Aereo should get a compulsory copyright license showed that Aereo should not. “Within two weeks of this Opinion and Order, the parties shall submit a joint letter outlining how the case should proceed,” Nathan said. “In light of the extensive discovery period that has already taken place, this Court intends to set a rapid schedule for the completion of discovery, so that the case may proceed expeditiously to the final merits stage.”
Outerwall subsidiary Redbox and Verizon signed a withdrawal agreement Oct. 19 in which Redbox withdrew as a member of Verizon and Redbox Digital Entertainment Services, according to an SEC filing (http://bit.ly/10oGHp1). Under the agreement, all of Redbox’s rights under the joint venture’s operating agreement will be extinguished and all outstanding amounts including expense reimbursements will be settled in exchange for a payment of $16.8 million to Redbox. Outerwall has made total cash capital contributions to the venture of $77 million and has received total cash totaling $70.5 million, including revenue attributable to DVD and Blu-ray rentals, the filing said. Redbox Instant by Verizon ceased consumer operations Oct. 7.
Nielsen and Adobe partnered to deliver a comprehensive, cross-platform system for measuring online TV, video and other digital content across the Web and apps. Nielsen’s digital audience measurement products will be integrated with Adobe’s digital analytics and online TV delivery platforms, they said Tuesday in a news release (http://bit.ly/1zjlMD7). This lets customers have comparable metrics to measure audiences across every major IP device, including smartphones, tablets and over-the-top boxes, it said. Media companies and advertisers can use the new system in 2015, it said.
The proposed AT&T buy of DirecTV received support from Information Technology Industry Council and Washington Technology Industry Association. AT&T’s commitments to deploy fixed wireless local loop technology to new AT&T customers “is a significant step toward meeting our nation’s broadband needs,” ITI said in comments posted in docket 14-90 (http://bit.ly/1yVUl0V). The FCC should give significant consideration to the broadband investment and deployment commitments from AT&T, it said. Buying DirecTV is a “natural,” necessary, competitive response to the pressure applied by Comcast, WTIA said (http://bit.ly/1py71CB). Results from the deal include a stronger negotiating position with content creators “to ensure broader access to high value content for consumers,” it said.