Cablevision hopes to block some experts and evidence that Game Show Network claims bolsters its carriage complaint against the cable company. Cablevision motions were posted in docket 12-122 Friday as it sought FCC administrative law judge orders blocking or partially blocking various pieces of evidence. In Cablevision's crosshairs is the testimony of Hal Singer, Navigant Economics' managing director, on his analysis of the profit supposedly given up by Cablevision when it moved GSN in 2011 from its basic cable tier to its Sports & Entertainment tier. Cablevision has argued that the move was for cost savings, with lower affiliate fees. Singer's work "is based on groundless assumptions and flawed methodologies that do not meet the basic legal tests of admissible expert testimony,” Cablevision said in its motion. It said Singer’s calculations about customer churn and lost goodwill were based on assumptions instead of actual data. Four categories of evidence also should be declared inadmissible, Cablevision said: evidence about the alleged similarities of GSN and Cablevision's affiliated networks WE tv and Wedding Central; what Cablevision called hearsay testimony from some GSN witnesses; written testimony that didn’t come from firsthand factual knowledge; and some GSN exhibits. GSN declined to comment Monday. A hearing before FCC Chief ALJ Richard Sippel regarding GSN's complaint is scheduled to commence July 7.

Most of Time Warner Cable's residential video customers will go all digital by year's end, the cable company said Friday. The TWC Maxx program -- a series of broadband and cable upgrades -- was announced in early 2014. So far this year, close to 2.4 million new set-top boxes, digital adapters and new modems have been installed as part of the conversion of analog video to digital, TWC said. Metropolitan areas already converted are New York City, Los Angeles, Austin/Central Texas, Kansas City and Dallas, with Raleigh and Charlotte to be complete before summer's end and San Antonio by year's end. San Diego is to be finished early in 2016, TWC said.

The application deadline for copyright holders seeking payout of 2013 royalties they're owed by cable companies and satellite carriers is July 6, the Copyright Royalty Board said. The money is collected twice yearly by the Copyright Office for the license to transmit terrestrial TV and radio broadcast signals via cable and satellite. A notice about the deadline and application process for 2013 royalty payments was published in the Federal Register after judges determined "controversies exist" about the distribution, based on previous comments from such organizations as the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, Canadian Broadcasting Corp., Motion Picture Association of America, NBA, NFL, Office of the Commissioner of Baseball and PBS. A CRB notice Thursday publicized the June 5 Federal Register notice.

The FCC should carve out protections from the Telephone Consumer Protection Act for businesses that call wireless numbers that turn out to have been reassigned to someone else, NCTA said in an ex parte notice posted Thursday in docket 02-278. NCTA representatives met with FCC officials to discuss the 1991 TCPA's liability, proposing that if callers find out the numbers they reach aren't the intended recipients, they could take steps to disassociate that phone number from the account or to provide information to the person called on opting out of future calls. "There is no practical way to know that a wireless number has been reassigned," NCTA said, saying it continues to back an FCC declaration that callers aren't liable when autodialed or prerecorded calls are made to wireless numbers that have since been reassigned, under TCPA. The FCC also should clarify that an automatic telephone dialing system's “capacity” is limited to what it can do at the time the call is placed, without modification. Next week, commissioners vote on a draft TCPA declaratory ruling (see 1506030043).

Global over-the-top video service subscription revenue will more than double from nearly $9 billion in 2014 to over $19 billion in 2019, said a Parks Research report Thursday. OTT service penetration among broadband households is 57 percent in the U.S. and U.K., 29 percent in Spain and 24 percent in Germany, said Parks. Some 8.4 million U.S. households, roughly 7 percent, subscribe to broadband and at least one OTT video service but not to pay TV, it said. In other Western countries, comparable rates are 4 percent or less, Parks said, and operators are introducing their own OTT services to appeal to consumers. Citing the “rapid rate of change” in the OTT services market, Director-Research Brett Sappington said, “While operator attempts at TV Everywhere have made little impact, OTT video services are experiencing a boom.” New operators entering the market with their own OTT video services include Bell Canada, Dish Network, Rogers Communications and Sky. “How the industry responds to this change will ultimately affect the fundamental structure of the video industry for years to come," Sappington said.

Most Xfinity Voice customers don't want spare batteries for their residential phone service, so the company has opted not to provide them, Comcast said in an ex parte filing posted Tuesday in docket 14-174. FCC staff had asked for information about Comcast's backup battery policy for Xfinity Voice customers, and the company sells them for about $41 for its voice modem, Comcast said. Before February 2013, those batteries were free, and customers were notified when a battery was depleted and needed replacement, the company said. But only 13 percent of customers would follow through and get the replacements, and in 2014 fewer than 1 percent of Xfinity Voice customers bought backups, the company said. "It would be inequitable to require its entire residential voice customer base to support the significant costs of providing backup batteries to all customers when only a small fraction of those customers valued the batteries."

In an effort to create easier access to online help for its customers, Comcast recently redesigned and relaunched its support forums, the company said in a blog post Tuesday. The new forums have updated search engines, improved home page and related content features, and a focus on "peer-to-peer" interaction, it said. Comcast also said the forums will include increased participation by its Digital Care team.

The "cable guy" perception of the cable industry -- stuck in increasingly outdated technology, with good customer service remaining elusive -- contains "kernels of truth" but is largely wrong, said NCTA President Michael Powell. The cable industry "has been working to chart a new course," Powell said in a column posted Monday on LinkedIn. The piece contrasts some of the negative perceptions the industry faces with what Powell called its "impactful and sustained actions." He said the cable industry "is driving toward widely available gigabit Internet speeds by 2017. We are deploying hundreds of thousands of Wi-Fi hotspots that allow consumers to access the Internet when untethered from their homes. From voice-controlled remotes to easier search options, companies are refreshing and transforming interfaces and navigation. On-demand libraries are growing deeper and easier to access." Comcast recently announced a huge effort to improve, he said, citing its commitment to spend $300 million on customer service and hire 5,500 new customer service professionals as among examples of cable "listening, learning and responding to complaints."

Streaming Showtime is headed to more devices, as the premium channel's new streaming option will be available via Roku and the PlayStation Vue next month, Showtime said Monday. Showtime announced its streaming service earlier this month, saying it would be available initially via Apple products when it starts in July (see 1506030026). The monthly subscription cost, whether on an iPad or via Roku Vue, would be the same at $10.99 a month. Showtime's streaming service follows HBO's April announcement of a similar streaming option.

It’s an “indisputable reality” that the video market has changed “dramatically” since the 1992 Cable Act, said Free State Foundation President Randolph May in a blog post Monday praising FCC adoption of a nationwide rebuttable presumption of cable competition (see 1506040053). “Considering the competition that has existed in the video marketplace for many years, the Commission could have -- and should have -- taken this deregulatory step long ago,” May said. “Deregulatory presumptions” like the FCC rule change are pro-competition and pro-consumer, he said.