Recent FCC information requests to third-party companies connected with the Comcast/Time Warner Cable transaction review (see 1501050043) undermine the agency's arguments for releasing video programming contract information (VPCI), said programmers in a response brief to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in their challenge against the agency. The request asked companies such as Netflix for summaries of pricing information and contract terms. “Having concluded both that the summarization of specific contract terms is 'workable' and that it provides an adequate and appropriate basis for the Commission to evaluate contract data, the FCC is ill positioned to assert that it must release hundreds of thousands of pages of VPCI to third parties,” said the programmers, which include Disney, 21st Century Fox and Viacom. The FCC hasn't refuted the content companies' arguments that requiring the release of the contract information was a departure from its usual process, the programmers said. Though the FCC has said that not including the VPCI in the record would leave its deal review decision vulnerable to court challenge, the content companies disagree. D.C. Circuit precedent doesn't require the FCC to “dump hundreds of thousands of pages of highly confidential documents in the record and wait for third parties to determine what is relevant,” the programmers said. “The FCC is well aware of the issues raised by the merger parties’ competitors, and there is no disagreement that the FCC is capable of examining the VPCI itself.”

Bright House Networks has “historically” relied on Time Warner Cable “to supply external connections that are critical to BHN's successful provision of lnternet service,” BHN CEO Steven Miron told members of the FCC's Comcast/TWC transaction review team in a Dec. 16 presentation, said an ex parte filing posted in docket 14-57 Monday. It clarified a previous ex parte filing that described BHN as having “access” to TWC's "national Internet backbone," Monday's filing said. “All external transit and peering arrangements for BHN are currently handled by TWC.” TWC also negotiates those on BHN's behalf, the filing said.

The FCC restarted the “shot clock” for the Comcast/Time Warner Cable transaction, a spokeswoman for the Media Bureau told us. The clock was stopped Dec. 22 (see 1412220062) because TWC hadn't submitted all of the information requested by the commission, said a letter sent to TWC. Though the bureau wouldn't comment on whether TWC had since completed its submission, an attorney involved in the deal told us it has done so. With all the information requests to the merging companies complete, the FCC will now focus on analyzing the data, the attorney said. Information requests from the FCC to DirecTV, Netflix and several other companies for information related to the deal are outstanding (see 1501050043).

The National Cable Television Cooperative buying group and Discovery Communications signed a multiyear distribution agreement, Discovery said in a news release Wednesday. The deal gives participating NCTC members "TV Everywhere rights through subscriber authentication on multiple devices," the release said. It also includes access to Discovery's U.S. networks, which include Animal Planet, OWN and TLC, it said.

Child development network BabyFirst launched on Time Warner Cable’s digital basic tier, TWC said in a news release Monday. BabyFirst will be available in more than 20 markets, including Dallas, Los Angeles, New York and San Diego, the release said. The network is carried in more than 50 million households in the U.S., the release said.

The content companies challenging FCC release of video programming contract information in filings on Comcast's planned buy of Time Warner Cable want something “that has never happened, and it cannot lawfully happen,” said Dish Network and the American Cable Association in a joint intervenor brief Friday. “Under applicable law, interested parties must be provided reasonable access to decisionally significant material in the FCC’s party-based proceedings.” The brief in support of the FCC was filed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. “Failure to provide such access would be grounds to overturn any FCC decision approving either merger,” it said also of AT&T's planned buy of DirecTV. The programmers, which include CBS, Disney and Viacom, can’t show that the FCC hasn’t tried to accommodate them, Dish and ACA said: “The FCC has bent over backwards to accommodate Petitioners’ own interests, and imposed additional burdens on Intervenors in the process.” The content companies’ petition for review should be denied, Dish and ACA said.

The FCC asked DirecTV to turn over information about its VOD and TV Everywhere services and how they interact with other ISPs, as part of the commission’s review of the Comcast/Time Warner Cable transaction, said a letter to DirecTV from Wireline Bureau Chief Julie Veach. “In order for the Commission to complete its review of the applications and make the necessary public interest findings under section 310(d) of the Communications Act, we require information and data from other commercial wireline carriers against which the applicants compete,” said the letter. The 19-page information request asks DirecTV to turn over by Jan. 30 information including its interconnects with numerous ISPS, the effect of cord-cutters on the business, its negotiations for video programming, and the download speed needed to view its content. DirecTV’s response will be treated as confidential under the protective orders already issued in docket 14-57, the letter said.

If the FCC doesn't heed their and others' advice and fails to reclassify broadband as a Title II Communications Act service, it should forbear from enforcing all the title's restrictions, said 20-plus page filings by NCTA and its largest member, Comcast. Their individual filings, posted Tuesday and Wednesday in docket 14-28, said alternative net neutrality rules under Section 706 would be much less risky. If the commission goes the Title II route, "at a bare minimum," it "should be coupled with immediate, nationwide forbearance from all of Title II’s obligations and restrictions," said NCTA. Comcast said "proceeding down a reclassification path would be even more precarious in the absence of a grant of broad, nationwide forbearance from enforcement of all Title II obligations and restrictions, including those in Sections 201 and 202." The cable operator said the commission "has clear authority to grant such relief to broadband providers in a streamlined manner."

Advocating for Midcontinent Communications' request to waive rural call completion reporting rules, lawyers for the cable operator with a "significant number of rural customers" said it's taking many steps to monitor whether calls are going through and to fix any problems. "Where Midcontinent identifies an issue, it changes its routing tables to send calls to the identified location to [alternative] carriers," said an ex parte filing Tuesday in FCC docket 13-39. The operator made such changes 55 times in 2013 and 115 times this year, though not always because of rural call completion problems, its lawyers told Wireline Bureau Competition Policy Division staffers. The filing said the company has been "successful in limiting and reducing rural call completion issues affecting calls" made by its customers.

The Walt Disney Company and the National Cable Television Cooperative signed a long-term retransmission consent agreement for eight ABC-owned local stations. NCTC members in ABC-owned markets "will continue to have the ability to provide the authenticated WATCH ABC live streaming service to their customers," Walt Disney said Monday in a news release. The agreement follows a comprehensive long-term distribution agreement to deliver Disney's lineup of sports, news and entertainment to participating NCTC members' customers, it said. The agreement pertains to WABC-TV New York, KABC-TV Los Angeles, KTRK-TV Houston and other markets, it said.