Industry groups challenging Maine’s ISP privacy law agreed to dismiss three Public Utilities Commission members as defendants in case 1:20-cv-00055 at the U.S. District Court of Maine, leaving only Attorney General Aaron Frey (D), said a Friday notice (in Pacer). ACA Connects, CTIA, NCTA and USTelecom sued Maine last month (see 2002180050).
The FCC got no pushback to proposed implementation of Section 1003 of the Television Viewer Protection Act of 2019 (TVPA) by amendment of its rules to let small MVPDs designate a buying group to negotiate on their behalf and the proposed definitions of large station groups and qualified buying groups in docket 20-31 comments. Beyond its proposals, NTCA said the agency “must do more” in the form of retransmission consent rules reforms such as bans on forced tying and tiering. ACA Connects agreed with the proposed rules changes. NAB called the proposed rules changes “appropriate to effectuate the TVPA.” The legislation passed in December (see 1912190068).
The Media Bureau order granting NCTA's petition for clarifying a previous order denying a stay of FCC cable local franchise authority rules (see 2002110046) is appearing in Thursday's Federal Register, making the interpretive rule effective. It's "applicable beginning February 11."
The vote count on an FCC NPRM on cable operator public inspection files on attributable interests in video programming was 5-0, with Democratic commissioners concurring (see 2003030018).
Top pay-TV providers lost 4.9 million net video subscribers in 2019 vs. 1.6 million in the prior year, more net losses than in any previous year, reported Leichtman Research Group Tuesday. Satellite companies continued to lead the consumer exodus, shedding 3.7 million vs. 2.4 million the previous year; DirecTV lost 3.2 million, said the research firm. Top cable providers cumulatively lost 3.3% of video subscribers vs. 1.9% the prior year. Telcos’ losses widened to 7.4% of video subscribers vs. a loss of 2.6%. Comcast lost 732,000 TV subscribers, followed by Charter Communications at 462,000. AT&T accounted for 84% of 2019 pay-TV net losses vs. 48% the prior year. Subscription growth slowed among vMVPDs, too: Hulu Plus Live TV, Sling TV and AT&T TV Now added about 1 million subscribers in 2019 vs. 1.9 million. The increase in pay-TV net losses was due to consumers’ expanding choices for video options and decisions by AT&T and others to focus on “long-term profitability in acquiring and retaining subscribers,” said principal Bruce Leichtman.
The FCC NPRM approved Friday on possibly dumping or modifying the requirement cable operators keep records in online public inspection files about attributable interests in video programming was released Monday. It's essentially unchanged from the draft NPRM on what questions are asked, according to our side-by-side comparison. It was OK'd 5-0 with the Democratic commissioners concurring.
NXP Semiconductors will incorporate Fraunhofer’s MPEG audio software developer kit into multimedia systems for set-top boxes, sound bars and smart speakers, said the German research institute Monday. The software package includes legacy MPEG layers 1, 2 and 3; next-generation MPEG-H 3D Audio and the AAC codec family, including xHE-AAC, it said. NXP will test its MPEG-H decoder implementation using Fraunhofer’s MPEG-H audio system trademark program, it said.
Presidential candidates spent 47% of advertising dollars on cable TV systems this year, compared with 26% in 2016, ViaMedia said Monday. It said total spending in the presidential candidate subcategory rose 146%. ViaMedia said spending by Democratic candidate Michael Bloomberg in particular caused presidential ads to overshadow what had been the dominant spending category of issues advertising done largely by political action committees: The campaign did 31% of all 2020 cable political commercials' spending.
The $1 billion copyright infringement jury verdict against Cox Communications was $500 million below the permissible statutory damages set by Congress, and the jury recognized the "massive scope" of the infringement and the need to deter future piracy-enabling conduct by the cable ISP. That's according to music label plaintiffs in a memorandum (in Pacer, docket 18-cv-00950) in opposition to Cox's motion for remittitur or a new trial (see 2002030066) filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia. The labels said Cox’s criticisms on the jury instructions and evidentiary rulings are without merit. Cox outside counsel didn't comment.
The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' reversal of a lower court's dismissal of antitrust claims against Comcast (see 1808210001) was "a good day ... for competition in our industry," Viamedia said Wednesday. It said with the advertising sales complaint remanded for discovery and trial, it will ask a jury for both damages and "remedies that will restore Interconnects as the inclusive marketplaces they were intended to be.” Appellate Judges David Hamilton and William Bauer, in an opinion (docket 18-2852) this week written by Hamilton, said Viamedia had shown sufficient evidence to support claims that should be presented to a jury. Judge Michael Brennan concurred on Viamedia's being entitled to reversal and remand on its refusal-to-deal claim but dissented on reversal of summary judgment on a tying claim, saying there wasn't evidence of an illegal tie. Comcast didn't comment Wednesday