A Comcast play for Fox nonbroadcast assets might carry less antitrust risk than Disney's bid for Fox assets, wrote International Center for Law and Economics Executive Director Geoffrey Manne in an issue brief Wednesday. Comcast said Wednesday it was preparing a bid for the Fox assets (see 1805230019). Comcast/Fox would be largely vertical, while Disney/Fox would be predominantly horizontal, and it's generally easier to get antirust approval for vertical deals, he said. That DOJ is challenging AT&T/Time Warner doesn't mean the agency has become more hostile to vertical deals overall, he said, saying the foreclosure effects that were a big part of DOJ's harm theory in AT&T/TW would be smaller or non-existent in Comcast/Fox. He said the theatrical film market is "undeniably competitive," with Disney as the largest major studio having 22 percent of the market last year. He said Comcast being an ISP as well as cable service cuts anticompetitive risks because New Comcast would have a bigger incentive to license content to even rival online video providers and drive broadband service. Meanwhile, Disney/Fox would give Disney a considerably large share of box office proceeds and link Fox's regional sports networks with Disney's ESPN, raising the risk New Disney would act anticompetitively on sports programming.

The FCC Media Bureau -- which in October dismissed The Word Network complaints that Comcast violated the nondiscrimination condition of the FCC's approval of Comcast's buy of NBCUniversal or the financial interest provision of Communications Act Section 616 (a)(1) (see 1710270025) -- also dismissed TWN's complaints it violated the exclusivity or unfair practices conditions. In a docket 17-166 order posted Thursday, the bureau said TWN's complaint was vague and inconsistent about whether Comcast sought exclusive or nonexclusive digital rights to TWN content, and it doesn't even allege Comcast demanded online distribution rights but merely asked about them. That TWN didn't make a case that Comcast demanded exclusive digital rights makes the unfair practices complaint moot, the bureau said. TWN outside counsel didn't comment.

Specific elements in a TV show, other than the title, can receive trademark protection, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said in a docket 17-20334 opinion Tuesday, upholding a lower court decision in a trademark infringement case by Viacom against a company wanting to open a chain of Krusty Krab seafood eateries. Judges Thomas Reavley, Jerry Smith and Priscilla Owen, with Owen penning the decision, said Viacom hadn't registered the Krusty Krab trademark when appellant IJR Capital Investments did, but Viacom had a common law trademark. The Krusty Krab is the restaurant where Nickelodeon's animated character SpongeBob SquarePants works. The court pointed to 2nd Circuit and 7th Circuit decisions extending trademark protection to elements of particular franchises and said the Krusty Krab "is analogous to protected marks like [Superman's] the Daily Planet, [Dukes of Hazzard's] General Lee and Conan the Barbarian," especially because the Krusty Krab is integral to SpongeBob and there would be a strong likelihood of confusion among consumers. IJR outside counsel didn't comment Wednesday.

Comcast says a problem with a company website used by subscribers to set up home internet and video service was shut down after ZDNet reported Monday the site could be tricked into displaying the home address of where a router is located, plus login information. "There’s nothing more important than our customers’ security," Comcast emailed Tuesday. "Within hours of learning of this issue, we shut it down. At no time did this site enable anyone to access customers’ personal usernames and passwords and we have no reason to believe that any account information was accessed. We are conducting a thorough investigation and will take all necessary steps to ensure that this doesn’t happen again.”

Comcast expanded its xFi Pods offering Tuesday -- from tests in Boston, Chicago and Denver -- to its 15 million internet customers nationwide, the latest in an effort trending among networking and security companies to make residential Wi-Fi more robust. Comcast’s xFi internet service had three goals when it launched last year: (1) improve Wi-Fi speed, (2) bring coverage to “every corner of the home” as consumers connected more devices to a network and (3) offer parents control, Patti Loyack, vice president-IP services and home automation, told us. The xFi pods, available in three- and six-packs starting at $119, are configured in a mesh network design with the first pod connecting close to the xFi gateway and others placed as needed to reach more remote areas of the home, Loyack said. When network congestion occurs, a dynamic channel algorithm ensures devices move to the right channel to avoid network slowdowns, she said, and having more pods ensures the Wi-Fi signal reaches all areas. Most homes are covered by three pods, she said. On whether the pods pack security features, too, Loyack said, “Not yet.” The xFi platform has safe browsing as a “first line of defense against phishing and malware,” she said: “Over time, we’ll look to evolve the roadmap.” Comcast will offer features “similar to things that Norton offers today in coming months,” she said, and that includes making sure anything connected to the home network is protected.

Neither fiber nor Ku-band spectrum would be an adequate substitute for C-band in cable-TV distribution, Charter Communications, Comcast, Viacom and NCTA representatives told Media Bureau staffers in a docket 17-183 ex parte posting Tuesday. The cable interests said the FCC shouldn't endorse any particular C-band proposal before there's a comprehensive record on how existing services will be protected and incumbent users "made whole." With an NPRM on the Intel/Intelsat/SES plan for clearing a portion of the C-band expected this summer (see 1804200003), Comcast has been lobbying on its concerns (see 1805110054).

AT&T and Time Warner are battling an independent programmer's attempt to urge a federal court to block AT&T's buy of TW. In an opposition (in Pacer) filed Monday in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, AT&T/TW said Cinemoi's proposed amicus curiae brief opposing the merger is based on grounds -- harm to independent programmers -- the government isn't raising, and Cinemoi shouldn't be allowed to introduce after the close of evidence, a claim DOJ declined to assert. It said Cinemoi is trying to add factual assertions to the trial record that haven't been tested by deposition or trial examination. In its proposed docket 17-cv-02511-RJL amicus brief (in Pacer) filed Friday, Cinemoi said New AT&T's centralized power would exacerbate the uphill battle indie programmers have in getting carriage on MVPDs' systems since New AT&T would have even more motivation to restrict such indie networks' access to viewers so as to benefit TW programming. Cinemoi said the court should permanently enjoin AT&T/TW.

The largest cable and phone providers, representing 95 percent of the market, added some 800,000 net broadband internet subscribers in Q1, Leichtman Research Group reported Friday. The top cable companies had 845,000, 84 percent, of subscriber additions, while the top phone companies lost about 45,000 subscribers, similar to the number of net losses in the year-ago quarter. Telcos have had combined net broadband losses for eight consecutive quarters, it said.

All top Charter Communications executives with authority to propose or impose data caps or usage-based pricing are aware that FCC approval of it buying Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks includes a prohibition on such mechanisms for its broadband service, the operator said in latest semi-annual data caps and usage-based pricing report, required as part of the FCC conditions. That report, posted Friday in docket 16-197, said such mechanisms remain "inconsistent" with its business model of uniform pricing and driving broadband demand.

Cable operators often run into rights-of-way access problems with franchising authorities, with many localities trying to put in place new authorization and fee requirements that impede broadband deployment, NCTA, Charter Communications, Comcast and Cox representatives told FCC Wireline and Media Bureau staffers, recounted a docket 17-84 filing posted Friday. The cable reps said those impediments include duplicative franchise fees, additional authorizations they see as unnecessary and sometimes an inability to deploy in utility easements. The cable allies asked the FCC to use its authority under Title VI and Communications Act Section 253, which pre-empts state and local law regarding telco service provision, to streamline regulatory burdens.