The FCC Office of Engineering and Technology gave Charter Communications approval of an experimental license for propagation and coverage characteristic testing in the 3650-3700 MHz band. The company's application said the testing will help in potential deployment of fixed wireless services, and the tests will be done around nine fixed locations in Florida.

The sports-less virtual MVPD service Philo that A&E, AMC, Discovery, Scripps and Viacom reportedly are partnering on "could be a good deal" for viewers and content companies, but a tough sell nonetheless, nScreenMedia analyst Colin Dixon blogged Wednesday. He said the top 34 channels of the four content companies are earning around $10 a month in pay-TV license fees, so even a Philo subscriber paying $15 a month would be more valuable than a pay-TV subscriber. Considering other expenses, a likely Philo cost could be around $19 a month, he said: But Philo will see competition from other virtual MVPD services carrying many of those same channels and also the cord-cutter universe is still relatively small.

The FCC's July order that there was no evidence Cablevision discriminated when it retiered Game Show Network in 2011 (see 1707130048) violates the Communications Act and isn't supported by "substantial evidence," GSN said in a docket 17-1203 petition for review (in Pacer) filed Monday with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The FCC didn't comment Thursday.

YouTube's app is being integrated into Comcast's Xfinity X1 platform, with YouTube videos to be featured throughout Xfinity on Demand, the two companies said Tuesday. They said YouTube content will be searchable via the X1 voice remote.

BMG just won't accept the Supreme Court's standard that the objective reasonableness of the losing party's defense is key for deciding whether a fee award is appropriate, Cox Communications said in a reply (in Pacer) Friday with the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. It said its litigating positions against BMG's "novel expansion of secondary liability" were objectively reasonable, so the district court abused its discretion imposing an $8 million fee award atop the $25 million verdict. Cox said Round Hill's seeking of fees "makes no sense" since it was dismissed with prejudice on summary judgment for lack of statutory standing. Counsel for BMG and Round Hill didn't comment Monday. They previously argued Cox's "sham" defense drove up litigation costs (see 1707310018). Cox is fighting BMG's award of nearly $8.4 million in attorney's fees and expenses atop the Digital Millennium Copyright Act verdict against the cable ISP (see 1702170043).

With Q3 being one of the most competitive in recent years for video subscribers, Comcast likely will end down 100,000 to 150,000 subs year over year, said Matt Strauss, executive vice president-Xfinity Services, Thursday at a Bank of America conference. He said the competition has come from new over-the-top services and from incumbent distributors increasing marketing spending and being more aggressive with offers. Strauss said hurricanes cost the company some subscribers. He said Comcast is focused on profitable subscribers instead of overall subscriber numbers, but the company could see a return to video subscriber growth. Strauss also said a major industry trend in video is an increase in time-shifting. "The future is aggregation," with Comcast as a distributor aiming at offering an increasing variety of sources on its Xfinity platform, Strauss said. He said Comcast's streaming video product, Instant TV, which was testing in Boston and Chicago, will be rolled out across its footprint later this month and into Q4. Instant TV is a skinny bundle of content and a cloud DVR, with additional programming packages available as add-ons, he said. He said Comcast will try not to cannibalize its existing video subscriber base by targeting its marketing at specifically high speed data-only customers and limiting the number of video streams. Comcast closed Thursday at $38.60, down 6.2 percent. In a note to investors, Wells Fargo analyst Marci Ryvicker said the stock movement is likely due to the Q3 subscriber news.

E.W. Scripps' Newsy over-the-top news network will become a cable network through a purchase of carriage contracts from the Retirement Living TV (RLTV) cable network, Scripps said Wednesday. It said after the takeover of RLTV's carriage agreements covering about 26 million subscribers RLTV will be reprogrammed with Newsy's lineup of programming already available to virtual MVPDs. It said the transition will begin in coming months, with Newsy ultimately reaching about 40 million cable and direct broadcast satellite subscribers by the end of 2018. It said the purchase price of the carriage contracts will be up to $23 million, depending on the number of subscribers that come under contract with the cable companies and convert to Newsy.

More than 98 percent of broadband modems, routers and other consumer equipment purchased and sold in 2016 for use by U.S. residential broadband subscribers met voluntary energy-efficiency standards set up by NCTA and CTA and agreed to by a variety of broadband providers and small network equipment retailers (see 1506250038), NCTA said Wednesday. Pointing to a report by auditor D+R International, it said the 98 percent figure is up from 89 percent a year earlier. It said the voluntary agreement is to expire after the release of the 2018 annual report, but the signatories are working on a renewal.

The Ovation network launched its Ovation Now TV Everywhere app on Roku, it said Tuesday. The app features both live linear and on-demand content, it said. Ovation said it will make the app available on other over-the-top platforms in coming months.

Streaming media players, at least in the near term, have the best shot of being the universal TV home page, given their cheapness and depth of content catalog, though it's not clear if any particular player will be the overall category winner, nScreenMedia analyst Colin Dixon blogged Monday. Longer term, smart TVs likely will prevail, though for that to happen there needs to be standardized technical and user experience requirements for putting internet video on TV, and that standardization "could take a very long time," he said. The pay-TV set-top box is the first place the majority of viewers go for TV watching, but subscription-video operators "are not leveraging such a huge advantage" by integrating more online video services, while the set-tops also aren't connected to the internet, Dixon said.