Atlantic Specialty Insurance undeniably breached the insurance policy for the TV series Dig when it denied coverage for the additional expenses Universal Cable Productions incurred relocating production from Israel in 2014 due to violence related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Universal said in a motion (in Pacer) for partial summary judgment. In its filing Monday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, Universal said it sought an order dismissing Atlantic's affirmative defenses that cite coverage exclusions for war, war-like conditions, insurrections or use of weaponry. Universal said the war exclusion isn't applicable because the Palestinian organization Hamas can't be established as a sovereign or quasi-sovereign entity, and the insurrection assertion isn't applicable because it would require showing Hamas was specifically interested in overthrowing the Israeli government. In a dueling motion (in Pacer) for summary judgment or partial summary judgment filed Monday, Atlantic said that particular burst of violence killed thousands and was commonly called a war, including by NBC media outlets -- with Universal and those outlets being subsidiaries of NBCUniversal Media. It also said that though the U.S. lists Hamas as a terrorist organization, "that does not mean Hamas cannot be involved in a war." And it said it's entitled to summary judgment on Universal's claim of breach of implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, saying it didn't breach the insurance contract and alternately, a bad faith claim can't stand under California law as long as Atlantic's position about the claim was reasonable.

AMC Networks will begin turning out original, co-branded content for Charter Communications' Spectrum platform under a deal between the two announced in a news release Wednesday. Charter said the first such co-produced, co-funded content should premiere on Charter Spectrum next year. It also said it would have an exclusive initial U.S. window for use of the content on its platform, with AMC retaining subsequent rights including international distribution.

Fox News Network (FNN) narrowed its affiliation agreement complaint against Charter Communications to one count, for breach of contract. FNN filed a second amended complaint Tuesday in New York Supreme Court that didn't include six other complaints, as FNN said it planned to (see 1704140012). Univision and Showtime are pursuing similar affiliation complaints against Charter over which contract -- with Charter or Time Warner Cable -- survived 2016's Charter/TWC deal. In the latest complaint, FNN said its Jan. 1, 2014, affiliation agreement with Charter included language that makes clear that after a Charter/TWC combination, the Charter agreement would cover FNN, but Charter said terms of applicable TWC agreements will still govern TWC systems. Counsel for Charter didn't comment Wednesday.

Viacom created a global product development group charged with creation of multiplatform products, with a particular focus on video content, it said in a news release Tuesday. Viacom said the group will come up with a strategy for digital applications and websites for various Viacom brands, with its first task being expansion of Play Plex mobile apps suite to various markets, creating a global VOD presence. Dan Reich, most recently senior vice president-multiplatform product strategy and development, will lead the group as senior vice president-global multiplatform products.

Cableview Communications never agreed to settlement terms with Time Warner Cable Southeast, and a U.S. Magistrate judge's finding otherwise avoided the question of whether TWC-SE engaged in tortious interference with Cableview's negotiated sale to FTS USA, Cableview said in an initial brief (in Pacer) Monday filed with the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Cableview sued TWC-SE in 2013 -- adding defendant Time Warner Entertainment-Advance/Newhouse Partnership last year in an amended complaint -- alleging TWC-SE interfered in Cableview's deal with FTS in order to get Cableview to pay a disputed debt involving a worker injured while stringing cable wires for TWE-ANP. In the appeal of the January summary judgment (see 1702060057), Cableview said the totality of evidence shows that instead of a settlement, TWC-SE "was acting as an economic bully, asserting its demands unilaterally upon Cableview." Counsel for the appellees didn't comment Tuesday.

The U.S. cable industry employs 2.9 million, with those worker earnings totaling $152 billion annually, NCTA said in its annual cable industry economic impact report released Monday. Cable's overall economic impact is $421 billion yearly, it said. It also said 93 percent of U.S. households have access to broadband via a cable ISP, and spending on programming by basic cable networks went from $1.4 billion in 1990 to $38.2 billion last year. NCTA also said cable operators paid $3.5 billion to local municipalities in 2016 in the form of franchise fees, and state and local governments took in an additional $4.2 billion in the form of subscriber taxes and fees.

Pay-TV operators who provide a hybrid of traditional and over-the-top services likely will be most successful, said Irdeto Senior Vice President-Global Sales Bengt Jonsson in a blog post Monday. Likening pay-TV to the retail industry where traditional retailers are struggling with e-commerce competition, Irdeto said success could lie in trying to satisfy both young viewers -- who are largely online in their viewing -- and the growing population of aging consumers "who may prefer TV’s traditional lean back experience, where searching for something to watch is not in their comfort zone."

Cord-cutters and cord-nevers eschew traditional MVPD service but differ in programming and over-the-top preferences, GfK said in a news release Monday. It said its triannual Cord Evolution survey found four of the 10 top streaming shows among cord-nevers -- who have never subscribed to a MVPD service -- aren't widely watched by cord-cutters -- who used to but no longer subscribe. It also said cord-cutters' 10 favorite shows all are Netflix programming, while three of the 10 favorite programs of cord-nevers are found on Amazon or Hulu. It said Netflix is cord-cutters' most-popular streaming service, but YouTube tops Netflix among cord-nevers. It said 60 percent of cord-nevers are "very satisfied" with their TV access, compared with 50 percent of cord-cutters, but 22 percent of cord-nevers plan to subscribe to a traditional TV service in the next six months. GfK said the data comes from a survey of 10,000 U.S. respondents.

A "serious defect" in Netgear cable modems is resulting in high spikes in network latency, alleges a class-action lawsuit filed April 14 against Netgear in U.S. District Court in San Jose, California. The suit claims consumers who bought Netgear’s CM700 modem, designed for the fastest speed internet service plans, “suffer from severe network latency spikes.” The complaint says hundreds of users have complained in online forums and Netgear acknowledged the issue but failed to fix the problems. The suit blames the latency on Netgear's decision to swap out a Broadcom chipset for the Puma 6 chipset from Intel, a problem Intel acknowledged causes cable modems to suffer from significant jitter and latency on their network connections, the suit claims. The plaintiff’s law firm, Schubert Jonckheer, is investigating whether other cable modems containing the Puma 6 chipset -- including modems from Linksys, Cisco, Hitron, and Arris -- suffer from the same severe network latency defect, it said. "Netgear and other cable modem manufacturers shipping modems with the defect should recall the affected models and issue refunds,” said partner Noah Schubert. In response, Netgear emailed us: “It is Netgear’s policy to not provide any public comment on pending litigation, but for the sake of our customers, we would like them to know that we have full confidence in the CM700 cable modem." A class-action suit filed in the same court March 31 against Arris for its SB6190 modem sought the right for plaintiffs to cancel and recover the purchase price of the modem, also based on Intel’s Puma chipset. The complaint cited an article from The Register entitled “Why Your Gigabit Broadband Lags Like Hell – Blame Intel’s Chipset.”

Sky Angel's appeal of a lower court's 2016 decision denying its claims of improper termination of affiliation agreements (see 1701250002) "takes the Court through a maze of detours and dead-end turns" before wrongly insisting on a de novo review instead of the proper clear error review, said Discovery Communications and its Animal Planet in a response brief (in Pacer) filed Wednesday in the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Discovery/Animal Planet said U.S. District Judge Deborah Chasanow of Greenbelt, Maryland, decided Discovery exercised its rights to terminate the Sky Angel contract in good faith and that Sky Angel's appeal "never engages with the highly deferential clear error standard, nor could Sky Angel come close to meeting it." It said Sky Angel, by trying to appeal the lower court's summary judgment decision, is trying to evade the trial record since the law clearly won't allow summary judgment review once there has been a bench trial. Discovery/Animal Planet also said Sky Angel claims are foreclosed by its breach of contractual obligation to tell Discovery if another programmer ceased providing programming -- an obligation Sky Angel breached when it didn't give notice C-SPAN pulled its programming for similar reasons as Discovery. Counsel for Sky Angel didn't comment Thursday. Along with litigation against Discovery, Sky Angel also has an open program access complaint against the programmer (see 1207160065).