Consumers generally don't seem interested in wireless offerings from cable operators, Macquarie analyst Amy Yong wrote investors Sunday. Citing a proprietary Macquarie survey of 100 consumers, Yong said 66 expressed disinterest in such an offering. A wireless acquisition is inevitable, she said, with likely scenarios being Verizon/Charter Communications or some T-Mobile combination with cable. Seventy-three percent of those surveyed said the most they would spend for a Comcast- or Charter-branded service was less than their current wireless bill, with 72 percent naming savings as the biggest persuader that could get them to switch from a current provider. Given the Sprint and T-Mobile price wars, Macquarie said, "We believe the barriers to entry remain high for new players." Half said the biggest hurdle to switching to a Comcast- or Charter-branded service is perception of network quality, Macquarie said, calling the Verizon mobile virtual network operator agreements "somewhat of a Catch-22: on the one hand, it will alleviate fears of network quality, but on the other, it would enable a competitor."

Radiate Holdings closed on its acquisition of RCN Telecom Services, Radiate said in FCC International Bureau filings (for example, here) Thursday. The Wireline Bureau in November signed off on Radiate's buys of RCN from Yankee Cable Partners and of Grande Communications from Grande Investment (see 1611160023).

VidAngel's "buy-sellback" model it uses to justify the legality of its service "is a sham," since the company -- which streams filtered video ripped from discs -- doesn't buy a disc for every customer who streams a work, and most customers who supposedly buy a disc via VidAngel sell it back within hours of buying it, appellees Disney, 21st Century Fox and Time Warner said in an answering brief (in Pacer) Thursday in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. It responded to a VidAngel appeal of a December lower court preliminary injunction. In its opening brief (in Pacer) last month in the appeal, VidAngel said 2005's Family Movie Act (FMA) expressly granted households the right to watch filtered movies and filtering "is profoundly transformative." It said the FMA means the studios are unlikely to win their reproduction and public performance claims; thus the lower court's injunction was wrong. The lower court also erred in finding the studios are likely to succeed on their access control circumvention claim, VidAngel said, since the studios' arguments would give them unilateral authority to prevent even noninfringing uses of their content. The content companies said the preliminary injunction met all four factors of injunctive relief -- especially since the company didn't show its affirmative defenses of fair use and FMA would likely defeat liability -- and that VidAngel didn't show the court erred in its conclusions, or even abused its discretion.

Recent National Labor Relations Board rulings back CNN's position in an appeal of a 2015 NLRB order requiring the network to hire more than 100 laid-off Team Video Services (TVS) workers (see 1604110021), CNN said in filings (see here and here, in Pacer) Wednesday in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. CNN said two 2016 NLRB decisions (see here and here) show its position in the CNN petition for review -- that direct and immediate control isn't a requirement for joint-employer liability -- is inconsistent with other board decisions. CNN also said a November brief filed by the NLRB in a legal challenge to its 2015 Browning-Ferris Industries of California decision acknowledges that Browning-Ferris overruled past decisions, and said the board's new position contradicts the position it's taking in the CNN case. The NLRB didn't comment Thursday. Oral argument in the case is scheduled for Feb. 23 before D.C. Circuit Judges Merrick Garland, Brett Kavanaugh and Cornelia Pillard. The appeal stems from a 2007 complaint against CNN alleging workers unfairly lost jobs after the company took over news operations in New York and the District of Columbia from TVS (see 0704130138).

Viacom's turnaround plan will focus primarily on six flagship brands, rebranding its Spike channel as the Paramount Network next year, and be "highly selective" in any over-the-top deals, with those being mostly for library content, CEO Bob Bakish said in an analyst call Thursday. The flagship brands are Nickelodeon, Nick Jr., MTV, BET, Comedy Central and Paramount, with Viacom planning for each brand to contribute a film or two per year to the Paramount slate, Bakish said, with one example being the four Paramount films planned through 2020 using Nickelodeon intellectual property. Other branded networks, like VH1, "will not go away" but will work to reinforce the flagship brands, Bakish said. He said Viacom's turnaround plan also involves using company resources like ad sales and data to help grow multichannel video programming distributor partners as it looks to deepen its MVPD relationships instead of what has been transactional relationships "related to zero-sum economic negotiations." Bakish said Viacom is creating a new business unit to produce short-form video content for distribution by owned-and-operated and third-party platforms. Chief Financial Officer Wade Davis said the company expects strong growth starting in the second half of the year from the changes. Viacom said fiscal Q1 revenue rose 5 percent to $3.3 billion from the year-ago quarter, due mainly to better theatrical sales and growth in domestic affiliate revenue from subscription VOD and OTT agreements. In a note to investors Thursday, Wells Fargo analyst Marci Ryvicker said the results "prove to us that the turnaround is real and likely to continue." She said Viacom's plan "makes sense" and likened it to past Time Warner efforts at breaking down silos between its brands, "which seems to have worked." She upgraded the stock to "outperform." The emphasis on the six flagship properties makes sense but doesn't go far enough, and there should be a wind-down of niche networks over time, Citi analyst Jason Bazinet emailed investors. Viacom shares closed up 4.3 percent on Thursday at $43.89.

Epix is now part of the lineup on the Apple TV 4th generation, the premium network said in a news release Wednesday. It last month unveiled a new streaming content app for TiVo (see 1701240017).

Frontier Communications and Sinclair renewed their carriage agreement that expired Dec. 31, ending a carriage disruption (see 1612200072) that saw the Tennis Channel, KOMO-TV Seattle and KATU Portland, Oregon, go dark, the telco said in statement Tuesday.

Urging the FCC to undertake "an all-encompassing review of its video competition policy," a Free State Foundation paper Wednesday suggested regulations to eliminate burdens to help foster the nascent over-the-top industry. It said the FCC should end its proceeding on redefining multichannel video programming distributors to include some types of OTT and its set-top box proceeding. FSF said the FCC closing its program carriage procedures proceeding would keep the standstill rule struck down by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (see 1309050025) from being revived. The group said the FCC should eliminate the network nonduplication and syndicated exclusivity rules and use its authority under the Communications Act Section 629 "to sunset its video set-top box regulations" and declare the market for MVPD services and video devices is "fully competitive." Acknowledging some legacy video rules would need legislation to be addressed, FSF said the agency should look at using rebuttable presumptions of market competition.

Pointing to growing subscriber demand "for diverse and targeted African-American programming," Charter Communications said it acted to increase subscriber access in some markets to African-American-themed and -owned programming. A blog post Tuesday said those steps include extending its agreement with Aspire Network; expanding the distribution of Aspire, Revolt and Up across its footprint; signing a carriage agreement with The Impact Network that would distribute it in a number of markets; expanding Bounce TV distribution to Dallas, Los Angeles, New York City and Raleigh, North Carolina; and signing a carriage agreement with Black TV News Channel that will have that network, when operational, available in multiple markets. A lawsuit by African-American-owned Entertainment Studios Network against Charter over allegations the cable distributor isn't carrying ESN programming due to racially based discrimination is in abeyance while the operator pursues an interlocutory appeal before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals of a lower court's October denial (see 1610260069) of Charter's bid for summary judgment. Charter argued the carriage decision was for business reasons.

Cableview Communications of Jacksonville is appealing to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals a summary judgment granted Time Warner Cable in January in Cableview's complaint against TWC, the company said in a notice (in Pacer) of appeal Friday in U.S. District Court in Jacksonville. Cableview sued TWC in 2013, claiming TWC interfered in FTS USA's 2012 purchase of Cableview assets, including TWC service agreements (see 1604010052). In his summary judgment order, U.S. Magistrate Judge James Klindt said Cableview never suggested while working out an asset purchase agreement with TWC that the agreement was in any way invalid. Charter Communications now owns TWC.