Sky Angel is at odds with Discovery Communications and Animal Planet over whether the programming distributor should get extra latitude in the length of the opening brief and reply in its appeal of a U.S. District Court in Maryland's 2016 decision denying Sky Angel's claims of improper termination of affiliation agreements (see 1609120042). Sky Angel said it challenges numerous errors made by the lower court in four separate decisions and nine-day trial, in a filing (in Pacer) Tuesday in the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in support of its motion to exceed length limitations. Those errors -- misapplication of the law in such issues as determining whether Sky Angel's underlying agreement with Discovery was ambiguous and whether Discovery's termination of that agreement was objectively reasonable -- "are manifest over multiple lengthy decisions and a lengthy trial transcript, which need to be explained on appeal." In a filing (in Pacer) Monday in opposition to the motion, Discovery and Animal Planet said the Sky Angel appeal involves "a straightforward breach of contract case" and doesn't warrant departure from the generally applicable world limits.

Epix is releasing a new streaming content app for TiVo devices, the pay-TV network said in a news release Tuesday. The app will launch first with Atlantic Broadband customers, and other National Cable Television Cooperative cable systems with TiVo set-tops deployed will also be able to access the app, it said.

Millennials dominate the ranks of the "cordless" -- cord-cutters and those who never have subscribed to a cable, satellite or fiber optic TV service -- accounting for 43 percent of them, GfK MRI said in a news release Tuesday. About 30 percent of millennials are cordless, vs. 16 percent of baby boomers. Cordless millennials spend 65 percent of their viewing time with streaming video, while cordless boomers spend 56 percent of their viewing time watching live, linear, over-the-air programming, it said. The researcher said it surveys about 25,000 people in-person annually.

Cablevision is asking commissioners to listen to oral argument on its exceptions to the initial FCC administrative law judge decision in Game Show Network's programming discrimination complaint. In a filing Tuesday in docket 12-122, Cablevision laid out multiple areas where it says it and GSN disagree widely, such as direct evidence standards, the standard of review to which the cable operator is entitled and whether GSN was unreasonably restrained by Cablevision's retiering. It submitted a brief in further support of the exceptions it submitted earlier this month (see 1701050019) to the ALJ decision, arguing it isn't trying to relitigate but seeking a de novo review, and that GSN is misinterpreting the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit's Tennis Channel ruling on a similar discrimination complaint. Cablevision said the channel is wrong when it says Judge Richard Sippel correctly followed FCC guidance about deciding whether GSN was similarly situated to Cablevision-affiliated networks, and it was incorrect when it says the agency shouldn't consider the effect the ALJ's ordered relief would have. GSN outside counsel Stephen Weiswasser of Covington & Burling told us the latest filings break no new ground in what Cablevision has already submitted in the record, and it has no objection to oral argument, but such a step isn't necessary.

Liberty Media wrapped up its acquisition of Formula One, with former DirecTV CEO Chase Carey named CEO and chairman, Liberty said in a news release Monday. Bernie Ecclestone, who had been Formula One CEO, became chairman emeritus, Liberty Media said. "There is an enormous opportunity to grow the sport," Liberty Media CEO Greg Maffei said. Liberty Media was once the single largest shareholder of DirecTV. Liberty Media said its Liberty Media Group will be renamed the Formula One Group, and the ticker symbols for the Series A, Series B and Series C Liberty Media Group tracking stocks will similarly change this week. Formula One will remain based in London and Maffei will be deputy chairman. The deal was announced last fall (see 1609080031).

The cable industry continues to be hurt by the lack of a comprehensive ratings system that captures both online and mobile, and Nielsen's much-promised rollout of such a system in Q1 could mean a couple of years of spiking advertising revenue growth, SNL Kagan reported Monday. The researcher said ad revenue growth -- expected to be about 4.5 percent in 2016 -- could hit 9.3 percent this year and 7.1 percent in 2018 before returning to its normalized rate of under 5 percent in subsequent years. It said the most successful cable networks will be those that get carriage on the basic packages of such over-the-top services as Dish Network's Sling TV, Sony's PlayStation Vue and Hulu's forthcoming service, plus others expected in coming years. Those virtual service providers' subscriber bases will go from fewer than 1 million in 2015 to nearly 12 million by 2025, SNL Kagan said. The report, pointing to the closing of Al Jazeera America and Pivot last year, predicted "a bleak outlook" for smaller independent networks with low ratings: "Shuttering networks with 60 million and 50 million-plus subs, respectively, would have been a completely foreign concept just a year ago." The firm said cable industry revenue growth overall looks healthy, but the top networks get most of that, and there will be continued mergers and acquisitions among the middle and lower-end operators, and more cable networks shutting down.

A lower court was right to dismiss a class-action complaint against Time Warner Cable for retaining a former customer's personal information eight years later because the plaintiff has at best a claim that the possible violation of the Cable Communications Policy Act "has made him feel aggrieved," the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals wrote in an opinion (in Pacer) Friday. Judge Richard Posner, writing the opinion, said plaintiff Derek Gubala did face a risk of harm but never alleged TWC gave away, lost or leaked any of Gubala's information or intends to do so and hasn't shown any risk of harm that's substantial enough to be considered concrete, as required in Spokeo v. Robins. Also siding with TWC were Frank Easterbrook and Diane Sykes. Counsel for Gubala didn't comment Monday.

The FCC shouldn’t replace with a more burdensome requirement the rule that cable providers allow public access to their headend information, said the American Cable Association in a meeting with aides to Commissioners Mignon Clyburn, Mike O’Rielly, and Ajit Pai Tuesday, said an ex parte filing in docket 16-161. A draft item that would remove the rule is on commissioners' Jan. 31 meeting agenda (see 1701100068). Though ACA supports eliminating the rule, its members don’t share the same security concerns as larger cable providers, the filing said. The FCC should instead give cable operators “the option of replacing the public inspection file requirement with an 'upon request' production requirement,” the filing said. This would allow ACA members who “believe maintaining principal headend location information in their physical public file is not burdensome or otherwise problematic” to continue to do so, ACA said.

Documentary production company Sweet Micky accepted all the terms of a license agreement with Showtime, and execution was just a formality that wasn't performed only because of the press of other business, Showtime responded (in Pacer) Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. The response was in reply to an amended lawsuit (in Pacer) filed the day before by Sweet Micky -- owned by Pras Michel, a member of hip-hop group the Fugees -- in which Sweet Micky called its copyright infringement complaint "a classic David and Goliath case" and said Showtime continues to show Sweet Micky for President without a signed license agreement. Also named as a defendant is co-producer/director Ben Patterson.

Eliminating the requirement that cable operators keep cable headend information in a publicly available file would allow cable operators to move to a fully online file, NCTA said in a meeting with aides to FCC Commissioners Ajit Pai and Mike O'Rielly Wednesday, said an ex parte filing posted in docket 16-161. NCTA supports the proposal, which is part of a draft item set for commissioners' Jan. 31 meeting, the first under the Republican administration. “Recognizing that certain entities may have a legitimate need to access the information, we proposed that such entities could request it directly from cable operators,” the filing said. The draft item also would eliminate the requirement that broadcasters keep a public correspondence file (see 1701170054).