With U.S. District Judge Christina Snyder of Los Angeles recusing herself earlier this month from a case involving AT&T, Herring Networks in a request (in Pacer) for clarification Wednesday said it was asking whether a similar recusal is warranted in its lawsuit against AT&T on carriage on U-verse (see 1603110064). The stated reason for the recusal was Snyder's holding a financial interest in a defendant -- that defendant presumably being AT&T, the only publicly held company in the matter, Herring said.

Cablevision and the Game Show Network remain apart on what is the governing standard for filing a timely Communications Act Section 616 programming discrimination complaint, with Cablevision saying GSN is ignoring and misinterpreting precedent, in a reply brief posted Thursday in docket 12-122. A complaint is timely if it comes within a year of a discriminatory contract, offer of carriage or refusal to negotiate, not within a year of a notification to a cable operator of plans to file a Section 616 complaint, Cablevision said in its filing in support of its application for review of the Media Bureau 2012 order designating the GSN complaint for hearing (see 1612230049). The previous bureau decisions cited by GSN (see 1701120061) "are not precedent," Cablevision said, saying the network's pointing to the FCC decision in the Tennis Channel Section 616 complaint "is misplaced" since that decision was overturned by a federal appeals court and one judge's concurrence explicitly rejected the rationale now being cited by GSN. The cable operator that's now part of Altice also dismissed GSN's pointing to a pending Section 616 rulemaking, saying it demonstrates only "that GSN's preferred interpretation is not settled law." The programmer didn't comment.

The Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile, the Formula One governing body, has signed off on Liberty Media's purchase of the auto racing class, Liberty said in a media release Wednesday. It said the acquisition -- which Liberty announced in September (see 1609080031) -- is expected to close this month.

Cable One will buy fellow cable operator NewWave Communications for $735 million in cash, it said in a news release Wednesday. NewWave's network passes roughly 428,000 homes in in seven states, Cable One said, and the two will have more than 1.2 million total primary service units. Cable One said it expects to close on the deal in Q2. In a note to investors, MoffettNathanson analyst Craig Moffett said NewWave's strategy "isn't entirely dissimilar to Cable One's own, suggesting that there may not be too much heavy lifting required to align the two" and pointed to NewWave's video penetration of 24 percent. With NewWave's broadband penetration not much better at about 26 percent, he said, a lot of the value of the deal presumably comes from raising penetration and probably prices. Macquarie analyst Amy Yong wrote investors that Cable One/NewWave likely will be followed by numerous cable deals this year, since Altice and Charter Communications desire to grow, while potential takeover targets could be Mediacom and Cox Communications. Such consolidation, along with industry innovation, likely will mean the three largest cable system operators will end up with more than 90 percent of the video market share over the next decade, Yong said.

Comcast opened free access to 6,800 Xfinity Wi-Fi hot spots in Washington to the 1 million people expected to attend Friday’s presidential inauguration, the company said in a Tuesday news release. Even those who aren't customers will be able to connect for no charge until Jan. 26, it said. Wireless carriers announced temporary and permanent capacity upgrades to meet high network demand expected over the weekend, including for the inauguration and demonstrations (see 1701060023).

The FCC Enforcement Bureau commended Comcast for its work on PlayStation device authentication. In a letter posted Tuesday to Senior Vice President-Regulatory and State Legislative Affairs Kathryn Zachem, bureau Chief Travis LeBlanc said Comcast had wrapped up the steps needed to authenticate its subscribers for access to HBO Go and WatchESPN TV Everywhere services on PlayStations. The bureau said that work came after multiple talks with Comcast and negotiations "with the relevant third parties." It urged Comcast "to continue to take steps towards" its goals of consumer choice and workplace innovation. Comcast didn't comment.

Pointing to "speedy remediation" as the only meaningful fix available to programmers like it that suffered programming discrimination under Communications Act Section 616, Game Show Network is continuing to push the FCC for immediate implementation of the carriage fixes in the rules governing 616 cases. In filings posted Tuesday in docket 12-122 (see here, here and here), GSN pushed for the FCC to order immediate compliance with the November administrative law judge advisory ruling saying Cablevision should move the network back from a premium tier to its expanded basic tier (see 1611230046 and 1612080038). Cablevision, now part of Altice USA, and the FCC didn’t comment. In its opposition to the GSN motion (see 1701050019), Cablevision is focusing on inapplicable rules and “unfounded” arguments, the plaintiff said. It rejected the Cablevision argument that GSN caused delays in the complaint and thus shouldn’t be able to seek the ALJ-mandated remedies. FCC rules Section 76.10 and 76.1302 say an ALJ decision in Section 616 carriage disputes and orders following a program carriage hearing are effective on release, GSN said. Stays are employed only in very limited circumstances, and the one sought by Cablevision “is completely inappropriate here,” GSN wrote. It said Cablevision hasn’t met any of the four elements required for a stay. Cablevision's contention that its due process rights would be violated if the decision is implemented before the FCC hears the MVDPs' First Amendment and statute of limitations arguments “borders on the frivolous” since the agency has rejected both of them more than once, GSN said. The channel dismissed Cablevision’s First Amendment defense argument, saying courts and the FCC repeatedly have said carriage remedies are “content neutral.” The indie said Cablevision arguments that its takeover by Altice was relevant should have brought that up in fall 2015 when the deal was announced and the ALJ could have generated a record.

Charter Communications' agreement with Fox News Network was expressly clear that it would be the surviving contract if and when Charter bought a system operator like Time Warner Cable, FNN said in a filing Thursday in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan in opposition to Charter's motion to dismiss part of an FNN lawsuit (see 1609120005). The only caveat was contractual terms about anything to the contrary in prior agreements, such as FNN's contract with TWC, but no such language was in that FNN-TWC deal, the cable programmer said. FNN said Charter arguments to dismiss its declaratory judgment, good faith and fair dealing breach of contract, unjust enrichment, indemnity, estoppel and fraud claims are particularly indefensible in the pre-discovery phase of the proceedings. It said dismissing the claims wouldn't have any practical effect on discovery since Charter didn't move to dismiss FNN's breach of contract cause of action so discovery would remain the same. The cable operator didn't comment Friday.

A federal judge signed off on proposed settlement terms on class-action claims of Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) violations by cable installation company FTS USA and parent UniTek Global. In an order (in Pacer) Thursday, U.S. District Judge Robert Payne of Richmond dismissed the case in accordance with the settlement agreement and awarded attorney's fees and costs of $461,701 to be paid from the settlement fund, less than the $500,000 the plaintiff's counsel had sought. The sides agreed last fall to a settlement for FTS and UniTek to pay up to $1.3 million to settle allegations of improper use of consumer reports in employee hiring (see 1609150019).

The FCC has been clear in saying a Section 616 programming discrimination complaint that's filed within a year of a programmer letting a multichannel programming distributor know it intends to file that complaint and within a year of that discrimination is timely, Game Show Network said in a filing posted Thursday in docket 12-122. The filing was in opposition to Cablevision's push for a review of the 2012 Media Bureau hearing designation order on GSN's carriage complaint (see 1612230049). GSN also said the bureau 2008 hearing designation order on the NFL Network's complaint against Comcast, and the full FCC in its 2012 Tennis Channel order, found those complaints timely under similar circumstances, and Cablevision now gives no reason for the FCC to reverse longstanding precedent. The programmer said Cablevision's pointing to a pending rulemaking about clarifying the time limits in Communications Act Section 616 cases only confirms that GSN's complaint was timely, since the proposal would have the language that better hews to the way the rule has been repeatedly interpreted. Cablevision didn't comment.