Charter stockholders approved the issuance of shares in connection with Comcast's planned buy of Time Warner Cable, Charter said in a news release Tuesday. The issued shares of common stock are connected with Charter’s acquisition of 33 percent of GreatLand Connections, which will be spun off from Comcast under the TWC deal.

The FCC should waive a requirement that cable systems pass through emergency info on a secondary audio programming (SAP) stream for small cable systems that provide analog service, the American Cable Association said in a waiver petition filed Wednesday. The requirement has a May 26 compliance deadline, but cable systems using analog systems can’t pass through SAP to their subscribers, ACA said. Applying the new rules to systems incapable of full compliance “will harm these operators and their subscribers” when alternative means of compliance or additional time could “achieve full industry participation at a later date,” ACA said.

Scripps Networks is set to acquire a 52.7 percent interest in Poland’s TVN for about $617 million, the acquirer said in a news release Monday. The U.S. programmer will also assume about $887 million in debt in the deal, which is subject to regulatory approvals under Polish law, it said. TVN had a 22 percent share of Polish viewing in 2014, Scripps Networks said.

Cablevision and HBO reached an agreement that will give the cable operator's Optimum Online customers access to the channel's stand-alone streaming service, HBO Now, via the Internet, said a news release from Cablevision. It said the deal makes Optimum the first cable provider to partner with HBO on the service, which is expected to launch in April (see 1503090035).

The FCC is seeking comment on whether it should adopt a “rebuttable presumption” that cable operators are subject to effective competition, it said in an NPRM Monday. “Such an approach would reflect the fact that today, based on application of the effective competition test in the current market, the Commission grants nearly all requests for a finding of effective competition,” the NPRM said. The proposal is also intended to implement one of the provisions of the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act Reauthorization, the NPRM said. The FCC wants to know if the change would “reduce regulatory burdens on all cable operators -- large and small -- and on their competitors, while more efficiently allocating the Commission’s resources and amending outdated regulations,” the NPRM said. Comments are due 20 days after publication in the Federal Register, replies 30 days.

The FCC should grant EchoStar's petition for waiver of the analog tuner requirement, to benefit consumers, CEA said in a comment posted Tuesday in docket 15-47. The commission should let EchoStar sell a new model of SlingLoaded HD, Internet-enabled DVR in the U.S., which doesn't include an analog over-the-air tuner, it said. Digital-only devices are cost-effective and the analog tuner requirement should be eliminated for all manufacturers, it said. Delaying this could create a generation of devices with "vestigial analog tuners" while manufacturers comply with "a rule that no longer matches market realities," CEA said. EchoStar's waiver petition and a similar one from Funai in docket 15-42 "are evidence that device manufacturers want to offer consumers the benefits of digital-only devices in upcoming product lines," CEA said. "Eliminating the requirement would also alleviate market uncertainty, permitting manufacturers to introduce innovative, lower-cost, and energy-saving devices in the same timeframe that the remaining analog TV broadcasters have to fully transition to digital broadcasts." CEA was the only commenter in both the Funai and the EchoStar dockets, replies in which are due March 17 and March 19, respectively.

The FCC Media Bureau is seeking comment on an American Cable Association petition requesting a three-year extension of the HD carriage exemption for smaller cable systems, and it tentatively has concluded that granting the extension serves the public interest, said a further NPRM issued Thursday. The HD carriage exemption is set to expire June 12, and a three-year extension would lengthen it to June 12, 2018. “We tentatively conclude that the exemption is still necessary to protect the subscribers of small cable systems from the costs and service disruptions that may result from requiring those systems to deliver HD signals in HD beginning in June 2015,” the bureau said. It seeks comment on the threshold for small cable systems. Comments are due 20 days in docket 98-120 after the FNPRM appears in the Federal Register, replies 10 days after initial comments.

Stop Mega Comcast Coalition’s arguments against the Comcast/TWC deal in recent press conferences and FCC filings contain many “factual inaccuracies,” Comcast said in a blog post Thursday. The coalition’s frequent reference to Comcast’s neighborhooding dispute with Bloomberg doesn’t take into account Bloomberg’s recent request that the “FCC excuse Comcast from the fully-satisfied neighborhooding requirements so that Comcast could fulfill Bloomberg’s specific channel placement priorities,” Comcast said. Bloomberg CEO Michael Bloomberg, “is one of the many respected third parties who have come out in favor of this transaction, “ Comcast said. The blog also challenged the Coalition’s references to issues with PlayStation 4s being able to authenticate HBO Go on Comcast broadband. “Comcast’s authentication of HBO Go isn’t remotely related to the Open Internet requirements, which address how Comcast provides broadband Internet access service to its retail customers, not whether Comcast shares its cable customers’ credentials with third parties,” Comcast said. The post also challenged Coalition assertions that Comcast doesn’t sufficiently distribute works of independent programmers or that it violated requirements for stand-alone broadband offerings. “While there are legitimate issues that the FCC and the DOJ are reviewing related to this transaction, the ones raised here aren’t among them,” Comcast said.

Broadcom’s BCM7252 system-on-a-chip (SoC) is “powering” the world’s first Ultra HD set-top box for Android TV, the chip maker said Wednesday. The SoC is embedded in the Freebox set-top offered by Free, the French Internet TV provider, Broadcom said. The BCM7252 delivers the performance and security levels required for Android TV certification and also is the first device to support HEVC-encoded, 10-bit 4K content at 60 frames a second, it said. The BCM7252 is in production and the Freebox is being shipped to subscribers starting this month, Broadcom said.

A survey of more than 3,000 adults found 4.2 percent planning to cut pay-TV service within the next six months. The Digitalsmiths survey found that 7.9 percent expected to change their services, and 2.5 percent expected to switch to an online app or rental service. It said 8.9 percent had switched pay-TV providers within the previous three months. The survey also found that more respondents increased services than decreased them.