The FCC should secure public interest benefits and improvements to the Comcast Internet Essentials program if it approves Comcast's planned buy of Time Warner Cable, the California Emerging Technology Fund told FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler aides Gigi Sohn, Maria Kirby and Phil Verveer in a meeting Tuesday, according to an ex parte filing in docket 14-57. CETF “does not support or oppose" the deal, but said the FCC should secure an improved sign-up process and fewer eligibility restrictions for Internet Essentials in the transaction. CETF also wants specific performance goals for the program, an independent advisory committee and a requirement for Comcast to offer a stand-alone Internet program. “Comcast should capitalize a fund to be administered by an independent third party to fund outreach and actual sign-ups of eligible low income subscribers by community-based organizations (CBO’s) to the target population,” CETF said. It said CBOs have had difficulty working with Comcast.

The Game Show Network has the right to depose AMC Network CEO Josh Sapan for its carriage complaint proceeding against Cablevision, said an order from FCC Chief Administrative Law Judge Richard Sippel posted in docket 12-122 Wednesday. AMC was a division of Cablevision when it shifted GSN to its sports tier, the move that lies at the center of GSN’s complaint. GSN needs to depose Sapan to gather evidence on Cablevision’s programming practices, so it can pursue its charge that it was discriminated against by the cable provider, the order said. Though Cablevision argued that Sapan had no new info to contribute to the case, Sippel said blocking his discovery would risk leaving the case with an incomplete record.

The FCC fined Viacom and ESPN $1.4 million total for using emergency alert system (EAS) warning tones for a nonemergency, said a forfeiture order Tuesday that was approved by commissioners. Viacom was fined $1.12 million and ESPN $280,000. In 2013, Viacom and ESPN used EAS warning tones to promote the movie Olympus Has Fallen, violating the Communications Act, the commission said. The commission rejected ESPN's and Viacom's requests to reduce their fines. The fines must be paid in 30 days, the order said. "The enforcement action and fine were unwarranted" and Viacom is "considering our next steps," said a company spokesman. ESPN had no immediate comment.

Overlaps among Charter Communications', Comcast's and Time Warner Cable's service areas are “de minimis” even if the calculation is made using all the homes to which each company could extend service within 7-10 days, the companies told members of the FCC's Comcast/TWC transaction review team in a meeting last week, an ex parte filing said. “In over 99.9 percent of areas served by the companies, there is not even a potential overlap between any of the Applicants,” the filing said. “Except in rare instances,” the companies said, they also don't offer broadband services to residential or small- and medium-size business customers in each other’s areas.

The FCC asked Dish Network for programming agreements for its Sling TV service, as part of the review of the Comcast's planned buy of Time Warner Cable, said a letter filed in docket 14-57. The FCC is looking for agreements and any documents related to programming negotiations between Dish and A+E, CBS, Comcast, ABC, E.W. Scripps and Turner Broadcasting, the letter said. Dish has until Jan. 23 to submit the material.

Dish Network likely will drop Viacom in its upcoming carriage renewal, Citi Research analysts emailed investors. Cable One and Suddenlink dropped Viacom channels in 2014. “Most Favored Nation clauses may limit Viacom’s pricing flexibility with Dish without triggering lower affiliate fees from other pay TV firms,” the analysts said Tuesday. They said Viacom might look into selling itself before the renewal with Dish. "We don’t have a renewal with Dish in 2015," Viacom spokesman Jeremy Zweig said Wednesday. He emailed Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman's statements from the company's last earnings call, which said: "In the past 12 months, we have concluded favorable multi-year renewals covering about 25 percent of our total domestic subscribers, including Time Warner Cable, Verizon, more than 800 NCTC [National Cable Television Cooperative] member distributors totaling more than 4.8 million subscribers and most recently Frontier Communications, which has approximately 260,000 subscribers. We now have 70 percent of our subscribers covered by affiliate agreements that won’t expire for at least three years and go out for as long as eight years.” Dish declined to comment on the speculation.

Recent FCC information requests to third-party companies connected with the Comcast/Time Warner Cable transaction review (see 1501050043) undermine the agency's arguments for releasing video programming contract information (VPCI), said programmers in a response brief to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in their challenge against the agency. The request asked companies such as Netflix for summaries of pricing information and contract terms. “Having concluded both that the summarization of specific contract terms is 'workable' and that it provides an adequate and appropriate basis for the Commission to evaluate contract data, the FCC is ill positioned to assert that it must release hundreds of thousands of pages of VPCI to third parties,” said the programmers, which include Disney, 21st Century Fox and Viacom. The FCC hasn't refuted the content companies' arguments that requiring the release of the contract information was a departure from its usual process, the programmers said. Though the FCC has said that not including the VPCI in the record would leave its deal review decision vulnerable to court challenge, the content companies disagree. D.C. Circuit precedent doesn't require the FCC to “dump hundreds of thousands of pages of highly confidential documents in the record and wait for third parties to determine what is relevant,” the programmers said. “The FCC is well aware of the issues raised by the merger parties’ competitors, and there is no disagreement that the FCC is capable of examining the VPCI itself.”

Bright House Networks has “historically” relied on Time Warner Cable “to supply external connections that are critical to BHN's successful provision of lnternet service,” BHN CEO Steven Miron told members of the FCC's Comcast/TWC transaction review team in a Dec. 16 presentation, said an ex parte filing posted in docket 14-57 Monday. It clarified a previous ex parte filing that described BHN as having “access” to TWC's "national Internet backbone," Monday's filing said. “All external transit and peering arrangements for BHN are currently handled by TWC.” TWC also negotiates those on BHN's behalf, the filing said.

The FCC restarted the “shot clock” for the Comcast/Time Warner Cable transaction, a spokeswoman for the Media Bureau told us. The clock was stopped Dec. 22 (see 1412220062) because TWC hadn't submitted all of the information requested by the commission, said a letter sent to TWC. Though the bureau wouldn't comment on whether TWC had since completed its submission, an attorney involved in the deal told us it has done so. With all the information requests to the merging companies complete, the FCC will now focus on analyzing the data, the attorney said. Information requests from the FCC to DirecTV, Netflix and several other companies for information related to the deal are outstanding (see 1501050043).

The National Cable Television Cooperative buying group and Discovery Communications signed a multiyear distribution agreement, Discovery said in a news release Wednesday. The deal gives participating NCTC members "TV Everywhere rights through subscriber authentication on multiple devices," the release said. It also includes access to Discovery's U.S. networks, which include Animal Planet, OWN and TLC, it said.