The average monthly price of expanded basic cable service increased 3.1 percent in 2013, while the average price per channel increased by 0.9 percent, said the FCC Media Bureau in a cable pricing report released Monday. The Consumer Price Index increased 1.6 percent in the same period, the report said. “The price of expanded basic service has increased at a compound average annual growth rate of 5.9 percent during the period 1995-2014,” the bureau said. “Over the 19 years from 1995-2014, the price per channel is virtually unchanged on an average annual compound basis.” As of Jan. 1, the average expanded basic cable price of $66.61 was higher than DirecTV’s $64.92 and Dish Network’s $59.99, the report said. DirecTV offered the greatest number of channels and had a significantly lower price per channel than the cable average, while Dish offered significantly fewer channels and had a lower price per channel, the report said.

The FCC Media Bureau made “certain broadband subscriber data” from FCC Form 477 data collection part of the record for Comcast's planned buy of Time Warner Cable, said a public notice Wednesday. The information includes subscriber totals, broadband providers in the combining companies’ footprints and subscriber totals by technology, the PN said. The information could inform economic analysis and comments on the transaction, the PN said. “Such comment may play an integral role in the commission’s ultimate determination about whether the proposed transactions in this proceeding are in the public interest," the PN said.

Liberty Global and Searchlight Capital Partners will buy Puerto Rico’s second largest cable provider, Choice Cable TV, for $272.5 million, Liberty said in a news release Wednesday. Choice’s operations will be combined with Liberty Cablevision of Puerto Rico to form the island’s largest cable provider, 60 percent-owned by Liberty Global and 40 percent-owned by Searchlight. The deal needs regulatory approval and is expected to close in the first half of 2015, said Liberty.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit set oral argument in programmers' challenge of FCC confidentiality rules in the Comcast/Time Warner Cable and AT&T/DirecTV deals for Feb. 20, said a court order. The date matches the expedited schedule requested by the parties involved. The FCC has told the court that the case needs to be resolved to allow prompt review of the proposed deals.

The FCC decline of a GAO recommendation that it step up oversight of usage-based pricing could signal “a strong disinclination by the Chairman toward any new FCC limits on cable broadband pricing,” said Guggenheim Partners analyst Paul Gallant in an email to investors Wednesday. The FCC’s rejection of GAO’s advice (see 1412020037) makes it seem likely that if the commission bases new net neutrality rules on Communications Act Title II, “the Wheeler-led FCC would do as much as it can to limit the risk of a shift toward greater pricing oversight by a future FCC,” Gallant said. “We continue to believe that reclassification of broadband as a Title 2 service -- should that happen -- would not make it more likely that a future FCC will in fact decide to regulate cable broadband prices.”

Comcast’s “modest gain” in footprint from buying Time Warner Cable won’t increase its incentive “to engage in exclusionary conduct” toward video industry rivals, said Comcast in response to questions from FCC staff. The response was posted online Monday. Those who believe the merger will have anticompetitive consequences believe Comcast would reap “slightly higher proportion of gains from exclusionary conduct if it serves 29% of U.S. MVPD [multichannel video programming distributor] subscribers rather than 22%,” said Comcast. “This theoretical claim finds no support in the documents or historical behavior of Comcast,” said the cable company. Since Comcast has long been the nation’s largest cable company, evidence of such behavior should have already emerged if it were a real concern, Comcast said. The cable company also pointed to merger conditions that keep it from preventing online video distributors from accessing its content. “There is “strong empirical evidence that the immediate harm to Comcast’s programming business from any foreclosure strategy would exceed any purported benefit to its MVPD business,” Comcast said.

The FCC should issue a subpoena to collect the data it requests in its revised special access data collection order, representatives from cable companies and NCTA told staff from the Wireline Bureau and Office of General Counsel in a meeting Nov. 24, said an ex parte filing by the association posted Friday in docket 05-25. Charter Communications, Cox Enterprises and Time Warner Cable sent representatives. They want the FCC to subpoena the data to protect the cable companies from running “afoul” of Communications Act privacy requirements protecting identification information, NCTA said. This will allow providers subject to Communications Act Section 631 "to comply with that section’s privacy requirements while providing the Commission with the full suite of information requested in the special access proceeding,” NCTA said.

Comcast's planned buy of Time Warner Cable poses “substantial threats to competition,” CenturyLink said in a Nov. 24 presentation to a large number of FCC staff. The staff included Philip Verveer, aide to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, and Shane Greenstein of the FCC's transaction review team, plus staff from the Media and Wireline bureaus, the Office of Strategic Planning, the General Counsel's Office and the Public Safety Bureau, said an ex parte filing in docket 14-57. The meeting also concerned the effects of the deal on CenturyLink's pay TV business, and information on CenturyLink's churn rates and financial information was redacted from the filing.

The FCC asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit for an expedited briefing schedule for content companies’ petition for review of the commission’s order releasing confidential programming documents connected with the proposed mergers of AT&T/DirecTV and Comcast/Time Warner Cable. An emergency stay in the case has put the FCC’s shot clocks for completing merger reviews on hold. The petitioners in the case, which include CBS, Disney and Viacom, have consented to the proposed schedule, the FCC said. Under the FCC’s proposed schedule, the final briefs in the case would be filed Jan. 13, with the court likely issuing an opinion some weeks later. Since the programmers’ case sought to block access only to the video programming confidential information, the commission will allow access during the stay to highly confidential information that doesn’t contain VPCI, the motion said.

Time Warner Cable Deputy General Counsel David Christman met with FCC staff last week to describe the relationship between Bright House Networks, Advance/Newhouse and TWC, said a partially redacted ex parte filing posted in docket 14-57 Tuesday. A/N is the “exclusive day-to day manager” of the Bright House Networks systems, while TWC provides “programming acquisition and network-related services” to the BHN systems, TWC said. It said the arrangement provides “scale advantages” to Bright House while TWC benefits from “close collaboration” with BHN management.