The FCC's decision that programming and retransmission consent contract information should be available with safeguards to parties in the Comcast/Time Warner Cable and AT&T/DirecTV merger reviews is “within its broad discretion,” the FCC said in a respondent's brief filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Filed Friday in response to the content companies' petition for review of the commission's decision to release Video Programming Confidential Information, the brief asked the court to affirm the FCC's protective orders “expeditiously so that the merger reviews can proceed as promptly as possible.” The joint challenge by CBS, Disney, Viacom and other content companies “rests on the premise -- wholly unsupported -- that parties will not comply with the protective orders’ provisions, and that the Commission will not punish violators when warranted,” the brief said. The protective orders for the VPCI “contain robust safeguards against abuse, and the Commission has made clear that the orders will be vigorously enforced,” the brief said. Not allowing access to the VPCI would “weaken” the FCC's ability to defend a merger review decision against court challenges and disrupt the merger review process, the FCC said. Content company suggestions that VPCI in the record be made anonymous “would be inappropriate, are unworkable, and would only serve to create unacceptable delay that could, by itself, prevent the transactions from moving forward,” the FCC said.

Nexstar Broadcasting reached a distribution agreement with Charter Communications, Nexstar said in a news release Thursday. The prior agreement between the two companies expired at midnight Dec. 31, but the new deal was reached before that deadline, “enabling Charter subscribers in fifteen markets to enjoy uninterrupted access to network, local news and other programming,” the release said. “No material service interruptions related to distribution agreements” have occurred with Nexstar's station group since 2005, the news release said.

Comments on the FCC’s second Further NPRM on Closed Caption Quality Standards are due Jan. 20, and replies Jan. 30, the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau said in a public notice Wednesday. The second Further NPRM asked for comments on proposed requirements for video programmers to file contact information and certifications of captioning compliance with the Commission (see 1412160047).

Cellcom Israel launched Cellcom TV, an over-the-top service, in Israel. The platform includes Israeli digital terrestrial TV channels, VOD services and additional advanced viewing capabilities, Cellcom said in a news release.

FairPoint Communications assured a lawmaker it hasn't been uncooperative in dealing with its striking employees. "We have made numerous formal and informal efforts to reach agreement with our unionized workforce, all without success," it said Wednesday in a letter from FairPoint CEO Paul Sunu to Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine. But the good faith efforts weren't reciprocated, FairPoint said. It doesn't appear the unions are serious "about addressing FairPoint's need for substantive reform to the company's benefit costs," it said. Sunu responded to a letter from Pingree last week expressing concern about the strike. A representative for the union didn't return a request for comment.

Tech groups and public interest groups urged Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood to forgo subpoenas and legal action aimed at determining whether Google profits from ad sales linked to drug sales, piracy and other illegal acts offered online. The enforcement tools that Hood is seeking “would harm free expression and Internet security,” said Erik Stallman, general counsel for the Center for Democracy & Technology. They also would threaten the successful legal framework “that has made America the leader of the Internet economy,” he said in a blog post. Hood’s letters to Google and the subpoena “ignore this legal framework, and federal preemption in the area of copyright, entirely,” Stallman said. Instead, they seek to give attorneys general and rightsholders “the authority to curate and control web content and especially search results,” he said. Google filed a lawsuit last week against Hood claiming that he tried to censor the Internet by filing a subpoena (see 1412190045). The letter was signed by 13 organizations, including CDT, Electronic Frontier Foundation and Free Press.

The FTC urged a children's mobile app developer to evaluate its app and determine whether it violates the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). The commission said it appears that the app, BabyBus, collects precise geolocation information about users, it said Monday in a news release. The China-based company doesn't get parents' consent before collecting children's personal information, it said. Because "you are collecting precise geolocation information, which is considered 'personal information' under the rule, you must provide notice and obtain verifiable parental consent before collecting, using, or disclosing this information," the letter said.

DirecTV launched Yaveo, a Spanish-language over-the-top streaming entertainment service available to anyone in the U.S. with an Internet connection. Yaveo features programming from the U.S., Latin America and Spain, DirecTV said Monday in a news release. Customers will have the ability to stream live sports and entertainment channels, like beIN Sports en Español and Hola! TV, it said.

The FCC is stopping its 180-day shot clock for the Comcast/Time Warner Cable deal because TWC didn’t produce requested documents in time, the FCC announced in a letter Monday. The clock is stopped until Jan. 12, the letter said. The documents in question were part of the FCC’s August information request, it said. Responses to the request were due Sept. 11. The missing information includes “in excess of 7,000 responsive documents [that] had been withheld based on an inappropriate claim of attorney client privilege” and weren’t given to the FCC until Dec. 8 and 9, and “in excess of 31,000” documents that weren’t produced because of “vendor error,” the FCC said. Though TWC initially said the latter documents would be produced Dec. 30, the FCC said it has recently learned that the documents and a revised privilege log will be produced Monday. “The effect of these late disclosures has been to slow down the Commission’s review of the Comcast/TWC/Charter transaction, in particular because sections of the review that staff had thought were complete now must be reopened to take account of the additional documents,” the FCC said. FCC staff has also been “hampered” in reviewing TWC’s initial privilege log because it's incomplete and contains errors, the order said. “The magnitude of the errors, with respect to both the document production and the privilege log, is material and the delays in rectifying them were substantial so that the tardy productions have interfered with the Commission’s ability to conduct a prompt and thorough review of the pending applications,” the order said. The pleading cycle remains active and reply comments are still due Tuesday, the FCC said. "We already have provided the FCC more than five million pages of documents and we will continue to provide the FCC everything that they need to review this transaction,” TWC said in an email.

The FCC proposes to modernize its definition of multichannel video programming distributor in a rulemaking notice adopted Friday. It proposes to interpret the definition of an MVPD "to include providers that make multiple linear streams of video programming available for purchase, regardless of the technology used to distribute the programming," it said in a news release. This approach would ensure that nascent, Web-based video programming services "will have access to the content they need to compete with established providers," it said. “Video is no longer tied to a certain transmission technology, so our interpretation of MVPD should not be tied to transmission facilities,” Chairman Tom Wheeler said in a statement. Under the proposal “any providers that make multiple linear streams of video programming available for purchase would be considered MVPDs, regardless of the technology used to deliver the programming,” he said. The NPRM asks for comment on an alternative interpretation that would require an MVPD to have control over a transmission path, and whether the proposals "would affect the regulatory status of IP-delivered video services by cable operators and [direct broadcast satelite] providers." Comments and replies are to be due 30 days and 45 days after publication in the Federal Register.