Forty-two Tribune Broadcasting local channels in 33 markets are blacked out on Dish Network, the companies said in news releases (see here and here) Sunday. Tribune said the blackout was due to a dispute over retransmission fees. “We want to reach an agreement, just as we have with every one of our other cable, satellite and telco distributors, but Dish refuses to reach an agreement based on fair-market value,” said Gary Weitman, Tribune Media senior vice president-corporate relations. “We want to keep servicing our local communities and we have repeatedly offered Dish a lengthy extension to continue negotiations -- unfortunately, Dish rejected these offers.” Dish said it's offering over-the-air antennas free to customers during the blackout. It said Tribune is trying to bundle its WGN America channel with local broadcast stations, in addition to the retrans fees, and it offered a short-term contract extension to Tribune that the cable programmer rejected. The retrans blackout is the largest this year, said the American Television Alliance, which seeks to change retrans rules and lists Dish as a partner.

The Consumer Video Choice Coalition supports an FTC-suggested proposal to address privacy concerns about the FCC’s set-top box proceeding by requiring third-party box makers to promise consumers they will abide by the same privacy rules as the pay-TV industry, said an ex parte filing posted Friday. Officials from CVCC member entities Google, Hauppauge, Incompas, Public Knowledge and TiVo announced their support of the plan in a Tuesday meeting with the FCC Chief Technologist Scott Jordan and staff from the Office of General Counsel and Media Bureau, the filing said. The FTC proposal would require the third-party box makers to certify they have promised consumers to respect their privacy, allowing the FTC to enforce that promise under its mandate to prevent companies from engaging in defensive practices. Certification could also keep third parties from altering channel placement, the filing said. “The Coalition representatives also affirmed that a two-year time frame as provided for in the NPRM is appropriate for developing open standards solution(s) in accordance with the proposed rules.”

Whether virtual reality is how all BBC programs will be viewable one day is a question “we are unlikely to have a clear answer to” for many years, said BBC Research and Development Controller Andy Conroy in a Thursday blog post. “Our research will make sure that if that time comes, the BBC is ready.” New media “come along rarely, and those that stand the test of time are rarer still,” he said. The BBC “helped pioneer and develop” radio in the 1920s, TV in the 1930s and digital delivery in the 1980s, he said. “And it’s in that tradition we are exploring 360 video and VR now, in collaboration with the industry. This will help inform any strategy the BBC may need in future.” VR and 360 video “are emerging media the BBC needs to explore," Conroy said. “Our motive with these technologies is the same for the others we are researching -- how might they improve the BBC’s ability to better inform, educate and entertain.” Truly interactive VR video “is in its infancy and can be expensive to create,” he said. All of the true VR “experiments” the BBC is conducting “seek to address different challenges that will provide invaluable insights for the organisation now and in the future,” he said. For example, the BBC worked with Aardman Studios to produce video for the Oculus Rift VR headset, he said. The video “uses real stories of refugees as the basis for an animated virtual experience, helping to give audiences a sense of presence by placing them at the heart of the story, and with technology allowing interactive eye-contact between them and the characters,” he said. The BBC is “learning a great deal” from its VR experiments “about production techniques and workflows, user experience, and the technology of capture and distribution,” he said.

Comcast, NCTA and several content companies did a demonstration of app-based delivery of a pay-TV service to a third-party device for Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel and aides Thursday, said an ex parte filing posted online Monday. The demonstration included “apps-delivered programming” on Apple TV, Nvidia, Roku and Samsung, DirecTV service on TV sets, and “retail devices offering pirated content,” the filing said. The demonstration also included an integrated search of both pay-TV and over-the-top on Roku, the filing said. “The participants discussed innovation and competition in apps and in apps-hosting platforms, the ability for diverse programmers to participate in these platforms, and the importance of protecting copyright and addressing piracy,” the filing said.

Fifteen state attorneys general encouraged the FCC to follow the FTC's recommendation to address privacy concerns about third-party set-top boxes, said an ex parte filing posted online Monday in docket 16-42. Multichannel video program distributors "should provide access only to third-party set-top boxes that have provided consumer facing privacy statements,” the filing said. “Requiring consumer-facing statements would enhance the States’ abilities to pursue consumer protection actions against third-party set-top box manufacturers.” That logic is consistent with a letter sent to the FCC by the FTC earlier this year (see 1604220063). The 15 AGs represented in the letter included those from California, Vermont, Oregon, Massachusetts, Iowa and Washington, D.C.

Nest founder Tony Fadell is leaving the company, he said in a Friday blog post. Marwan Fawaz, technical advisory board chair at ADT, will succeed him as CEO. Fadell called the news “bittersweet,” saying “there is never a perfect time to transition.” The company has grown to “much more than a thermostat company,” and is now a “hardware + software + services ecosystem” still in early growth phase, he said. Nest's future is bright, he said, saying the transition plan has been in place since late last year. Fadell will “remain involved” as an adviser to Google parent Alphabet, he said.

The Media Bureau hasn't identified a “technologically and economically feasible alternative” to the current designated market area system, it said in a report to Congress on increasing localism through market modification. The report was required by the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act Reauthorization, and was intended to address the issue of “orphan counties” -- localities in a DMA that are largely in another state, making it more difficult for them to receive local news. This problem is rare, the bureau said. The “overwhelming majority of consumers in the United States” can access programming from TV stations licensed to a community within the same state, it said. The existence of orphan counties “may have less to do with the fact that DMAs cross state lines and more to do with broadcast television economics and the incentives broadcast stations have to reach large populations,” the bureau said. “Adopting a DMA alternative would not alter this reality.” Instead, localities considering market modification should work closely with local broadcasters “to ensure the standards for market modification are met,” the report said. Legislators could consider future laws to provide “targeted relief” for orphan counties in rural areas, the report said. It rejected suggestions that repealing syndicated exclusivity and network non-duplication rules would increase localism. Since the FCC has an open proceeding on those rules, pleas to get rid of them should be dealt with there, the bureau said. Encouraging stations to make their programming available online could increased localism, the report said.

Though adoption of Ultra HD TVs began to “ramp up” only in 2015, consumer awareness of the technology is high, NPD said in a Wednesday report. Fifty-two percent consumers canvassed by NPD in January and February said they were aware of Ultra HD TVs, the research firm said. That figure “spikes” to 73 percent among consumers who own an internet-connected TV, NPD said. Increased consumer desire for and awareness of 4K streaming-video services has accompanied the growing adoption of 4K TVs, it said. A third of consumers surveyed are already aware of 4K streaming services, it said. Awareness increases to 42 percent among 18-to-34-year-olds, it said. NPD surveyed 5,000 consumers.

NBCUniversal's 2013 retransmission and affiliation contractual agreements with Dish Network don't contain any prohibition of screen crawls warning that NBC programming might soon be dropped from Dish's lineup, NBCU said in a filing (in Pacer) Friday in U.S. District Court in Rockford, Illinois, in response to Dish's breach of contract suit filed in March (see 1603150053). In its 16-page reply, NBCU denied all allegations of contractual breach and repeatedly referred the court to the twin agreements. Dish didn't comment Tuesday.

Comments on proposed additional rules governing video description are due June 27, replies July 26, the FCC Media Bureau said in a public notice Friday. The NPRM seeks comment on increasing the amount of video description that's required (see 1603310058)