AT&T and Univision released dueling statements Monday about their ongoing retransmission-consent battle (see 1603040063), which has led to U-Verse customers' inability to access Univision programming since the end of last week. “If, as the most popular Spanish-language broadcaster, we do not take a stand and require the distributors treat us on par with English-language broadcasters, what does that mean for the minority and independent creators that come after us?” asked Univision Executive Vice President-Government Relations Jessica Herrera-Flanigan. Univision has “stooped to despicable allegations in an effort to extort an outrageous price increase -- an increase which ultimately will come at the expense of all our customers, including Univision viewers,” said Jim Cicconi, AT&T senior executive vice president-external and legislative affairs. "If Univision really cares about their audiences, they will immediately restore their channels to U-Verse homes while we figure this out.” Herrera-Flanigan said AT&T should “continue its tradition of valuing the Hispanic community by negotiating reasonably and respectfully towards a fair agreement.” The National Hispanic Media Coalition said the blackout's timing could prevent many Latino voters from watching Wednesday's Democratic presidential debate, which will be hosted by Univision. Though Univision said AT&T should return to the negotiating table to have access to Univision content restored, and made statements defending the blackout as taking a stand for Spanish-language viewers, NHMC blamed AT&T for the blackout. "For AT&T to shut out Univision -- the most popular Spanish-language news network -- mere days before. the Democratic debate co-hosted by the network is a grave injustice to voters looking to be informed," said NHMC. "AT&T’s action jeopardizes the ability of Latinos to be well-informed participants in the political process." Both parties "must come back to the table immediately to resolve their differences," NHMC said.

Amazon, Apple, Google and Roku made more than eight of every 10 digital media streamer shipments worldwide in 2015, “strengthening their combined grip on the fast-growing category,” Strategy Analytics said in a Friday report. Google's low-cost HDMI dongle “continues to lead the standalone streamer market” and has “cemented itself” among the top five overall connected TV devices globally, the researcher said. Based on cumulative shipments of digital media streamers, Apple tops all others, having shipped nearly 37 million Apple TV units since their 2007 launch, it said. Google's Chromecast is catching up fast with 27 million units shipped in two and a half years, followed by Roku box and streaming stick devices (20 million) and Amazon Fire TV (less than 10 million), it said. Global shipments of all connected TV devices, including smart TVs, Blu-ray players, videogame consoles and digital media streamers, totaled 220 million units in 2015, it said.

The FCC should deny the National Asian American Coalition​'s request for an exemption from closed captioning requirements for its program Owning a Piece of America, said a joint filing by several consumer groups representing the hearing impaired. “NAAC is a financially stable organization with a multimillion dollar budget, and is looking to expand,” said the consumer groups, which included Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, the National Association of the Deaf and the Association of Late-Deafened Adults. “Its low captioning costs would not result in an economic burden.”

KRDK-TV Valley City, North Dakota, is entitled to mandatory carriage on Cable One in the Fargo-Valley City designated market area, KRDK licensee Parker Broadcasting of Dakota License said in an FCC must-carry complaint Thursday. It said KRDK qualifies as a local commercial TV station and not a distant signal because it's licensed to serve Valley City. Parker said KRDK didn't elect between must-carry and retransmission consent before Oct. 1, 2014, and thus defaulted to must-carry status. It also said Cable One seemingly isn't carrying the station because of a contractual relationship between the cable operator and KVLY-TV Fargo, but KVLY has never operated on Channel 4 and thus can't have rights to that channel except as a retrans consent station -- "rights which are clearly secondary to KRDK-TV's right to positioning on Channel 4." Cable One didn't comment Friday.

Mediacom spelled out specifics on how a cooling off period/mediation in retransmission consent negotiations might work, it said in an ex parte filing Friday in docket 15-216 on a meeting with FCC staff including Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake. The company made suggestions for changes to the totality of circumstances test of good-faith retrans talks (see 1512020029). In the filing, Mediacom urged the FCC to consider a rule wherein not agreeing to extend an expiring agreement -- short of talks being at an impasse -- is evidence of bad-faith negotiating, while an impasse declaration would trigger a 60-day cooling off in which the existing arrangement stays in place and the multichannel video programming distributor could arrange for a substitute station. During that cooling off, refusing to submit to a fast track mediation would be presumptively bad faith, Mediacom said. It also suggested an alternative wherein the cooling off period/mediation requirement kicks in 90 days before the expiration date, with mediation required if no agreement is reached during the first 30 days of that 90-day period. Mediacom also detailed its suggestions that insisting on a contract expiration date that differs from the end of the three-year retrans consent cycle should be a presumptive violation of good-faith negotiation, and its proposal that the agency adopt a rule requiring a bargaining party to give a reason -- and substantiation for that reason -- for rejecting the other side's offer. And it suggested the FCC adopt a rule making it a presumptive good-faith violation to refuse to negotiate for retrans consent on a local station or local system basis. That "would mitigate a station group's ability to use the leverage it has ... to bring up the price obtained for less valuable properties," Mediacom said. Its representatives at the meeting included General Counsel Joseph Young. In a separate filing Friday in the docket, NAB fired back at American TV Alliance proposals (see 1602190044) for retrans consent rules. "The more ATVA objects to criticisms that pay TV providers’ primary goal in this proceeding is to lower their programming costs, the more glaringly apparent that goal becomes," NAB said. "We can think of no instance in which the Commission, of its own volition, has injected itself into the marketplace in the manner that ATVA and pay TV providers desire; namely, to purposefully reduce the ability of one industry to compete in the marketplace in a manner that will serve the profit-minded interests of another industry." In a statement, ATVA said, "The evidence here speaks for itself. When broadcasters charge crazy prices for their supposedly 'free' signals, our members have to pass that on to viewers. If new FCC rules provide some relief, our members can, too.”

The FCC International Bureau is pushing back by one year identification requirement for digital video uplinks, to Sept. 3, 2017, to allow more time to update the record on costs of compliance and if any relief is needed, it said in an order Friday in docket 12-267. The external modulators needed to upgrade equipment to the new Automatic Transmitter Identification System rule "have not become available," and many earth station operators wouldn't be able to upgrade their transmitters as required, the FCC said.

Pointing to their having negotiated more than 200 retransmission consent agreements last year with only three resulting in any service disruptions, a group of local broadcasters met with FCC staff to urge the agency not to tilt negotiation power in the favor of multichannel video programming distributors, said an ex parte filing posted Thursday in docket 15-216. It recapped meetings involving Quincy CEO Ralph Oakley, Bayou City Broadcasting CEO DuJuan McCoy and Morgan Murphy Media CEO Elizabeth Murphy Burns on one side, and FCC officials including Commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Ajit Pai, Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake and Chairman Tom Wheeler's senior counselor, Philip Verveer. The filing said the broadcasters said they "have every incentive to successfully negotiate retransmission consent agreements" to maximize viewership, but MVPD consolidation has favored pay TV operators over small broadcasters in negotiations.

Sinclair finished its $350 million buy of the Tennis Channel, Sinclair said in a news release Wednesday. A week before, the FTC said it wouldn't try to block the deal (see 1602250044), which Sinclair said it expects to help it boost the number of pay-TV households that can see the formerly independent channel (see 1601280019).

Starz thinks it’s “a very good time to be a premium provider of non-advertising-supported content with a subscription-based model,” CEO Christopher Albrecht said on a Thursday earnings call. Though the “core” Starz business continues to grow, “we must take advantage of new distribution opportunities that are now the realities of the television ecosystem,” Albrecht said. For example, the distribution agreement that Starz signed with Amazon in December, enabling Amazon Prime users to subscribe to Starz, among other services, as part of Amazon’s Streaming Partners program (see 1512080052), is for Starz yielding “very encouraging” results in the “early data on subscriptions,” he said. “After taking this first step with Amazon, we are now actively engaging with additional new distributors that want to provide the Starz experience on their platforms.” Starz also is nearing completion of its own “stand-alone app, which we plan to deploy in the coming months,” he said. The app “will assist us in securing opportunities to distribute Starz on non-MVPD platforms and will also help us innovate with traditional distribution partners,” he said of multichannel video programming distributors. “Early indications” show that Amazon is “a very good partner,” Albrecht said in Q&A. “This is a business that they are interested in growing, and we couldn't be more pleased that we chose them as our first partner outside of traditional MVPDs.”

Several broadcasters and cable operators visited the FCC to discuss their dispute with PMCM over that company's channel assignment, said an ex parte filing posted Thursday in docket 14-150. The Media Bureau’s decision “must be erroneous” because it requires PMCM's WJLP Middletown Township, New Jersey, to be “allocated to two different markets but not the one where it actually is allocated by the Table of Allotments,” PMCM said. It recounted in the Feb. 22 meeting that CBS and Meredith said that by using its over-the-air channel as its program and system information protocol channel, PMCM was “inappropriately attempting to ride on the channel 3 'brand' that they had built up over the years.” Though PMCM said that TV sets in its area don't direct to its assigned channel 33 when tuned to 33, CBS said this could be fixed by educating viewers to tune to 33.1, the filing said. “The educational effort necessary to get the word to all viewers in the market that they must press 33.1, rather than the customary 33, would be financially crushing,” PMCM said. It said that Cablevision, Ion and Time Warner Cable were also represented at the meeting.