Bright House Networks is carrying Star India Plus in Orlando and Tampa Bay, the operator said Thursday in a news release. The channel airs Hindi language dramas, children’s programming, Bollywood movies and other content, it said.
Regulators should block Comcast buying Time Warner Cable as being bad for consumers, said the American Antitrust Institute in a white paper released Wednesday (http://bit.ly/1xJTv56). The deal would let Comcast “exercise buyer market power against content and middle-market service providers and potentially exclude rivals,” said AAI in a news release (http://bit.ly/1uXUT1Y). “The deal doesn’t pass the cost-benefit test,” said AAI President Bert Foer. With the net neutrality debate and AT&T agreeing to buy DirecTV (see separate report above in this issue) and other telecom deals occurring at the same time as Comcast/Time Warner Cable, regulators should adopt a “go-slow policy” in deciding to approve it, AAI said. “We don’t think the merger is fixable, given what would need to be done on the remedies side to ensure that competition and consumers are not harmed,” said Vice President Diana Moss. Comcast had no immediate response.
A status update on the program carriage dispute between Cablevision and Game Show Network was delayed until Friday at both companies’ request, said an order from FCC Chief Administrative Law Judge Richard Sippel posted Tuesday in docket 12-222 (http://bit.ly/1l4OSNF). The companies had requested more time to complete discovery (CD June 6 p14).
There will be a significant uptick of IPTV providers’ adoption of 802.11ac Wi-Fi technology in IP set-top boxes in 2015, Infonetics Research said Thursday. The 802.11n dual-mode and 2X2 MIMO technologies are currently the most prevalent Wi-Fi technologies in IP set-top boxes, but 67 percent of providers who participated in the Infonetics survey indicated they would begin using 802.11ac next year. About 6 percent of surveyed providers said they were already using the technology, Infonetics said. Survey respondents rated remote programming via tablet or mobile devices highest among all set-top box applications, with 67 percent of respondents rating it highly, Infonetics said (http://bit.ly/1kEi92T).
Cablevision and Game Show Network asked an FCC administrative law judge to let them continue to proceed with discovery and provide an update on the status of GSN’s program carriage complaint against the operator June 13, said a status report posted Wednesday in docket 12-222 (http://bit.ly/ScaRGT). GSN v. Cablevision has been on hold while the two sides adjust their arguments and evidence based on the Comcast v. FCC decision in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which, like GSN v. Cablevision, also concerned a dispute between a cable provider and a programmer over which tier that channel should be carried on.
Bright House Networks added EPIX channels to its lineup, and online access is coming soon. Four channels, including EPIX 1 and EPIX Drive-In, are available to subscribers via TV and on demand, Bright House said in a news release Monday. Bright House will give its digital TV customers an introductory offer that includes three months of EPIX and its multiplex services, at no additional charge, it said.
Comcast representatives met with staff from the FCC Media Bureau and the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau to discuss emergency information and video description for video transmitted over IP, said an ex parte filing Tuesday (http://bit.ly/1nCIDl5). Comcast has invested in infrastructure and collaborated with vendors to offer that information on a secondary audio stream over IP cable services and the company’s Xfinity platform, the ex parte said. Comcast customers can access the second stream through the Xfinity user interface on “a number of third-party devices,” depending on the devices’ “native audio capability,” the filing said.
The FCC should not adopt a 3-million subscriber “safe harbor” for membership in a buying group, said Cox Communications representatives in meetings with staff for Commissioner Mike O'Rielly and Chairman Tom Wheeler, according to an ex parte filing Tuesday (http://bit.ly/1jYljyb). The commission should “ensure that all small and mid-sized [multichannel video programming distributors] can gain the protections of reformed buying group rules,” said the filing. A safe harbor of any size is “unnecessary,” said Cox.
Cox said it plans to offer gigabit Internet speeds starting with new residential construction projects and new and existing neighborhoods in Las Vegas, Omaha and Phoenix. The company will begin marketwide deployment of gigabit speeds by the end of 2016 in all Cox locations, Cox said Thursday in a news release (http://bit.ly/1jHy0gB). Cox also will double the speeds on its most popular tiers of Internet service for all customers this year, it said.
The FCC’s annual Report on Cable Industry Prices issued last week is “misleading, outdated and irrelevant as a measure of the health of the TV marketplace,” said an NCTA blog post Wednesday (http://bit.ly/1oT0CFz). Instead of measuring only cable providers, the report (CD May 19 p13) should also include other pay TV providers, NCTA said. “Today cable video barely comprises 53 percent of pay TV households,” said the blog post. The report also doesn’t account for cable packages that are ordered alongside other services such as broadband and digital telephone, NCTA said. Eighty percent of cable video customers buy other services with their cable, and generally receive a price drop, NCTA said. “This report only considers the standalone price of a single cable TV package that is rarely bought on its own,” said the post. The report should also have mentioned the cost to customers per viewing hour, which is 23 cents, NCTA said: “This is just about the lowest cost-per-hour form of entertainment available."