DirecTV urged the FCC Office of Engineering and Technology to use OET’s new TVStudy software to update the predictive model used for determining distant signal eligibility for satellite video subscribers, who are located outside a satellite TV company’s designated market area, and are eligible to receive signals from that company. The new software appears likely to improve the individual location Longley Rice (ILLR) model that predicts eligibility for distant network signals, it said in an ex parte filing in docket 10-152 (http://bit.ly/1n90lxw). OET claimed that the new software provides several improvements, including newer population data, better terrain data and more precise geographical coordinates, DirecTV said.

The proposed Comcast/Time Warner Cable merger would harm low-income customers, The Greenlining Institute said Monday in a press release. TWC has taken steps to offer LifeLine to VoIP customers in California and has expressed a willingness to come under California Public Utilities Commission telephone regulations, but Comcast has not, said Energy and Telecommunications Policy Director Stephanie Chen in the release. “This raises a lot of red flags, starting with the possibility that Time Warner Cable customers could have LifeLine service but then lose it if Comcast takes over,” Chen said. “We hear plenty of talk about how this merger will cut costs, but nothing meaningful about how -- or if -- those savings will be passed on to customers,” she said.

Game Show Network adopted the same arguments in its program carriage case against Cablevision as those put forth by Tennis Channel (CD March 12 p24) in its bid to have the FCC reopen its carriage case against Comcast, said a status report filed in GSN’s commission case Thursday (http://bit.ly/1kekhwh). GSN and Tennis Channel are represented by Covington Burling cable attorney Stephen Weiswasser. GSN v. Cablevision had been put on hold to wait for the end of the Tennis Channel case. In both cases, Weiswasser has argued that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit decision against Tennis Channel in Comcast established a new standard of evidence for showing that a company had discriminated against another in program carriage. Though the D.C. Circuit decision never explicitly described a new test for evidence, the court decided against Tennis Channel because it never showed that Comcast didn’t have “a legitimate business purpose to treat unaffiliated program services differently from affiliated services,” said Weiswasser in the status report. That test “had never previously been articulated or applied by the Commission or the Presiding Judge,” said Weiswasser. Cablevision disagreed. The D.C. Circuit didn’t create new tests, but “merely assessed the well-developed trial record before it under the existing Commission standards,” said Cablevision’s status report. “No additional discovery is required and the case is trial ready, as it has been since June 25, 2013 when the matter was stayed to permit the appellate process in Comcast Cable to run its course.” GSN should be allowed to gather only information that updates the existing record to account for the time that has passed, Cablevision said. “GSN now seeks discovery on subjects that the parties have already thoroughly exhausted in document production and depositions.” Both parties have requested a Nov. 12 hearing.

Companies and public interest groups have begun filing Acknowledgments of Confidentiality in the FCC docket assigned to Comcast’s proposed buy of Time Warner Cable (http://bit.ly/1eebqdG). The American Cable Association, Netflix, Public Knowledge, Dish Network and Broadview Networks entered filings asking to be allowed to access confidential and highly confidential documents related to the proceeding.

Game Show Network said it and Cablevision have “significantly different views” on the impact of the program carriage court ruling in Comcast v. FCC on their own carriage dispute. The channel seeks a later deadline to file a status report to the administrative law judge overseeing the channel’s FCC case against the operator. Comcast concerned a dispute between Tennis Channel and Comcast over which tier the channel was offered on, and the GSN v. Cablevision FCC case involves a similar issue. GSN v. Cablevision was put on hold to allow the Comcast matter to resolve to let the two sides adjust their arguments and evidence based on the decision. “There remain issues on which the parties would benefit from limited additional time for further consideration and discussion,” said GSN’s filing posted Tuesday in docket 12-122 (http://bit.ly/1kLLIM7). “These discussions will permit the parties to streamline the universe of issues presented to the Presiding Judge for resolution.” The litigants asked for an extension to Thursday to file status reports. Neither Cablevision nor the FCC Enforcement Bureau object, said GSN.

Charter Communications’ app enabling subscribers to watch more than 130 live channels on mobile devices inside their households is now available for free at major app stores, said the cable operator in a news release Tuesday (http://bit.ly/R1h6h6). “Customers can even use their device as a remote to change channels on their TV."

The procedures adopted in the FCC joint protective order in the proposed Comcast/Time Warner Cable merger docket give appropriate access to the public while protecting competitively sensitive information from improper disclosure, and the procedures thereby serve the public interest, the FCC Media Bureau said Friday. By designating documents and information as confidential or highly confidential under the order, a submitting party will be deemed to have submitted a request that the material “not be made routinely available for public inspection under the commission’s rules,” the FCC said in a joint protective order (http://bit.ly/1ea0xtI). Any person wishing to challenge the designation of a document as confidential or highly confidential must file such a challenge at the commission and serve it on the submitting party, it said. Persons obtaining access to confidential and highly confidential information under the protective order shall use the information solely for the preparation and conduct of this proceeding before the FCC “and any subsequent judicial proceeding arising directly from this proceeding ... shall not use such documents or information for any other purpose,” it said.

Sony plans a major May 1 announcement in San Francisco on a “nationwide approach to how we're going to educate consumers” on 4K and “really put this in a demonstration anywhere across America where they may live,” Sony Electronics President Mike Fasulo told reporters in a briefing Sunday here in Las Vegas at the NAB Show. Sports “is probably the most complex live production that you can do, so it’s probably going to be a couple of years before you see major sporting events done live in 4K,” said Alec Shapiro, president of Sony Professional Solutions of America. “The interest is certainly there.” At a Sports Video Group conference this past weekend, “where a lot of the sports production experts get together, this was the topic of their conversation,” Shapiro said. “They're all looking at how they do it. So I think they're all interested.” NBC with Comcast tested a live 4K transmission from the Sochi Olympics through a center in Philadelphia, “so it’s certainly top of mind,” Shapiro said. But in predicting how long it takes to get there, “there’s a lot of components to the production chain,” he said. “It’s not just the cameras. It’s switchers, it’s infrastructure, graphics. Everything you see today in 2K, you have to have in 4K.” The good news is that all the new production trucks are being built with 4K “capabilities, so we're getting there,” Shapiro said. Moreover, FIFA plans to shoot 4K footage of this summer’s World Cup quarterfinals, semifinals and final, Shapiro said. Though it’s doubtful any country televising World Cup to fans back home will do so in live 4K, FIFA plans to assemble a highlight video for distribution after World Cup for demonstration purposes, he said.

SiTV Media bought Fuse Network from Madison Square Garden Co. for $226 million. Fuse, a national music network, reaches 73 million Nielsen subscribers, MSG said in a news release (http://bit.ly/1efFyQs). The transaction enhances MSG’s distribution relationships and expands its aggregate subscriber base, it said. Under the terms, MSG will receive 15 percent equity of the combined company, it said.

The FCC Media Bureau granted an unopposed request from TiVo for an extension for manufacturers of the deadline for interactive HD set-top boxes to include Internet Protocol outputs, said an order released Friday (http://bit.ly/1oyIpxL). The deadline is now June 1, 2015, one year after the previous June 2, 2014, deadline. Small cable operators with fewer than 400,000 subscribers have until Sept. 1, 2015. TiVo, NCTA and others had requested a waiver or extension of the deadline because the Digital Living Network Alliance has not released industry standards for the boxes; standards were expected to come out in 2013. “Waiving the IP-based output rule to allow development of the new DLNA standard is in the public interest because it will assist the introduction of a new home networking technology,” the bureau said. TiVo had also asked the bureau to issue a clarification that the rules requiring IP outputs in HD boxes are still in effect and not vacated by the EchoStar decision in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which wiped away several FCC rules involving set-top boxes (CD Nov 19 p6). NCTA and several pay-TV companies opposed that request, and the bureau decided to defer a decision on the matter. “To provide the Commission time to resolve the issue concerning the continued effectiveness of the rule,” the bureau granted the extension “without determining whether the rule remains in effect after EchoStar,” said the order.