Comments are due Feb. 5, replies March 5, concerning the FCC's proposal banning charging early termination fees for cable TV and direct broadcast satellite and mandating prorated refunds for canceled service, said a notice for Friday's Federal Register. The docket is 23-405. The FCC adopted the MVPD fees NPRM 3-2 during its December meeting (see 2312130019).
Nexstar agreed on a multiyear distribution agreement with streaming TV network FuboTV, the broadcaster announced in a news release Wednesday. The deal covers 89 Nexstar TV stations: 37 CW Network affiliates, 25 MyNetworkTV affiliates, 23 ABC affiliates and four independent television stations. The agreement also extends Fubo’s carriage of Nexstar’s NewsNation cable network. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
Altice sold its Cheddar streaming news network to media company Archetype, Cheddar said Thursday. The deal also includes the Rate My Professors digital property, Cheddar said. It declined to release the transaction's financial terms.
Lionsgate purchased Hasbro's eOne entertainment platform for $375 million in cash, Lionsgate said Wednesday. The deal gives it 6,500 additional film and TV titles, as well as film development rights to Hasbro's Monopoly brand, Lionsgate said.
MSNBC should continue to be exempted from the FCC's audio description rules applicable to the largest national nonbroadcast networks because it provides fewer than 50 hours per quarter of prime-time programming that is not live or near-live, parent NBCUniversal said Tuesday in a docket 11-43 exemption request.
The FCC's proposed requirement for reporting broadcast station blackouts due to failed retransmission consent talks (see 2312210061) should be expanded to include blackouts during pending special relief petitions, One Ministries said Tuesday in docket 23-427. An expansion would raise the visibility of such blackouts, it said. Broadcasters also should be able to request they be listed as falling under broadcast station blackouts when an MVPD "simply refuse[es] to return phone calls and emails" and when a must-carry station doesn't get carriage in part of a market that an MVPD covers.
National Amusements, the movie chain operator and controlling shareholder of Paramount Global, notified customers last week of a 2022 hack that compromised data of more than 82,000 people, it told the Maine Office of the Attorney General. It said the hack happened in December 2022 and was discovered in August. It said individuals with an affected Social Security number are receiving 12 months of credit monitoring and identity theft services through Experian.
A draft order on collecting broadcaster and cable workforce diversity data using form 395-B was circulated to the 10th floor just a week after a call for action from 27 Democratic lawmakers and Commissioner Geoffrey Starks, according to FCC officials and the agency’s circulation webpage (see 2312150051). The equal employment opportunity item was teed up by a 2021 NPRM and has long been a focus for Starks. Public interest groups and NAB disagreed about how the data should be handled after the FCC collects it. Groups like Common Cause want the data to be publicly available in an online portal searchable by station. Meanwhile, broadcasters said they want the information anonymized. It's unclear what position the draft takes. The circulated item includes a report and order and a Further NPRM, according to the circulation listing. The FCC’s data collection using the form was suspended in 2001 after two court cases raised constitutional concerns. It was never revived. “It’s been the law for decades that the FCC was supposed to collect this data,” said United Church of Christ Media Ministry attorney Cheryl Leanza in an interview. “Data has never been more important than now. How will we know if we’re going in the right direction without data?”
Lionsgate plans to spin off its studio business, which will then combine with publicly traded Screaming Eagle Acquisition and launch as Lionsgate Studios Corp., the company said Friday. Lionsgate's studios business consists of a TV studio and motion picture group segments, and includes film and TV libraries. Lionsgate said the Starz platform will remain with it and not go with Lionsgate Studios. Lionsgate will hold 87.3% of the combined company's shares, while Screaming Eagle shareholders and founders and financing investors will own the remaining 12.7%, according to a news release. The deal values Lionsgate Studios at about $4.6 billion. Lionsgate said it also will receive $350 million in gross proceeds as part of the transaction, which is expected to close in spring.
FCC commissioners approved a draft NPRM that would require that the agency receive notice of blackouts owing to failed retransmission consent talks between MVPDs and broadcasters, the commission said Thursday. The reporting NPRM and a companion NPRM on customer refunds for blackouts were circulated in October (see 2310110075). Citing a lack of basic information on channel blackouts, the NPRM said getting reports from MVPDs "would be the most effective method for the Commission to gain important and timely information about broadcast station blackouts ... and better fulfill our statutory obligation involving the retransmission consent negotiation process." In a statement, Commissioner Nathan Simington supported the NPRM but was skeptical of the tentative conclusion's citation of Section 632 of the Cable Act -- regarding cable customer service standards -- as a legal basis for the proposed reporting requirements. He said there are other valid sources of authority, and Section 632 "is a considerably narrower provision than recent Commission action suggests."