Matt Daneman

The FCC is in for increased scrutiny of anything it does because of overarching interest in what it will do on net neutrality, agency watchers tell us. "As an issue, it sadly sucks a lot of the air out of any communications or FCC room," said NetCompetition Chairman Scott Cleland.

When FCC Chairman Ajit Pai axed numerous bureau inquiries and actions earlier this month without prior notice or explanation (see 1702030058 and 1702030070), he was well within his rights under the Administrative Procedures Act, APA and communications law experts tell us. Ending inquiries into issues like zero rating effectively signals taking a different enforcement direction without having to go through a process of eliminating those rules -- an approach numerous agencies under the Trump administration likely will take, some said.

The consensus is broad that governmental/commercial spectrum sharing increasingly will be the norm, but one big hurdle is the lack of a good model for what that sharing would look like, said panelists at a Washington Space Business Roundtable lunch Friday. For now, the 3.5 GHz band "is the poster child for trying," said Russ Matijevich, HawkEye 360 vice president-sales. Ligado Chief Legal Officer Valerie Green said that "so far, 3.5 is working pretty well."

Viacom's turnaround plan will focus primarily on six flagship brands, rebranding its Spike channel as the Paramount Network next year, and be "highly selective" in any over-the-top deals, with those being mostly for library content, CEO Bob Bakish said in an analyst call Thursday. The flagship brands are Nickelodeon, Nick Jr., MTV, BET, Comedy Central and Paramount, with Viacom planning for each brand to contribute a film or two per year to the Paramount slate, Bakish said, with one example being the four Paramount films planned through 2020 using Nickelodeon intellectual property. Other branded networks, like VH1, "will not go away" but will work to reinforce the flagship brands, Bakish said. He said Viacom's turnaround plan also involves using company resources like ad sales and data to help grow multichannel video programming distributor partners as it looks to deepen its MVPD relationships instead of what has been transactional relationships "related to zero-sum economic negotiations." Bakish said Viacom is creating a new business unit to produce short-form video content for distribution by owned-and-operated and third-party platforms. Chief Financial Officer Wade Davis said the company expects strong growth starting in the second half of the year from the changes. Viacom said fiscal Q1 revenue rose 5 percent to $3.3 billion from the year-ago quarter, due mainly to better theatrical sales and growth in domestic affiliate revenue from subscription VOD and OTT agreements. In a note to investors Thursday, Wells Fargo analyst Marci Ryvicker said the results "prove to us that the turnaround is real and likely to continue." She said Viacom's plan "makes sense" and likened it to past Time Warner efforts at breaking down silos between its brands, "which seems to have worked." She upgraded the stock to "outperform." The emphasis on the six flagship properties makes sense but doesn't go far enough, and there should be a wind-down of niche networks over time, Citi analyst Jason Bazinet emailed investors. Viacom shares closed up 4.3 percent on Thursday at $43.89.

FCC Office of Engineering and Technology testing involving spectrum used for Wi-Fi and dedicated short range communications (DSRC) is taking a little longer than previously expected, and the results will help inform how the agency proceeds, commission officials said at a sometimes contentious FCBA CLE Wednesday. The goal was to finish the Phase I testing in January, but “you learn things as you go,” and the testing still is working on DSRC detection protocols, OET Chief Julius Knapp said. "We are trying to move things as fast as we can."

Time Warner shareholders will vote Feb. 15 on the proposed $108.7 billion purchase by AT&T Feb. 15, TW CEO Jeff Bewkes said in an earnings call Wednesday, saying the regulatory process continues and the deal is expected to close later this year. He said HBO passed 2 million over-the-top subscribers in the U.S. and launched OTT offerings in Spain, Brazil and Argentina last year. Bewkes also said there will be a growing number of partnerships with OTT services that offer HBO. He said Turner is "an anchor tenant" on the various virtual multichannel video programming distributors that have been launched, and also will be on Hulu's upcoming service. Turner CEO John Martin said virtual MVPDs DirecTV Now, Sling and PlayStation Vue are gaining subscriber traction, having close to 2 million subscribers in aggregate. Warner Bros. CEO Kevin Tsujihara said it sees big growth opportunities in China via a subscription VOD partnership with Tencent and the creation of local language content. He also said Warner is making "a lot of progress" on launching its own premium VOD offering, with a big driver being an alternative distribution route for middle-market films such as adult dramas that increasingly are challenged in standard theatrical releases. TW said it finished the year with revenue of $29.3 billion, up 4 percent, with growth in HBO, Turner and Warner Bros.

With the rocketing number of commercial space launches in the U.S. and mushrooming potential commercial space activities, a big challenge for regulators is keeping up with the commercial space industry, experts said at a Federal Aviation Administration commercial spaceflight conference Tuesday. That proliferation of commercial launch activity means the FAA needs to change how it licenses launches, Administrator Michael Huerta said, calling the current system “not sustainable" because of the large amount airspace that gets blocked off for each launch. The nation’s airspace system is built for traditional aircraft, and each commercial space launch license “is essentially an exception,” Huerta said.

Pay-TV industry insiders and watchers tell us they expect 2017 to be a strong year for small and midsized cable deals, particularly because of what's expected to be a more favorable environment under a GOP-controlled White House and Congress. But it's still unclear where the Trump administration will stand on media consolidation, given mixed signals from President Donald Trump, said MCTV President Robert Gessner. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai would seemingly be more open to media deals, but it's conceivable there could be contrary pressure from the White House, Gessner said.

The Univision/Charter Communication legal fight over carriage terms is also becoming a legal battle over a blackout of the broadcaster's content from the cable operator's lineup, with Charter saying it will go to court to end the carriage disruption that started Tuesday. Critics of media consolidation are calling the dustup evidence of the problems of media consolidation. "Unfortunately, this is the future that we predicted when we opposed recent consolidation attempts in the cable industry," said the Computer and Communications Industry Association, which ripped Comcast's attempt to buy Time Warner Cable (see 1406100052), in a statement Wednesday.

The public interest groups that often tried to help craft communications policy during the Obama administration now likely will spend more time in court trying to stop or block policy in the Trump years, they told us. "No matter what the FCC does, they get sued," Free Press CEO Craig Aaron said. "It might be different people suing them now." Added Public Knowledge Vice President Chris Lewis, "Offense and defense is a fair way to describe it. We'll certainly play defense ... to protect the gains we've made in the last few years.”