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.
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."
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.”
While an FCC staffer suing the agency for workplace retaliation (see 1609300016) obviously suffered "frustration with her employment and her chronic inability to work cooperatively with colleagues," she didn't suffer any violation of her rights, the DOJ Civil Division said in a motion (in Pacer) Friday in U.S. District Court in Washington seeking summary judgment on Sharon Stewart's complaint. DOJ said that while the FCC doesn't condone its workers looking at nude or semi-nude images in their cubicles, that Stewart sometimes caught a glimpse doesn't create a hostile work environment -- especially when a co-worker doing such viewing tried to hide the images from her. Instead, the plaintiff is "cobbl[ing] together a hostile work environment claim" even though the viewing habits weren't directed at all at her. It said there's no evidence that no one took any action on Stewart's complaint because of her gender or other protected characteristic, as a hostile work environment claim requires. The agency also said that while Stewart has argued she was denied performance bonuses in 2012 and 2015 as a form of retaliation, she also was disciplined for misconduct in both of those years, so the FCC "had a legitimate, non-retaliatory reason for its actions." Justice disputed that Stewart was retaliated against when she was relieved of her duties regarding Section 610 reports -- annual lists of 10-year-old agency reports -- since the reports were put on hold for years and no one at the FCC was doing them. Regardless, removal of such administrative responsibilities doesn't count as materially adverse since there is no proof they would have resulted in Stewart's being promoted, DOJ said. The motion also retells multiple past equal employment opportunity and other complaints Stewart filed against co-workers and supervisors when she worked at the Department of Health and Human Services and then at the FCC since starting there in 2001. Stewart's counsel, Noah Peters of Bailey & Ehrenberg, emailed us Monday, "We look forward to responding to the Agency’s motion and are confident we will prevail."
By the end of Q1, Globalstar expects to have started regulatory proceedings in at least four countries with a combined population of 375 million as it looks for international regulatory approval of its terrestrial broadband plans (see 1701120035), the company said Monday. In meetings with New York analysts and in an interview with us, General Counsel Barbee Ponder said the company initiated applications in three countries, which he didn't name, in January and plans to make that at least four by March's end. He told us Globalstar plans to make similar filings in other, unnamed countries through this year. With a goal ultimately of worldwide authority for the spectrum, he said that "it will be ongoing for quite some time."
Video bundling is in the crosshairs of numerous small programmers and allies, with many of them urging the FCC to add it to its rulemaking on independent and diverse programming. An NPRM looking at only unconditional most-favored-nation (MFN) provisions and unreasonable alternative distribution method (ADM) provisions in carriage agreements "is like the Fire Department attempting to douse a four-alarm fire using Solo cups of water," said the American Cable Association and multiple indie programmers in joint comments posted Friday in docket 16-41.
Comcast's wireless offering will come as part of a multiproduct bundle and the company will be "measured" in its rollout, "learning and adapting along the way," CEO Brian Roberts said in a conference call Thursday as the company announced its Q4 results. Comcast said it plans to launch a wireless service by mid-2017 (see 1609200042).