A Verizon buy of Charter Communications might pass regulatory muster, said numerous deal watchers and experts. It's not clear if such a transaction -- which lead to a combined entity of more than 20 million pay-TV customers -- would face the same concerns about creating too big a competitor that scuttled the ill-fated Comcast/Time Warner Cable. Some Wall Street experts are pessimistic that the reported talk of such a deal will go any further. Verizon and Charter didn't comment Thursday.
Wireless interests are rallying behind, and satellite interests and allies opposing, the Fixed Wireless Communications Coalition (FWCC) petition for changes in satellite earth station licensing rules, as was expected (see 1612270034), with a series of filings posted Tuesday and Wednesday in RM-11778. Google Fiber said that since full-band, full-arc licensing results in inefficient use of the bands shared by fixed satellite service and fixed service, the FCC should start a rulemaking on the FWCC proposal and on broader rules changes to allow more use of the spectrum. It also brushed off Satellite Industry Association arguments, saying low rejection rates for FS coordination requests "may reflect nothing more than that those operators adjust their plans to avoid time-consuming and expensive coordination engagements." The National Spectrum Management Association said satellite operators should be licensed for as much spectrum as they need, but only the spectrum they actually need, letting other services access the rest. CBS, Disney, Scripps Network Interactive, 21st Century Fox, Time Warner and Viacom said in opposing the FWCC petition that they worried about negative effects on C-band satellite spectrum and its use in distributing to multichannel video programming distributors' headends and to over-the-top distributors. PBS said the FWCC proposal would mean, absent a waiver procedure, every earth station adjustment to a different transponder or satellite would require a license modification procedure that could take weeks or months. NAB said there's no evidence full-band, full-arc licensing is a problem, and plenty of evidence it has substantial public benefit. The association said the FWCC proposal is unrealistic because the waiver process "would be cumbersome and wholly ineffective to deal with situations that regularly occur with broadcasters' use of FSS earth stations and satellites." SES said the FWCC and its allies never acknowledge that the two extended Ku-band segments listed in the petition have FSS use limits aimed squarely at preserving FS spectrum access.
Cablevision is asking commissioners to listen to oral argument on its exceptions to the initial FCC administrative law judge decision in Game Show Network's programming discrimination complaint. In a filing Tuesday in docket 12-122, Cablevision laid out multiple areas where it says it and GSN disagree widely, such as direct evidence standards, the standard of review to which the cable operator is entitled and whether GSN was unreasonably restrained by Cablevision's retiering. It submitted a brief in further support of the exceptions it submitted earlier this month (see 1701050019) to the ALJ decision, arguing it isn't trying to relitigate but seeking a de novo review, and that GSN is misinterpreting the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit's Tennis Channel ruling on a similar discrimination complaint. Cablevision said the channel is wrong when it says Judge Richard Sippel correctly followed FCC guidance about deciding whether GSN was similarly situated to Cablevision-affiliated networks, and it was incorrect when it says the agency shouldn't consider the effect the ALJ's ordered relief would have. GSN outside counsel Stephen Weiswasser of Covington & Burling told us the latest filings break no new ground in what Cablevision has already submitted in the record, and it has no objection to oral argument, but such a step isn't necessary.
EchoStar and Inmarsat are pushing for reconsideration of some parts of the FCC spectrum frontiers decision. Representatives of the companies, in a meeting Monday with the International Bureau Satellite Division, said parts of spectrum frontiers "did not sufficiently consider the relative costs and benefits" and urged the FCC to revise the conditions for deployment of fixed satellite service (FSS) earth stations by axing the rule barring deployment near roads, event venues, railroads and other specific locations -- calling that rule "ambiguous at best" -- and replacing the 0.1 percent metric for earth station deployment with the coordination regime previously proposed by EchoStar and AT&T. The two satellite companies said that coordination regime would let the FCC delete the rule limiting FSS operators to three earth stations in a county or partial economic area. The satellite operators also urged the FCC to set up a means for letting FSS operators identify where upper microwave flexible use services are operating, such as a licensing database, to help with coordination, and to clarify the application of its rules to permit additional antennas at grandfathers 28 GHz earth station sites and to provide that most UMFUS service rules to FSS operators that acquire a UMFUS license for the purpose of protecting their earth stations. An EchoStar/Inmarsat filing Tuesday in docket 14-177 said the meeting included EchoStar Senior Vice President-Regulatory Affairs Jennifer Manner, Inmarsat Regulatory Director Giselle Creeser and Satellite Division Chief Jose Albuquerque. A separate ex parte filing in the docket Tuesday recapped a meeting between EchoStar and division personnel about means for ensuring FSS and UMFUS have adequate access to the 39, 47 and 50 GHz bands. That filing said EchoStar urged the FCC to preserve FSS' co-primary status in the 47 GHz and lower GHz bands and adopt the AT&T/EchoStar joint sharing proposal for those bands (see 1604070059). EchoStar also said the FCC needs to refrain from acting on the upper 50 GHz band since that could unduly influence the outcomes of ITU radiocommunication sector studies of the band, plus a Boeing petition for rulemaking regarding the band. The satellite firm said the FCC should allow FSS systems to operate in the 39 GHz band at ITU-approved power-flux density levels so as to overcome rain fade.
Odds of a Republican-controlled FCC making meaningful changes to retransmission consent or undertaking other new video rules seem scant, insiders agreed. The American TV Alliance agitated earlier this month for retrans reform (see 1701090039). Chairman Tom Wheeler last year opted not to take any action on an NPRM on proposed changes to the totality of circumstances test (see 1607140047). Incompas also urged retrans reform earlier this month.
The average monthly cost of basic cable service was $23.79 at the end of 2014, a 2.3 percent increase over the preceding 12 months, and the average monthly cost of expanded basic was $69.03, up 2.7 percent over the same time frame. Meanwhile, monthly video average revenue per unit for some of the biggest multichannel video programming distributors went up about 1 percent to 6.5 percent between 2014 and 2015. Those are among the findings in the FCC Media Bureau's 18th annual Video Competition Report posted Tuesday in docket 16-247.
Pointing to "speedy remediation" as the only meaningful fix available to programmers like it that suffered programming discrimination under Communications Act Section 616, Game Show Network is continuing to push the FCC for immediate implementation of the carriage fixes in the rules governing 616 cases. In filings posted Tuesday in docket 12-122 (see here, here and here), GSN pushed for the FCC to order immediate compliance with the November administrative law judge advisory ruling saying Cablevision should move the network back from a premium tier to its expanded basic tier (see 1611230046 and 1612080038). Cablevision, now part of Altice USA, and the FCC didn’t comment. In its opposition to the GSN motion (see 1701050019), Cablevision is focusing on inapplicable rules and “unfounded” arguments, the plaintiff said. It rejected the Cablevision argument that GSN caused delays in the complaint and thus shouldn’t be able to seek the ALJ-mandated remedies. FCC rules Section 76.10 and 76.1302 say an ALJ decision in Section 616 carriage disputes and orders following a program carriage hearing are effective on release, GSN said. Stays are employed only in very limited circumstances, and the one sought by Cablevision “is completely inappropriate here,” GSN wrote. It said Cablevision hasn’t met any of the four elements required for a stay. Cablevision's contention that its due process rights would be violated if the decision is implemented before the FCC hears the MVDPs' First Amendment and statute of limitations arguments “borders on the frivolous” since the agency has rejected both of them more than once, GSN said. The channel dismissed Cablevision’s First Amendment defense argument, saying courts and the FCC repeatedly have said carriage remedies are “content neutral.” The indie said Cablevision arguments that its takeover by Altice was relevant should have brought that up in fall 2015 when the deal was announced and the ALJ could have generated a record.
Political shadows and fog are obscuring the view of what DOJ priorities are in its review of AT&T's proposed buy of Time Warner, with no clear consensus among experts we talked to, due largely to uncertainty about the approach of the incoming Trump administration. "It's very difficult to know what to expect" since the Trump transition team hasn't named key DOJ personnel, such as head of the Antitrust Division, ITTA President Genny Morelli said. Justice, the Trump transition team and AT&T didn't comment.
The multitudinous uses of S-band around the globe, including fixed wireless and radionavigation operations of the Indian Regional Navigational Satellite System (IRNSS), are potential hurdles as Globalstar looks for international regulatory approval of its terrestrial broadband (see 1701060047), experts told us. When dealing with low-power services as Globalstar has proposed, interference concerns can usually be resolved relatively easily, said a communications lawyer with satellite and wireless experience.
The billionaire investors backing space launch ventures like SpaceX and Blue Origin "are a market distortion," attracting other investors to businesses chock full of risk and uncertainty, said Carissa Christensen, managing partner of satellite consulting firm Tauri Group, during a Transportation Research Board panel Tuesday on the commercial space industry. "Those individuals are having a very big effect." She said traditional satellite operators are a mature, stable industry attracting mainstream financial investment, but the growing boom in smallsats is attracting a new type of commercial space investor in the form of venture capitalists. The last couple of years have seen a dramatic increase in the number of VC firms getting into commercial space ventures, she said. The smallsat boom is also creating a different supply chain than traditional satellite operators have used, with a focus on building smallsats from relatively available components instead of custom parts and thus letting companies that aren't vertically integrated enter the market, said Jason Crusan, NASA director-advanced exploration systems division.