Charter Communications lost a fight over California regulatory process for the company’s acquisitions of Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks. Charter voluntarily committed to service-quality and accessibility requirements in March, but the California Public Utilities Commission didn’t include the conditions in the ordering paragraph of its May decision approving the deal, adding them in December after the nudging of the Office of Ratepayer Advocates (ORA) and Center for Accessible Technology (see 1701130057). Charter claimed due-process violations and sought rehearing. In a decision released Monday, the CPUC disagreed and denied Charter’s protest. The December order “did not add new conditions beyond those already known to the parties and contemplated” in the May decision, and its purpose “was to clarify what the Commission had always intended to mandate” in the May OK, the CPUC said. The company declined comment.

Charter Communications and Entertainment Studios Network and National Association of African American Owned Media (ESN/NAAAOM) disagree whether the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles should lift a stay to permit discovery, said a joint status report (in Pacer). The stay was issued in December while Charter seeks interlocutory appeal before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals of its unsuccessful bid to have the ESN/NAAAOM complaint alleging racial bias in the operator's programming choices tossed out (see 1612140054). Thursday, ESN/NAAAOM said it's almost certain that if the 9th Circuit permits interlocutory appeal it will let the lower court case proceed into discovery, but that 9th Circuit decision could take years. "The economical and equitable solution is for the Court to lift the stay to permit discovery so that the parties can prepare this case for trial after the Ninth Circuit provides guidance on the proper standard of review for Charter’s First Amendment defense," ESN/NAAAOM said. Charter said plaintiffs' request to brief the court is effectively a motion to reconsider the stay when there are no changed facts to warrant new briefing. "Plaintiffs’ dissatisfaction that the Ninth Circuit has not acted more quickly provides no basis for re-opening the issue of the stay," Charter said.

Viamedia antitrust claims against Comcast fail to show a direct causal connection between the conduct being challenged and its alleged injury, and Viamedia hasn't suffered any antitrust injury, Comcast said in a reply (in Pacer) posted Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Chicago. Comcast said Viamedia lacks standing to make tying and exclusive dealing antitrust claims on behalf of nonparties like WideOpenWest (WOW) and RCN, and Viamedia's amended complaint didn't make any allegation of injury to competition. In a statement Thursday, Viamedia said that "while there are the predictable denials, we are pleased with the number of admissions in the answer and look forward to proceeding with discovery and then on to trial.” It's suing Comcast over allegedly using its control of interconnects in certain spot cable advertising representation markets to elbow out ad services competition from Viamedia and using its interconnects control to lure away former Viamedia cable company clients such as WOW and RCN. The court in February dismissed (in Pacer) five of Viamedia's claims.

TiVo will provide voice search capability for Sky Q, the companies said in a Wednesday announcement. Sky users will be able to search for content by voice on linear TV and VOD, they said. The solution is built into TiVo’s knowledge graph engine that’s capable of understanding trends and conversations, said TiVo. The knowledge base, updated continuously via data ingestion and news crawlers, is produced and curated by content editors, predictive search results and behavioral indicators from social networks, TiVo said.

The FCC Wireline Bureau granted Wide Open West’s transfer of control to Cayman Islands-based private equity firm Crestview, the bureau said in a public notice Wednesday. The Crestview/WOW application had been put on hold at the request of Team Telecom, but last week, thecompanies filed a letter of agreement with conditions that would allow the deal to proceed, the PN said. Under the agreement, WOW and Crestview will have to comply with law enforcement requests to search their records or for wiretap or trace orders. “The Bureau finds, upon consideration of the record, that grant of the Application, subject to compliance with the Agreement, will serve the public interest, convenience, and necessity,” the PN said.

Altice is buying online video marketplace Teads, it said in a news release Tuesday. Altice said the deal is part of its advertising strategy, letting it offer clients various advertising services on multiscreen platforms. It said the deal values Teads at up to $308 million, with the purchase price subject to Teads hitting certain revenue targets this year. It also said the deal is expected to close in mid-2017, and Teads senior management will remain with the company (see the personals section of this issue of the publication). Altice closed on Suddenlink in 2015 and took over Cablevision last year.

Epix channels will be available via CenturyLink's Prism TV platform, under a carriage agreement between the two, the programmer announced Monday. The deal -- involving Epix (East and West), Epix 2 and Epix Hits -- also includes TV Everywhere rights, Epix said.

Sony is seeking a ban on imports of Arris digital cable and satellite set-top boxes and gateway products, it said in a Section 337 complaint March 10 at the International Trade Commission. Arris and its subsidiary Pace allegedly import and sell digital cable and satellite set-tops and gateway products that infringe Sony patents. Named in the complaint are Arris and Pace digital cable set-tops supplied to Comcast for Comcast’s Xfinity service, plus Arris and Pace digital satellite set-tops supplied to AT&T's DirecTV for DirecTV’s Genie brand. Arris media gateway products and telephony gateway products also are included. Sony asked the ITC to issue a limited exclusion order and cease and desist orders banning import and sale of infringing products by Arris and Pace. The ITC seeks comment by March 27, it said in Friday's Federal Register. The agency recently began an investigation of Arris set-tops allegedly infringing Kudelski patents and imported for use with Xfinity's X1 service (see 1703070039). Arris again declined to comment Friday.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai will speak at the American Cable Association's annual policy summit, which runs March 28-30. Pai is scheduled to talk on the 30th, ACA said Friday. The lineup on the 29th includes Commissioner Mike O'Rielly, Rep. Kurt Schrader, D-Ore., and House Republican Conference chair Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., it said.

U.S. broadband homes that don’t subscribe to a legacy pay-TV service jumped to 22 percent last year, from 18 percent in 2015 and 9 percent in 2011, said a TDG Research report Wednesday. The number of “cord nils” broadband households reporting zero use of TV services from cable, satellite or telco-TV providers has grown from just under 8 million in 2011 to 22 million by year-end 2016, said the report. Director-Research Michael Greeson observed the correlation of legacy pay-TV subscriptions declining as broadband video expands and said the extent of the disruption “has been largely overlooked.” Most multichannel video programming distributors are being forced to rely on skinny TV services to save their dual-service relationships, Greeson said. Comcast is an exception, having invested early in IP-enabled set-top boxes and features, he said. “Unfortunately for other US MVPDs, the stickiness of the Internet/TV bundle appears to be in decline, even before Broadband Pay-TV services gain serious footing."