Comcast's board approved reclassifying each share of Class A special common stock into a share of Class A common stock, the company said Monday. The reclassification needs shareholder approval. The move will help eliminate investor confusion that comes with having two classes of publicly traded stock and improve the stock's trading liquidity, said the operator. Shareholders of record as of Oct. 20 will be entitled to vote on the matter.

Apple began taking pre-orders Monday for the latest Apple TV that is slightly taller and heavier than the third-generation version. The fourth-gen device adds Siri voice control but lacks 4K video output, according to a comparison chart at the Apple website. Apple didn’t respond to questions on 4K support. The next-generation version includes Siri voice control, which adds the need for remote control charging via a Lightning connector, said Apple. Prices are $149 for 32 GB and $199 for 64 GB, while the third-gen model remains in the line at $69. Apple recommends the higher storage box for consumers who download a lot of apps and games and the 32 GB version for music and video streamers who play only “a few” apps and games. Orders taken Monday will deliver beginning Friday to customers who pay $17 for next-day shipping or $19 for next-day shipping before noon. Delivery dates are Nov. 2-4 for free shipping, said the company. Gen 4 Apple TV comes with HBO Now and Showtime apps, and users can subscribe for $14.99 and $10.99 per month. Other apps include Netflix and Hulu and access to sports subscriptions from MLB, the NBA and NHL, said Apple.

Describing the FCC's protective order for confidential information as "an appropriate balance between the competitive concerns and the more general public interest," American Cable Association (ACA), Dish Network and Incompas are opposing a petition for reconsideration of those rules. Some content companies and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce earlier this month petitioned the agency to vacate its order allowing confidential contract information to be shared with third parties during the merger review process (see Ref:1510130065]). But the arguments they used citing the Trade Secrets Act and the FCC standards under the Freedom of Information Act don't prevent the FCC from such confidential materials rules, ACA, Dish and Incompas said in their opposition posted Monday in docket 15-149; the "persuasive showing" standard isn't required when the Communications Act allows such disclosure, and the Trade Secrets Act comes into play only when disclosure is not authorized by law, but federal law authorizes the agency to permit such disclosures. Data about negotiations, programming practices and the business arrangements of Charter, Bright House Networks and Time Warner Cable "is particularly important in this proceeding," the three said. Charter/TWC/BHN will have "an increased incentive and ability to strong arm third party programmers" into shutting out competing over-the-top services, plus "increased ability and incentive" to deny such affiliated content as Discovery and Starz to competing video distributors, the three said. Since the FCC on Sept. 11 issued an order setting new rules for the handling of confidential information, numerous entities have filed in docket 15-149 indicating they seek access to the confidential and highly confidential information filed in the proceeding, including ACA, Charter Communications, Dish Network, Free Press, Hawaiian Telecom Services, Incompas, New York State Public Service Commission and Zoom Telephonics.

FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai is keeping up his public opposition to regulation of the online video distribution marketplace. "Given the remarkable success of the over-the-top (OTT) video industry -- success driven in part by regulatory restraint -- I don’t believe we should change our regulatory approach," Pai said, according to his published remarks for a speech made Monday at the 2015 convention of the Cable and Satellite Broadcasting Association of Asia's Policy Roundtable, held in Hong Kong. Pai's address largely gave an overview of what he described as a successful online video distribution marketplace of "many different companies, of many different sizes, are offering many different choices at many different prices." That has come about because of the up-to-now "hands-off approach" to regulating the over-the-top video market, which "has yielded terrific results," Pai said. While he did not specifically cite any regulations he opposed, he quoted House Commerce Committee ranking member Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), who earlier this month spoke out against regulating a specific type of OTT service as a multichannel video programming distributor (see 1510090054). "For me as a regulator and an online video consumer, the way forward is simple," Pai said. "There is no market failure. There is no problem to be solved. Therefore, there is no need for the U.S. government to impose regulations designed for markets and technologies as they existed over 20 years ago." Pai made similar arguments in July at a Churchill Club address (see 1507170030).

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court dismissal of Stored Communications Act complaints against Time Warner Cable for giving the wrong basic subscriber information in response to a grand jury subpoena. U.S. District Court Judge Patricia Gaughan of Cleveland in 2014 tossed out a suit brought earlier that year by the Long family of Chardon, Ohio, against Insight Communications of Central Ohio, doing business as Time Warner Cable, after law enforcement searched the Long family house as part of an online child pornography investigation, only to determine that TWC had provided the wrong house address through a clerical error in running the IP address in question. In the 6th Circuit ruling filed Friday, Gaughan said the Longs "have not alleged any facts (or argued that there are any facts) to suggest that TWC was aware of the error at the time of the disclosure," that they have no claims for negligent disclosure of private information under Ohio law because that governs only records maintained by a public agency, and that the TWC subscriber agreement explains that the Electronic Communications Privacy Act allows for the subpoena of personally identifiable information by government entities in some circumstances.

Nielsen's new over-the-top measurement system, Total Audience Management, "will launch a new era" of TV watching, said Diffusion Group senior analyst Alan Wolk in a blog. That metric will lead to more TV Everywhere, which in turn "will boost the amount of television being watched via OTT," Wolk said. If Nielsen's Total Audience Management is successful in counting OTT viewers the way the company currently does with linear watchers, "it could overcome the networks' objections to releasing content for viewing on their own or (multichannel video programming distributor) TV Everywhere device apps," which means more watching and thus higher ratings as well as more bandwidth use -- which is good for multiservice providers, Wolk said. Nielsen's Total Audience Management looks at views over the course of a week, which is "more reflective of how people watch TV now," Wolk said. OTT viewing over the next five years likely will approach 50 percent of all TV viewing, overtaking quadrature amplitude modulation watching, he said Thursday. Nielsen has said it expects to have Total Audience Management largely rolled out by year's end.

Donald Stern of Affiliated Monitors was named independent compliance officer for AT&T's buy of DirecTV, the FCC Media Bureau said Friday. Hiring a compliance officer was one of the conditions of regulatory approval of AT&T's buying DirecTV, and Stern will be responsible for reviewing and evaluating the telco's compliance with the other conditions and submitting compliance reports to the FCC (see 1507280043). AT&T/DirecTV conditions include prohibitions against online video competitor discrimination in fixed broadband, usage-based restrictions or terms and requirements to offer discounted broadband service to low-income consumers.

Comcast will start rolling out DOCSIS 3.1 capabilities in its network starting next year, Jorge Salinger, Comcast Cable's vice president-access technology, said in a company blog Friday. The super-fast broadband standard promising gigabit speeds over hybrid fiber-coax networks was a centerpiece at the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers Expo in New Orleans this month, Salinger said: "At nearly every booth on the exhibit floor, the companies that make modems and network equipment ... were showing off their latest DOCSIS 3.1 devices. This past week's Expo brings to life how close we are." Development of the 3.1 specification "has moved faster than any previous version ... and is now being implemented by every major equipment maker in the Internet space," Salinger said.

Liberty Global is in talks to buy Cable & Wireless Communications, which provides voice, broadband and video services in the Caribbean and Latin America, Liberty Global said Thursday. No financial terms were announced, though CWC said the transaction could be in the form of both cash and shares. Liberty Global said it had a Nov. 19 deadline to make an offer for London-based CWC under U.K. regulatory rules.

Since Tennis Channel hasn't shown what new evidence it has or explained why it didn't present that evidence previously, the programmer's efforts to reopen its discrimination complaint against Comcast should be denied, the FCC said in a brief filed Wednesday in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Tennis Channel's original 2010 carriage complaint initially was held up by the FCC, but then vacated by the D.C. Circuit. After Tennis Channel re-petitioned the FCC, the agency in January issued an order denying both the original complaint and the re-petition (see 1501280059), and Tennis Channel in response petitioned for to vacate that order and remand the case. "Although the FCC claims that the Comcast decision left it no other choice, nothing in that opinion permits, let alone requires, the FCC to turn a blind eye to swaths of record evidence bearing directly on what have now become the dispositive factual issues in this case," Tennis Channel said in its own brief filed Sept. 21. The D.C. Circuit reversed the agency "because the evidence the agency relied upon was insufficient to support its decision. The Court did not -- and, under basic principles of administrative law, could not -- make definitive findings on factual issues the FCC never considered." However, in its brief, the FCC said it "faithfully adhered" to the appellate court's decision when it made its January decision, and "nothing in the Court's decision suggests that the Court anticipated or intended for the FCC to conduct further proceedings on remand." Meanwhile, the agency said, Tennis Channel "already received a full and fair opportunity to prosecute its program-carriage complaint, and it has not shown that the FCC in any way misled it or prevented it from submitting any relevant evidence. The interest in bringing this proceeding to a close outweighs any interest in giving Tennis Channel a second opportunity to litigate its complaint." No oral argument was scheduled in the petition, according to court paperwork.