Given the complexity of Charter Communications' takeover of Time Warner Cable, it's entirely possible a judge could decide both of Univision's legacy carriage agreements with the multichannel video programming distributors still apply, Charter outside counsel Judson Brown of Kirkland & Ellis said in a letter Friday to New York State Supreme Court Judge Peter Sherwood of Manhattan. If that turns out to be the case, Brown said, the court needs to give meaning to the parties' intent and assess their reasonable expectations. Univision is suing Charter over whether its Charter or TWC contracts survived 2016's Charter/TWC (see 1607080022).

Northwest Broadcasting channels in Idaho and Mississippi are again being carried by Cable One because the two struck a new carriage agreement, Cable One said in a news release Thursday. The Cable One/Northwest blackout was among a spate of carriage disruptions around the country at the end of 2016 (see 1701030046).

The temporary restraining order Charter Communications received ending the Univision blackout (see 1702020072) runs only until Feb. 9, Univision said Thursday. Charter didn't comment Friday whether it plans to seek an extension or a new restraining order at that time. Univision also said Charter is required to post a bond covering the market value of Univision's programming. The parties are fighting in New York State Supreme Court over whether Univision's contract with Time Warner Cable or the one with Charter survived last year's Charter/TWC (see 1607080022).

​Sales and operating profit in Sony’s core consumer electronics sector of home entertainment and sound plunged by double digits in fiscal Q3 ended Dec. 31, the company announced. Sony Pictures swung to a $920 million operating loss, from a year-earlier profit, as revenue plunged 14.1 percent to $1.9 billion. Sony blamed “significantly lower theatrical revenues” in the current quarter on tough comparisons with Q3 a year earlier, which benefited from the “strong worldwide performances” of Spectre and Hotel Transylvania 2. “Management takes seriously the fact that we have under-achieved the profitability target” in the pictures sector, Sony said. CEO Kazuo Hirai “will keep a second office” in Culver City, California, where the sector is headquartered so “he can involve himself even more deeply in the management of the entertainment businesses,” the company said.

Investment firm Arjuna Capital wants Facebook to evaluate how fake news and hoaxes are affecting the social media company's platform and business. The question was raised in a shareholder resolution filed Thursday with investment adviser Baldwin Brothers. Arjuna Capital filed a similar resolution in December with Alphabet's Google. In a news release about the Facebook filing, Arjuna Capital said it's asking the company "to provide detailed information regarding the impact of current fake news flows and management systems on the democratic process, free speech, and a cohesive society, as well as reputational and operational risks from potential public policy developments." Facebook is facing serious criticism about the proliferation of fake news, censorship and bias on its platform, and took several steps to provide more authentic and legitimate news to users in recent months (see 1701310068, 1701250083, 1701110064, 1612130030 and 1612150035). "If Facebook maintains a platform of confusion and distortion it will lose the trust of its users, in which case they will simply move on to the next thing," said Arjuna Capital Managing Partner Natasha Lamb in the release. Michael Connor, executive director of nonprofit Open MIC, which is assisting the investment firm on this matter, said Facebook and Google increasingly will need to "defend the integrity of the information and services they provide" or lose trust. The web companies didn't comment.

Charter Communications said it received the temporary restraining order it requested Thursday to end a carriage disruption of Univision programming. In a statement, Charter said the order means "Univision programming will be returned to our customers.” The broadcaster didn't comment. In its request for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction against Univision filed Thursday in New York State Supreme Court, Charter said: "There is simply no legitimate reason for Univision to hijack this case -- a lawsuit it initiated." It said its request for injunctive relief against the blackout that started Wednesday satisfies the three-part test under New York law for preliminary injunctions and temporary restraining orders: likelihood of success on the merits, irreparable injury without the injunction, and a balance of equities in favor of the movant. The Charter request was expected (see 1701310053). The companies disagree whether Univision's contract with Time Warner Cable or the one with Charter survived last year's Charter/TWC (see 1607080022).

AJA Video Systems joined the Advanced Media Workflow Association, and NBCUniversal, NewTek and Synco Services left, said a notice in Tuesday's Federal Register.

Facebook is continuing to make updates to its news feed, including new ways to identify authentic content and to provide relevant posts to users in real time. In a Tuesday blog post, research scientists Akos Lada and James Li and engineering manager Shilin Ding wrote that the social media site is adding "universal signals" to determine authentic stories, which users consider to be "genuine and not misleading, sensational or spammy. To do this, we categorized Pages to identify whether or not they were posting spam or trying to game feed by doing things like asking for likes, comments or shares," they wrote. "We then used posts from these Pages to train a model that continuously identifies whether posts from other Pages are likely to be authentic. For example, if Page posts are often being hidden by people reading them, that’s a signal that it might not be authentic." One that's authentic may rank higher in a user's news feed, they wrote. The other update, they added, will rank content higher in a user's news feed through real-time engagement from many people on Facebook about a topic or a lot of engagement on a post from a page. "If your favorite soccer team just won a game, we might show you posts about the game higher up in News Feed because people are talking about it more broadly on Facebook," the three wrote. Facebook has been making improvements as it fends off complaints about bias, censorship and fake news on its site (see 1612150035 and 1701250083). In a separate blog post, Facebook said it's expanding current measurement partnerships to provide cross-channel comparability and third-party verification and increase transparency. On Monday, Interactive Advertising Bureau President Randall Rothenberg said at the industry group's annual event that there is a "linear connection" between fake news and click fraud, fraudulent nonhuman traffic, data breaches, privacy violations and ad-blocking sources. He said fake news costs companies but also is a "moral failure" and "implicates marketers, agencies, publishers, platforms, and technology companies alike." He said all such interests need to help address and stop fake news.

EPA again delayed releasing the first draft of its Energy Star Version 8.0 TV spec for another month to mid- or late-February, Verena Radulovic, Energy Star product manager at the agency, emailed us last week. EPA had hoped to release the first draft in early December, but delayed releasing it until after the holidays (see 1612050055). As for the latest snag, “we have been evaluating stakeholder feedback and ideas during this time and thus have been delayed,” Radulovic told us. EPA’s goal remains finalizing the V8.0 spec in mid-2017 and putting it into effect in early 2018, she said.

Dolby's expansion included being supported by over-the-top partners Amazon, Netflix, Tencent and Vudu, with more than 90 Dolby Vision movie titles and 100 hours of original TV content available from streaming partners, CEO Kevin Yeaman said on the company’s call on Q1 ended Dec. 30. Use cases for the company's Atmos have spread, he noted: Lenovo’s gaming PC announced at CES will be the first PC to support Atmos, and Microsoft announced support for Atmos last month in Windows 10. On the content side, Comcast is beginning to deliver content in Atmos, and BT Sport in the U.K. will add Atmos to content in its UHD TV packages, he said Wednesday evening. In Q1, revenue was $266 million, up from $240 million in the year-ago quarter; net income grew to $53.4 million from $30.9 million, said Chief Financial Officer Lewis Chew. Growth was driven by new initiatives, broadcast and cinema products, he said.