Small cable operators and groups opposed to media consolidation on one side, and media allies on the other disagreed whether the FCC should reconsider newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership and other media-holdings restrictions as NAB wants. The association and Nexstar petitioned for reconsideration, which the American Cable Association opposed (see 1701250054). About a dozen groups including unions and led by the United Church of Christ opposed such deregulation, but it was backed by Cox Media Group and the News Media Alliance (NMA). Filings were posted Tuesday and Wednesday in docket 14-50 and the subject of an NMA news release Thursday. The UCC, Communications Workers of America, National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians, Prometheus Radio Project and others said broadcasters raised no new facts not already considered by the regulator. "The US Court of Appeals, which has retained jurisdiction over the remand in Prometheus III [the court case is named after that group] directed the Commission to assess the impact of any repeal or modification of an ownership rule on opportunities for station ownership by women and minorities. The Commission has conducted no such assessment" here, said the consolidation foes. "Neither petition mentions, much less challenges, the Commission’s threshold determination that it is premature to change the media ownership rules before it has had a chance to evaluate the 'dramatic effect' that spectrum auctions will have on the broadcast marketplace." Comments related to FCC plans for shuffling TV stations after the incentive auction were the subject of separate filings posted this week (see 1701260033). Cox Media sees the rules retaining long-time hurdles to one company owning a broadcaster and daily paper in the same market as a "veritable museum of the way things used to be." When the 1996 Telecom Act mandated periodic review of media ownership rules, Congress didn't "expect the endless cycle of delay, court appeals, and regulatory inertia that have characterized the past two decades of biennial and then quadrennial reviews," said the broadcaster. Nix "this analog-era rule once and for all," wrote NMA. "In the remarkable seven years it took the FCC to conduct its 2014 quadrennial review, the Commission compiled a record clearly demonstrating that the cross-ownership ban is a musty anachronism that undermines the very values for which it was promulgated. Yet, inexplicably, the Commission concluded its review in August 2016 by deciding to retain the rule in essentially the same form in which it was adopted in 1975."

Charter Communications and Univision are at odds over Univision's providing documents or information that Charter says it needs to defend against "baseless allegations" of breach of contract and good faith and fair dealing. In a letter to New York State Supreme Court Judge Peter Sherwood of Manhattan posted Monday, Charter said Univision refused to provide requested documents on that company's past analysis of actual or potential multichannel video programming distributor mergers and acquisitions and what effects those would or did have on Univision rates and its understanding of the relationship between rates charged by content providers and the number of MVPDs' customers. Charter cited a Univision response that called the operator's request "overbroad, vague and unduly burdensome" and irrelevant to the proceeding. Charter expects the requested information will show Univision was aware of common industry practice that when MVPDs combine, the new entity doesn't end up paying higher rates than either of the smaller constituent companies did, it said. Charter said it and Univision reached an impasse on negotiating the scope of discovery and asked Sherwood to schedule a conference to discuss and resolve the fight. Univision didn't comment Wednesday. The companies are in a legal fight over which legacy contract survived Charter buying Time Warner Cable -- the one Univision had with Charter or its contract with TWC (see 1607080022). Fox News network is pursuing a similar complaint (see 1607200065).

Facebook's "Trending" topics feature will get three new updates, including a publisher headline about that topic, a better system that identifies the topic is trending, and the ability of everyone in a region to see the same topics, wrote Will Cathcart, vice president-product management, in a Wednesday blog post. The Trending topics feature was criticized last year for supposed bias, censorship and fake news (see 1605120058 and 1610140054). Adding a headline from a publisher's article about the topic -- the most requested improvement from users -- will give readers more context on what's trending on the social media site, he wrote. "The headline that appears is automatically selected based on a combination of factors including the engagement around the article on Facebook, the engagement around the publisher overall, and whether other articles are linking to it." The new system that identifies trending topics will be based on the number of publishers posting articles on the site with the same topic rather than around a single post or article, he said. This should present a broader range of news and events and reflect real world events, he added. Plus, "Facebook will no longer be personalized based on someone’s interests." Instead, everyone in the same region will be able to view the same topics so people don't miss out on what's being discussed, Cathcart said.

The FCC should reject NAB and Nexstar’s petitions for reconsideration of the quadrennial broadcast ownership review and accompanying rules because the commission already has considered the arguments raised by the broadcasters, said the American Cable Association in an opposition filing posted in docket 14-50 Wednesday. “Petitioners cannot rely on arguments that have been fully considered and rejected by the Commission within the same proceeding.” The broadcaster filers “bring nothing new to the table on any of these issues that supports reconsideration, largely rehashing arguments from their previous filings that have been thoroughly considered and rejected by the Commission,” ACA said. The evidence raised by broadcasters for overturning ownership rules such as the eight voices test and the attribution rules for joint sales agreements is insufficient, ACA said. Elimination of joint sales agreement attribution would “facilitate [broadcaster] ability to covertly coordinate their retransmission consent negotiations,” said the cable group.

More than 6.8 million tuned in to Twitter and PBS NewsHour’s live-streamed coverage of President Donald Trump’s inauguration, a Twitter spokesman said Tuesday. That made it Twitter’s highest viewed live stream, just beating BuzzFeed and Twitter’s election night coverage, it said. The inauguration broadcast peaked at 377,000 concurrent viewers at 12:15 p.m., it said. Twitter users sent 12 million tweets about the inauguration Friday and 11.5 million tweets globally about the Women’s March the next day, the company said earlier (see 1701230059).

CBS and Meredith inked a long-term renewal of affiliation agreements for WGCL-TV Atlanta, KPHO-TV Phoenix, KCTV Kansas City and WNEM-TV Bay City, Michigan, the network said in a news release Tuesday. The deal also includes renewal of the Meredith stations' participation in CBS' online video distributor offering CBS All Access, plus a commitment to distribute via Hulu's forthcoming multi-channel digital TV service, it said. CBS said the deal includes a commitment for participation by all seven of Meredith's CBS affiliates in some of CBS's future entrant digital distribution deals.

Broadcasters will never quit their "blackmail-or-blackout strategy" that has resulted in soaring retransmission consent fees and endless carriage disruptions, Cable One Senior Vice President-Operations Charles McDonald said in a Morning Consult opinion piece Tuesday calling for reforms to the retrans rules. McDonald said the retrans consent provisions of the 1992's Cable Act, while well intentioned, have "become a giant migraine headache for millions of consumers" due to the blackouts used to jack up retrans consent fees -- blackouts that usually come before marquee programming events. McDonald pointed to recent retrans consent loggerheads Cable One had with Northwest Broadcasting (see 1701030046) and what he called its "price-gouging demands." Northwest didn't comment. McDonald said the current retrans rules must be "repealed and replaced." McDonald didn't give suggestions for replacement but said blackouts are effective since multichannel video programming distributors "are barred by law from negotiating with stations in an adjacent market" and are required to buy local broadcasters before national cable networks. FCC watchers and insiders said the agency is unlikely to reform its retrans consent rules (see 1701180025).

Dolby Labs, continuing the Dolby Vision momentum it showcased at CES (see 1701050004), will bring the high-dynamic-range technology to two models of Skyworth OLED TVs in China through a collaboration with Warner Home Entertainment and Tencent Video’s over-the-top streaming service, the companies announced Thursday. Nine Warner titles will be in the “first slate” of Dolby Vision OTT content offerings, they said: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, The Lego Movie, Edge of Tomorrow, Jupiter Ascending, The Great Gatsby, San Andreas, Man of Steel, Pacific Rim and Run All Night.

Gray and Dish Network headed off a retransmission dispute that could have affected close to 2 million Gray viewers (see 1701170028). In a news release Tuesday, Gray said it reached a long-term retrans agreement in principle with Dish.

Weakening U.S. net neutrality laws is unlikely to “materially affect” domestic margins or "service quality" at Netflix “because we are now popular enough with consumers to keep our relationships with ISPs stable,” the company said in a quarterly letter Wednesday to shareholders. But on a “public policy basis,” strong net neutrality “is important to support innovation and smaller firms,” it said. “No one wants ISPs to decide what new and potentially disruptive services can operate over their networks, or to favor one service over another.” The online video provider said it hopes the incoming Donald Trump administration and the new Congress “will recognize that keeping the network neutral drives job growth and innovation.”