The FCC’s competition report “wholly neglects to articulate agency actions necessary in response to the acknowledged dominant position of streaming services,” said a blog post by Free State Foundation Senior Fellow Andrew Long Tuesday. The report (see 2301060048) acknowledges viewers are leaving traditional media for streaming services but doesn’t recognize “the inequitable role that the lopsided regulatory status quo plays in anointing these winners and losers,” or a need for a deregulatory response, Long said. “The report presents a compelling factual case for MVPD deregulation,” he said, urging the FCC to eliminate set-top box rules, network nonduplication, and program carriage rules.

DirectTV is "not trying to de-platform Newsmax," the MVPD wrote House Republican Conference members this week in response to their letter earlier this month complaining about the news network potentially being dropped from DirecTV's lineup. "We want to continue our carriage of Newsmax on the same terms as at present, and we have made that clear to Newsmax," wrote General Counsel Michael Harman, saying, with the current agreement expiring, it began a short-term extension to allow more negotiating time. A DirecTV spokesperson told us the programmer, which has been carried for free, now is seeking payment, though its programming is available free via YouTube, Newsmax's website and streaming platforms such as Google Play, Roku and Amazon Fire TV. The Jan. 20 letter from the House Republicans to DirecTV CEO Bill Morrow, AT&T CEO John Stankey and TPG Capital CEO Jon Winkelried accused the direct broadcast satellite operator of "actively working to limit conservative viewpoints on its system." The House Conference members cited Vice Media being carried by DirecTV and receiving higher fees than Newsmax does. The letter said Congress plans "extensive oversight on the extent to which House Democrats and officials in federal offices" limited and restricted free speech, with the investigations "not ... limited to social media companies." It demanded ratings for and fees paid to the networks. AT&T and TPG respectively have majority and minority stakes in DirecTV. Newsmax didn't comment Tuesday.

Comcast's good-faith negotiation complaint about a blackout of WPIX New York (see 2212130029) accuses Nexstar of violating standards "that Comcast itself flouted," the broadcaster said Wednesday in its docket 22-443 answer. Comcast's complaint raises novel good-faith objections that never came up in the companies' negotiations, said Nexstar, saying Comcast not withdrawing the complaint now that the two have reached an agreement "underscores that its filing was merely a pretext for trying to force a proceeding based on arguments that Comcast has already presented to the FCC." It said the complaint doesn't offer a cognizable claim for good-faith violation and urged that it be dismissed. Comcast outside counsel didn't comment.

Nexstar and Charter settled their legal battle over a retransmission consent agreement for Mission Broadcasting’s WPIX New York, according to a filing Monday in the superior court of Delaware. Nexstar reached a settlement in a related court proceeding with Comcast in the U.S. District Court for Southern New York last month (see 2212200057). Both breach of contract cases began after Nexstar sought to apply clauses to WPIX’s retransmission consent contracts after Mission acquired WPIX. Nexstar operates all of Mission's stations through sharing arrangements. In Monday’s filing, Nexstar and Charter asked the court to stay the proceeding in anticipation of the companies requesting a voluntary dismissal in the wake of the settlement. Nexstar and Charter didn’t comment on the terms of the settlement.

Programmers, the Video Advertising Bureau and OpenAP are partnering to create a measurement certification and streaming viewership dataset for determining ratings, OneAP said Monday. Programmers joining the Joint Industry Committee (JIC) effort are Fox, NBCUniversal, Paramount, TelevisaUnivision and Warner Bros. Discovery. OpenAP said measurement certification standards will be formalized and officially announced March 1. It said JIC goals include a programmer data set that harmonizes streaming viewership data and hiring of a third-party audit firm to verify the accuracy of the streaming viewership dataset. In a joint statement, Paramount CEO Bob Bakish, TelevisaUnivision CEO Wade Davis and Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav said premium video's advertising model "depends on an ecosystem for measurement that is transparent, independent, inclusive, and accurately reflects the way all people consume premium video content today. By coming together to establish this JIC, we can collaborate and accelerate the efforts to implement a new multi-currency future that fosters more competition, inclusivity and innovation and will ultimately better serve advertisers, agencies and consumers."

The FCC should block a request from Dish to be given access to confidential documents connected with the Standard/Tegna deal and strike from the record a Dish letter on retransmission negotiation (see 2212290048), said filings from Standard, Tegna and Cox Media posted Tuesday in docket 22-162. “There is no question that DISH is seeking to use an unrelated FCC process to gain commercial advantage,” said CMG in a letter rejecting implications from Dish that CMG violated retrans negotiation rules. DISH is involved in active retransmission negotiations and blackouts with CMG and Standard General, the broadcasters said. The CMG language cited by Dish concerned stations that CMG would own under the terms of the merger agreement, CMG said. The heavily redacted document filed by Dish “implicitly invites” the FCC to “conflate the concept” of after-acquired station clauses with negotiating retransmission consent terms for other broadcaster’s stations, CMG said. The agency should strike Dish’s letter from the record and require any party with access to the document to destroy their copies of it, said CMG. The FCC also shouldn't grant Dish access to the confidential filings from Cox, Standard and Tegna connected with the deal, said a joint filing from those companies. “The risk of allowing DISH to review this information for what appear to be transparently competitive reasons that are, in all events, unrelated to the underlying proceeding, threatens the integrity of the Commission’s processes,” said the filing. The filing also questioned whether Dish could maintain the required separation between the attorneys reviewing the sensitive retrans documents filed in the merger proceeding and those negotiating retrans contracts with the broadcasters. That concern also was raised about the arrangement among Standard, Tegna and CMG parent Apollo Global Management (see 2212290048). Allowing Dish access to the filings while in retrans negotiations “is highly improper and fails to balance the risk of competitive harm,” said the joint filing. Dish didn't comment.

Expect a 10% decline in traditional pay-TV subscriber households in 2023, up from what will likely end up being a 9% drop in 2022, nScreenMedia analyst Colin Dixon wrote Monday. Sports are no longer anchoring the traditional pay-TV universe, he said, noting the NFL's Sunday Ticket moving to YouTube TV for the 2023-2024 season and Major League Soccer moving to Apple TV+ this year. He said the roughly 6 million households that will likely cut the cord this year will mean more homes in the U.S. without a traditional pay-TV subscription than with one. He said a big winner in 2023 could be virtual MVPDs, which could add 2 million to 3 million subs. He said free ad-supported TV will have new services launched, including one from WB Discovery, and a third of U.S. homes using FAST services by year's end.

The emergency alert system test reporting system (ETRS) is now accepting Form One filings from EAS participants, said an FCC Public Safety Bureau public notice Tuesday. The forms are due Feb. 28. “EAS Participants must renew their identifying information required by ETRS Form One on a yearly basis,” said the PN.

Walt Disney should cease trying to be Netflix and stop airing sexually suggestive and violent content, said Parents Television Council President Tim Winter in an open letter to returning Disney CEO Bob Iger. “I never could have imagined that a company named for Walt Disney would produce and distribute a television program that depicted a teenage girl masturbating in front of her laptop computer,” said Winter, referencing the comedy PEN15. Winter also criticized the cartoon Little Demon “where demon characters chant, “We wanna f*** a corpse! We wanna f*** a corpse!” “Is this what the Walt Disney Company refers to as ‘creativity?’” asked Winter. “Certainly you can help Disney embrace inclusivity without sexualizing, or even sexually exploiting, children.” Iger should reverse the company’s course and “understand, appreciate and value the qualities of the Walt Disney Company that made it so successful, and so wildly valuable,” Winter said.

The NFL signed a multiyear agreement with Alphabet giving YouTube TV and YouTube Primetime Channels exclusive rights to the NFL Sunday Ticket starting with the 2023 season, the league said Thursday. "For a number of years, we have been focused on increased digital distribution of our games and this strategic partnership is yet another example of us looking towards the future and building the next generation of NFL fans," NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said. The Sunday Ticket presents out-of-market Sunday regular-season NFL games. It has been distributed on DirecTV since its launch in 1994. The agreement also extends carriage of the NFL Network and NFL RedZone on YouTube TV, it said.