Matt Daneman

The exclusivity rule and some broadcaster/pay-TV negotiating tactics could be going by the wayside, as some had expected (see 1508110026). FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said Wednesday his office is circulating a set of draft orders tackling retransmission consent rules. The aim is "to bring governance up to date with the practical realities of today’s media landscape and will ensure that consumers remain well-served by our media policies," Wheeler said in a blog post announcing the retrans proposals and other possible rule changes affecting everything from AM radio to station contests. It also, if adopted, would set up a system for market modification for DBS and let local governments, local broadcasters and satellite providers request such market changes.

The almost two-year review of whether Globalstar can deploy a private Wi-Fi channel in the 2.4 GHz band remains in limbo, some industry officials said. "We cannot say with clarity exactly where it is," CEO Jay Monroe said on a conference call Monday. "The next step in the process, once the technical work is completed, is for it to move to the eighth floor. Because there were no technical problems that were identified by the bureaus, I suspect that the bureaus have made that known to the eighth floor." Other parties have said the terrestrial low-power service (TLPS) for broadband would cause interference.

The National Association of African American Owned Media and a media company plan to appeal this week seeking to overturn a U.S. District Court's dismissal of a $20 billion lawsuit against Comcast, Time Warner Cable and an array of civil rights organizations and individuals. "We want to get this reversed," Skip Miller of law firm Miller Barondess, representing NAAAOM, told us Monday.

Even as comment deadlines on emergency alert system rules were set Monday, the FCC had already received some filings from EAS stakeholders. Comments on proposed changes are due Sept. 9, replies Sept. 24, in docket 04-296, the Public Safety Bureau said in Monday's Federal Register. The proposed rule changes follow a request by the National Weather Service that the FCC add three EAS event codes for extreme wind and storm surges, and that it revise the territorial boundaries of geographic location codes 75 and 77, which are offshore marine areas.

Cord cutters increasingly are cutting Wall Street's regard for much of the pay-TV industry, as numerous stocks took a dive last week amid fears of declining numbers of video subscribers and smaller bundles. "It is clear the dynamic with the customer is changing," Cablevision CEO Jim Dolan said Friday in an earnings conference call. "The traditional video bundle does not work for all customers." The march toward smaller bundles "does leave anxiety out there for a lot of companies," CBS CEO Leslie Moonves said in another conference call.

Proposed elimination of the two-degree spacing policy is creating degrees of separation among some satellite companies. While operators want higher power satellite services than the policy allows, "such services should not come at a cost of increased uncertainty of the interference environment," EchoStar said in a filing in FCC docket 12-267 posted Tuesday. It responded to Intelsat, which has been the leading proponent of eliminating the two-degree spacing rules. "The mere existence of the policy creates a licensing imbalance that favors non-U.S. operators who do not face similar constraints from their licensing administrations," Intelsat said in a filing early this year. "Worse yet, the two-degree spacing policy can be leveraged to impair the United States’ priority spectrum rights" at the ITU.

Charter Communications' free interconnection policy isn't completely settlement-free. In an ex parte filing posted Wednesday in docket 15-149, Charter said it spelled out its twin interconnection policies: one with settlement-free interconnection through 2018, the other a "long-standing policy that is available to typically smaller entities that may want a more flexible approach," in a conference call between company executives and FCC representatives. Under the second policy, there has and will continue to be free interconnection at times, Charter said, but it also is amendable by the company "and allows a case-by-case approach by which the entities can establish a relationship that accommodates individual needs." The company is seeking FCC approval to buy Bright House Networks and Time Warner Cable.

The FCC could end up back before the U.S. Court of Appeals if it goes ahead with proposed rules on treatment of confidential information, said an attorney for a cable programmer that's among a group of programmers raising concerns about how proprietary confidential information will be used and shared during Charter Communications' purchase of Bright House Networks and Time Warner Cable.

The cable TV bundle isn't going away anytime soon, and programmers diving into over-the-top self-distribution may ultimately be hurting themselves, Charter Communications CEO Tom Rutledge said Tuesday. While the traditional cable bundle model may have peaked, "My sense is it is not about to all fall apart, and we will be having this same conversation three years from now," Rutledge said during an earnings conference call.

The cable industry increasingly is pushing for a new regulatory look at retransmission consent rules. Cablevision said the FCC should launch a rulemaking on ways to address such issues as broadcasters forcing affiliated networks into particular tiers and requiring networks to reach a certain percentage of customers. The American Cable Association told the FCC the agency should seek comment on whether certain negotiating tactics it accused broadcasters of employing ultimately harm the public interest. The FCC should "re-examine its existing presumptions that certain types of conduct are consistent with competitive marketplace conditions [and] seek comment on whether these presumptions ... are contributing to current market dysfunctions and thus should be modified or eliminated," ACA said in a filing posted Friday in docket 10-71.