John Eggerton

Mike White, president of DirecTV, says its merger with AT&T is all about competitive bundles, faster broadband, and being more competitive with cable.

That is according to his testimony for hearings in the House and Senate Antitrust subcommittees June 24. White and AT&T Chairman Randall Stevenson were preparing to take turns pitching the deal as witnesses for both hearings.

White points out that cable ads point to his company's lack of an Internet offering and cable's speed advantages. And while DirecTV plays up other advantages of satellite in its now-famous marionette ads about the lack of wires, White was conceding the disadvantages and saying DirecTV must adapt--or in this case be adopted by a broadband player like AT&T. He said consumers are increasingly demanding bundles (although at least one media research analyst--Craig Moffett of MoffettNathanson, suggested what consumers really want are discounts).

"We must offer our own integrated bundles if we hope to meet this new consumer demand," he said. He also said it was "enormously" important to be able to prove over-the-top video, as well as improve its linear video given all the services and extras cable operators can offer.

The Minority Media & Telecommunications Council supports Prometheus's challenge to the Federal Communications Commission's media ownership decision and has asked the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit to allow it to intervene in support of Prometheus.

Prometheus, among other things, takes issue with the fact that the FCC has yet to comply with the Third Circuit Court of Appeals' order to justify or modify the FCC's method of boosting minority ownership, or propose new measures to do so.

In deciding to combine the 2010 and 2014 congressionally mandated media ownership, the FCC deferred a decision on the minority issues.

"Taken together, we believe that Commission’s failure to address minority and women ownership as being “outside the scope of this proceeding” is clear error, and its continued “kicking the can down the road” on issues of media ownership by minorities and women is indefensible.”

The American Cable Association is telling Congress it thinks the government needs to put conditions on the AT&T/DirecTV deal to decrease the incentive of DirecTV-affiliated programmers from charging higher prices to their rivals, which include hundreds of ACA members.

That is according to the written testimony of Ross Lieberman, senior VP of government affairs for hearings on the proposed deal in both the House and Senate June 24.

Lieberman cited ACA's concern over consolidation in general, including the proposed Comcast/Time Warner Cable deal and Comcast/Charter system swaps.

"Congress and the Federal Communications Commission ('FCC') need to ensure that consumers who reside in markets served by smaller multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs) will not lose any competitive options or see their prices increase as the consolidation wave continues," he said.

Count the National Education Association, the Parent-Teacher Association, the American Federation of Teachers and a whiteboard full of other education associations as very concerned about Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler's proposed changes to the E-rate program a subsidy for advanced communications services to schools and libraries, which they argue could be a rush to reform that jeopardizes the program.

The FCC signaled a vote for the July 11 meeting on reforms to E-rate, which is part of the FCC's efforts to make wireless more of a player and migrate away from voice subsidies, which will eventually be zeroed out. Said one industry source, the education groups were looking for more money over a longer period of time than they will be getting. The source suggested it could be Chairman Wheeler's next big fight.

The groups, who are beneficiaries of the E-rate program, are concerned that the FCC cannot support a five-year, $5 billion investment in Wi-Fi connections without raiding funding for ongoing broadband connectivity. They also don't like a per-pupil allocation formula for schools, a one-size-fits-all approach that they argue is grossly oversimplified.

The Federal Communications Commission sent out official notice that June 19 was the effective date of its new joint sales agreement (JSA) restrictions, which make some JSA's attributable as ownership interest.

That means that same-market JSA's that broker more than 15% of a station's weekly ad time (which is most JSA's), and whose attribution will put an owner over the FCC's local ownership limits, will have two years from that date, or June 19, 2016, to unwind them or take other action to come into compliance with the rules.

Broadcasters and cable operators may be battling over retransmission consent, but they are on the same side when it comes to closed captioning online clips of shows originally aired on TV.

The buzz around the commission is that the chairman is planning to circulate an item for a vote at the July 11 open meeting requiring broadcasters and cable operators to caption clips as well as long-form online versions of their shows.

In a joint filing, the National Association of Broadcasters and the National Cable & Telecommunications Association told the Federal Communications Commission they didn't think the FCC had the authority to regulate the captioning of online clips, but that if the FCC does, it should not make them responsible for those clips on third-party sites, including network web sites. NAB said the requirement would limit the number of clips that can be used and said a 24-hour deadline would be more reasonable.

It also said there were journalistic reasons why an uncaptioned version of a clip would be retained on a site along with a captioned version. NCTA urged the FCC to allow voluntary efforts to continue rather than imposing the clip mandate. It also urged the FCC to recognize the difficulty of captioning time-sensitive clips and its support for a 24-hour turnaround time.

Legislators from both parties and both houses of Congress are calling on House Leadership to bring the Permanent Internet Tax Freedom Act (ITFA) to the floor for a vote, and Senate leaders to pass a bill as well.

That came in a letter from the co-chairs of the Congressional Internet Caucus, ranking House Communications Subcommittee member Rep Anna Eshoo (D-CA) and House Judiciary Committee chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), and Senate Judiciary chair Sen Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Commerce Committee ranking member Sen John Thune (R-SD).

The bill, spearheaded by Rep Goodlatte, passed out of the House Judiciary Committee on a vote of 30 to 4. The moratorium expires in November if not renewed, and soon House and Senate members will be returning to the home front to get re-elected so the need for speed is an issue.

More than three dozen groups opposing bulk data collection have told the Senate it needs to strengthen the USA Freedom Act that passed the House in May.

They argue that the House compromise version of the bill to end bulk collection of data by the National Security Agency and other government agencies was too "watered down" and could still allow for far too much collection of data.

Those groups, who definitely support ending bulk collection, were unable to support the compromise bill.

In a letter to Senate leaders, the groups, which included New America's Open Technology Institute (OTI), Free Press and the ACLU, said that the Senate version needs to be improved, first and foremost by effectively banning bulk collection. They argue that it could still allow for what amounts to data dragnets.

"The bill’s overbroad and open-ended definition of 'specific selection term' could abusively be read to authorize collection of the records of thousands or millions of innocent Americans," they argue. "For example, it could conceivably allow the use of a selection term as broad as a zip code, all of the gmail.com Internet domain, or all of Verizon’s premises." Unless the definition is narrowed, they say, they can't support the bill.

The Senate's markup of the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act will have to wait for another day. It was scheduled to be marked up on June 19, but was held over at the request of a Republican, according to a committee spokesperson.

The National Cable & Telecommunications Association said that the Federal Communications Commission's latest broadband speed test -- conducted in cooperation with major Internet service providers (ISPs)/NCTA members," helps to refute the unsubstantiated allegations that cable operators routinely under-deliver and are solely responsible for any deficiencies in the performance experienced by consumers."