Multichannel News

The pending combination of Comcast and Time Warner Cable could be the final piece of the interactive ad puzzle, spurring other distributors to embrace what has been a market on the verge of a breakout for about a decade, Bank of America Merrill Lynch Global Research senior media and entertainment analyst Jessica Reif Cohen said. Reif Cohen added that so far, interactive advertising has taken “baby steps.” But with the creation of a 30-million subscriber cable company, the industry will finally have an addressable ad champion with the necessary scale and scope.

“The tipping point of addressable advertising will be Comcast/Time Warner Cable,” Reif Cohen said, adding that other components like measurement also will need to fall into place. “There are steps that need to happen, but clearly it will be an area of growth.”

Reif Cohen pointed to the impact that Comcast already has had on the video side of the business with its current scale -- 22 million subscribers -- focusing on video on demand, TV Everywhere and its robust user interface platform, the X1. She noted that because of those efforts, Comcast customers watch more TV (more than 7 hours per day vs. 4-5 hours on average for the rest of the country) and more channels (about 40% more than average viewers.)

Former Time Warner Cable chairman and CEO Glenn Britt died of cancer on June 11 at his home in New York. He was 65.

“Glenn left us with a legacy of innovation, integrity and inclusion," said Time Warner Cable chairman Rob Marcus.

Comcast has now filed both parts of its proposed merger with Time Warner Cable at the Federal Communications Commission and the heavy lifting on vetting the deal, and comments about the deal, can begin in earnest.

Comcast filed with the FCC the public interest statement, exhibits and license applications for its spin-off of 3.9 million customers, which it promised to do to try and assuage concerns about the size of the combined company. A key public interest point the company makes is how the creation of the new company, SpinCo, will bring more competition to the marketplace--while the TWC merger will not reduce it, Comcast has already pointed out.

"The SpinCo transaction will create substantial public interest benefits," says Comcast. "While SpinCo will be a new company, it will be larger than all but four other cable companies in the United States and will have a tightly integrated, contiguous service footprint. This scale and geographic scope will facilitate investment in innovation and high-quality services within SpinCo’s footprint. From the outset, SpinCo will be well positioned to compete aggressively in the highly competitive markets for high-speed Internet, voice, and video services."

Comcast will not own shares in either Charter or SpinCo after the closing of the spin-off, the company says, and for the first eight years would not be allowed to own more than 1% of SpinCo shares. "In short, SpinCo will be entirely independent of Comcast," the cable operator told the FCC.

According to the National Association of Broadcasters, the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit has been chosen to hear both its and Prometheus' challenges to the Federal Communications Commission's media ownership rule review vote.

NAB had filed suit in that circuit, while Prometheus chose the Third Circuit, which remanded the original rules back to the FCC. In that case, there is a lottery to see which court gets the case (held by the US Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Ligitation). And DC won, as did NAB, which prefers that venue.

NAB is challenging the FCC's decision to make joint sales agreements of over 15% attributable as ownership interests, saying the decision was arbitrary and capricious. Prometheus says that decision was arbitrary and capricious, too, but because the FCC did not explain why 15% was the magic number, and because it did nothing to rein in other sharing arrangements.

The challenges extend beyond JSA's and sharing agreements to broader ownership issues, including the FCC's decision not to loosen the newspaper/broadcast crossownership ban.

Former Federal Communications Commission chairman Julius Genachowski has been elected to the board of MasterCard, the company said.

Genachowski was one of two newly elected members, rounding out the 13-member board. It is a one-year term.

Genachowski exited the FCC in 2013, joining The Carlyle Group in January 2004 as managing director of telecom and media in the Washington office, focused on acquisitions and media and telecom investments.

Zomboo's House of Horror Movies, Your Sunday Worship and the Norm Prouty Real Estate Show are just some of the programs that the Federal Communications Commission has given 90 days to closed caption.

The FCC June 2 dismissed 16 petitions by program producers, mostly of religious programming, who had asked to be exempted from requirements that they closed caption their programming. Closed captions are ones that can be turned on and off. The FCC provides an exemption from the rules if the captioning would be "economically burdensome."

Time Warner Cable Business Class said it will offer its TWC WiFi Hotspot solution at no additional charge to commercial Internet customers across the multiple service operator’s footprint.

The feature, which includes a free Wi-fi point installed and managed by the operator and a self-service management portal that lets business owners configure the service, will enable those customers to offer their customers Wi-fi access on devices such as smart phones, tablets and laptops.

The configuration portal allows business customers to provide free access to customers and visitors or set daily time allotments for free access, ranging from 15 minutes to 60 minutes. Those same access points are also accessible to credentialed TWC broadband subscribers.

Comcast Business said it has introduced a wireless gateway tailored for commercial environments that enables its customers to assign one private signal for its own day-to-day needs and a separate, public signal for customers or visitors.

The new device is entering view as Comcast Business develops a new “amenity” Wi-Fi offering for small business customers that could, for example, provide access to a separate, company-branded SSID with usage rules, security components and other terms of service set by the business owner. The device being rolled out now delivers a second "Xfinity WiFi" SSID.

Comcast said the new Business Wireless Gateway, developed by Cisco Systems, is now included in most of its business Internet plans.

When it comes to watching sports on TV these days, it’s increasingly a second-screen and social play, according to a recent study from Sporting News Media.

According to the group’s “US: Know the Fan Report 2014,” nearly half of surveyed sports fans maintain that they use Internet-connected devices while watching games and events on television.

Forty-four percent of these second-screeners like to catch up on what’s happening with other games being played via live text commentary and live scores, while 38% access non-sports related content. Another 21% communicate with friends through a second-screen device about the sports event on TV, compared to 20% watching clips and highlights of other games being played and 14% posting comments to social networking platforms about the game/event they’re engaged with it.

According to Sporting News Media’s fourth study of its kind, 2014 has marked a significant increase in the number of fans following sports via social networking platforms as over one-third of respondents said they consume sports on these platforms. Social networking fans are primarily younger fans, with 65% in the 18-to-34 set.

While mobile consumption of sports content has doubled to 42% from 21% in 2011, 65% of the surveyed sports fans indicated that they still primarily use a computer/laptop to access online sports content. Almost two in five (38%) access content on these devices at least once daily, according to the survey. Sporting News Media’s research found that smartphones are more widely used (34%) than tablets (22%) for the second year running, with the former’s usage growing 10 percentage points since 2013, versus a 3-percentage point advance for the latter.

The Federal Communications Commission asked for input on former FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski's proposed "Third Way" approach to legally justifying open Internet rules that was part of the docket in the initial Open Internet order proceeding.

The 'Third Way' was short of straight reclassification, instead combining applying some Title II regulations and forbearing others. Comment deadlines are July 15 for initial comments and Sept 10 for replies.

Essentially the notice opens a new pleading cycle for comments on that 2010 "'third way' approach that would apply a limited set of Title II obligations to broadband providers," the FCC Wireline Competition Bureau said. "Today’s Public Notice establishes a comment cycle by which members of the public can update the record in that proceeding in light of marketplace and legal developments over the last four years."

Despite calls from cable operators, Genachowski declined to close the Title II docket after his decision not to reclassify, and FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler declined to close it in the run-up to his 706 proposal. Now Chairman Wheeler is affirmatively seeking more input on that 'Third Way' approach given changes in the marketplace and various legal developments since 2010.