CHICAGO -- The cable industry needs an image change that better reflects its importance to the era of Internet innovation, said NCTA CEO Michael Powell Tuesday at the kickoff general session of INTX 2015, the first year of NCTA's rebranded cable show. Powell said of the word "cable," "I hate the name." Innovations in online video and the IoT and nearly all new Internet technology depend on cable's infrastructure to exist, said Comcast CEO Brian Roberts, who demo'd new customer service, voice control and connected home technology at the INTX session as expected (see 1505040059).
Monty Tayloe
Monty Tayloe, Associate Editor, covers broadcasting and the Federal Communications Commission for Communications Daily. He joined Warren Communications News in 2013, after spending 10 years covering crime and local politics for Virginia regional newspapers and a turn in television as a communications assistant for the PBS NewsHour. He’s a Virginia native who graduated Fork Union Military Academy and the College of William and Mary. You can follow Tayloe on Twitter: @MontyTayloe .
Comcast is "disappointed" in the failure of the Time Warner Cable deal and is focusing on accelerating the rollout of its X1 DVR platform, said CEO Brian Roberts during the company's Q1 earnings call Monday. Comcast had a 7.2 percent increase in revenue for Q1 as compared to the same quarter last year, going from $17.4 billion to $17.8 billion, the company said in a news release. Roberts also said the company is planning some large announcements about its customer service operation for INTX 2015, which kicks off this week in Chicago (see 1504300078). Comcast had strong Q1 results but needs to "craft a new story" in the wake of its failed deal, said MoffetNathanson analyst Craig Moffett.
Rising programming costs, cable mergers and acquisitions and increased FCC regulation of their business are expected to be the focus of discussion for cable operators, attorneys and vendors at this week’s INTX (Internet and Television Expo) show hosted by NCTA in Chicago. The pressure of the FCC's Title II Communications Act regulation of broadband service, its push to classify online video services as multichannel video programming distributors, and increasing competition and programming costs highlighted by Verizon’s mini-bundle offering (see 1504220058) are combining to force cable operators to think hard about how to keep their business viable, said industry lawyers in interviews last week.
An FCC draft order that would let Pandora buy a South Dakota radio station won’t automatically lead to the streaming radio service being able to buy music rights at the same rate as terrestrial radio stations, said music rights and broadcast attorneys in interviews Thursday. FCC officials have said a draft order is on circulation that would let Pandora buy KXMZ (FM) Box Elder, South Dakota, as long as Pandora can show that it's less than 49 percent foreign-owned (see 1504280046). Pandora is expected to be able to satisfy the condition, said industry lawyers. Pandora has said it wants to buy the station to let it buy music at the lower price enjoyed by terrestrial radio stations.
An FCC draft order on reconsideration and accompanying Further NPRM on channel sharing could make the prospect of combining channel sharing with selling spectrum in the incentive auction slightly more attractive for broadcasters, said industry officials and an eighth-floor official. As promised by FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler in a speech at the NAB Show (see 1504150037), the draft order will roll back portions of the incentive auction order that required permanent channel sharing agreements to be set up before the incentive auction, an industry official familiar with the proceedings and the eighth-floor official told us.
The FCC is considering a draft order that would let Pandora own a broadcast station as long as the company is less than 49 percent foreign owned, said an agency official. Pandora asked the commission to sign off on its plan to buy KXMZ (FM) Box Elder, South Dakota (see 1411260042), even if it were 100 percent foreign owned, because the company has been unable to verify how foreign owned it is, said Garvey Schubert attorney Melody Virtue, who represents Pandora. “Most publicly traded companies are widely held.” She said the 49 percent threshold reportedly in the draft order would let Pandora proceed with the transaction. The order also includes a requirement that Pandora monitor its ownership going forward, said an FCC official. Pandora and FCC staff have been in contact over how the order would work, and the monitoring conditions are expected be acceptable to Pandora if the order is approved by the full commission, Virtue said. A Media Bureau spokeswoman had no comment.
The proposed purchase by AT&T of DirecTV is likely to be approved by the FCC and the Department of Justice, despite those agencies’ stance against Comcast/TWC, industry analysts and officials said in interviews. AT&T/DirecTV doesn’t have the issues of past performance on merger conditions or the online video foreclosure that bothered regulators about Comcast/TWC, industry officials and analysts told us. “The concerns about Comcast percolated throughout the D.C. atmosphere while we have not heard such concerns raised by opponents in the AT&T deal,” New Street Research analyst Jonathan Chaplin said. Several analysts told us last week that regulators are likely to block deals that lead to the creation of multichannel video programming distributors smaller than Comcast’s current size.
The opposition that led to Comcast’s withdrawal Friday of its proposed buy of Time Warner Cable is a sign of a tough regulatory environment for transactions, yet the dissolution is likely to lead to a flurry of smaller deals, cable analysts, brokers and industry officials said in interviews. Analysts see a second Charter Communications bid for TWC as the next logical step. Despite FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s denunciation of the Comcast /TWC transaction on Friday as “an unacceptable risk to competition and innovation,” deals between lesser companies aren’t expected to arouse FCC opposition, the analysts said.
Comcast is planning Friday to pull out of its proposed buy of Time Warner Cable, an industry official involved with the transaction told us Thursday. The unraveling of the deal comes in the wake of meetings between Comcast and the FCC Wednesday that indicated an unfavorable view of the deal at the commission, several individuals familiar with the proceedings told us.
FCC eighth-floor staffers were briefed Wednesday on Comcast's planned buy of Time Warner Cable by the agency’s transaction review team, agency officials said. The briefing took place on the same day as a Comcast meeting with the Department of Justice, and several industry officials have said the transaction review is seen as winding down (see 1504200049).