Comcast refused to engage in “good faith negotiation” to expand carriage of Liberman Broadcasting's (LBI) Spanish-language TV network Estrella TV, said LBI in an ex parte notice posted in docket 14-57 Friday. LBI officials met with the FCC Media Bureau March 2 about how decisions made by Comcast forced the removal of Estrella TV from Comcast cable systems in several markets, LBI said. Comcast’s actions failed to serve the public interest and goals of fostering competition, diversity and localism, LBI said. It said Comcast's planned buy of Time Warner Cable is approved, Comcast will control access to 19 of the top 20 Hispanic markets. LBI said Comcast asserted that Estrella TV's ratings lag behind other networks, so this precludes distribution parity for the network on Comcast, but Estrella received high ratings from Nielsen, LBI said. Comcast has treated other Hispanic networks favorably while it refused to expand carriage of or pay license fees to Estrella TV, LBI said. “This is the first time a programmer has pulled its signal from our customers," Comcast said in a statement emailed Friday. Comcast is "very disappointed" that LBI is taking away its Estrella stations from Comcast customers in Houston, Denver and Salt Lake City, it said: "Liberman’s precipitous action is particularly puzzling given that we are Estrella’s largest distributor and have been negotiating in good faith to reach a fair arrangement with Liberman." Eighty percent of Comcast’s customers will continue to receive Estrella in Chicago; Fresno, California; Miami; and New York, it said. "We want to continue to carry the Estrella stations for our customers in these three markets and offered to do so under our existing arrangements with Liberman, which are the same arrangements we have with other, comparable stations. Unfortunately, Liberman is insisting that we go far beyond the market and that our customers pay millions of dollars for Estrella programming, which is not widely viewed among Latino audiences, and also is insisting on significant additional distribution throughout our footprint." As the top U.S. cable provider of Spanish-language network packages, Comcast's Hispanic customers "will continue to have many viewing choices,” it said.

The FCC should use extreme caution and tailor its rules narrowly for multichannel video programming distributors, said media organizations and content distributors in comments posted Wednesday in docket 14-261. The commission should “be slow to interfere” with the evolving concept of TV, said the Digital Media Association (DiMA) comment. The commission should be cautious about changing the definition of MVPDs, especially when the over-the-top (OTT) market is “vibrant and growing,” it said. Changes to the definition of MVPD should be “narrowly tailored to a well-defined class of online video programming distributors,” DiMA said. It approved that the rulemaking rejected a “one size fits all” approach and drew distinctions between Internet-based MVPDs and Internet-based providers of video content, it said. OTT providers should be unaffected regarding program access and carriage rules, it said. Producing and distributing video content is “already fraught with significant risk in this competitive environment,” said MPAA's comment. Changing the current content market could hinder investment and experimentation, it said. Consumer demand, not the government, should determine content and linear and other online distribution methods, MPAA said. The rules proposed in the NPRM raise issues under the First Amendment and copyright law, and also threaten the diversity of programming and licensing relationships among content creators, distributors and programmers, MPAA said. The commission should qualify Sky Angel as an MVPD (see 1503050058), Sky Angel said in its comment. Its program access complaint against Discovery has been stagnant for 27 months, while the commission imposes a five-month standard to resolve these complaints, Sky Angel said. Sky Angel wants the pro-consumer, pro-competition protections from program access rules and asked the commission to grant its renewed petition for temporary standstill, it said.

Fifty-three percent of Americans 12 and older listen to online radio monthly and 44 percent listen weekly, said a survey released Wednesday by Edison Research and Triton Digital. The survey also found that 54 percent of the Internet audio users use Pandora most often, followed by iHeartRadio at 11 percent, Spotify at 10 percent, and iTunesRadio at 8 percent. Along with Internet radio, podcasting is on the rise, with consumption growing from 39 million monthly users in 2014 to about 46 million in 2015, it found. On social media, 65 percent of those surveyed said they use Facebook most often, the report said. Facebook beats out Instagram at 18 percent, Snapchat at 15 percent and Twitter at 8 percent as the most-used social media sites among 12- to 24-year-olds, it found. The survey was done Jan. 6 to Feb. 10, with 2,002 persons 12 and older selected via random-digit dial sampling and interviewed by phone.

The ATSC is “on track” to move to an ATSC 3.0 “candidate standard” later this year, said Luke Fay, a Sony Electronics software systems engineer and chairman of the ATSC’s S32 specialist group, in the March issue of The Standard. Once a candidate standard is done, “those who would implement the details will have a chance to build equipment and test the Candidate Standard in a real world environment,” Fay said in the ATSC monthly newsletter released Tuesday. “That’s where all of the poking and prodding will be done with the elements of the system. It’s a trial of new technology, and a chance to see if anything was overlooked when developing the standard.” Next in the process, ATSC 3.0 as a “proposed standard” will be balloted on, he said: Once approved, ATSC 3.0 will be done. The upcoming audio system tests for ATSC 3.0 “will be world’s first to evaluate immersive sound for a broadcast television standard,” the newsletter said. Three immersive audio formats will be tested, it said: (1) A 7.1 surround system ("7.1+4") with four height channels added in a square above the listener; (2) The 22.2-channel three-dimensional surround format pioneered by NHK as part of its Super Hi-Vision system, (3) High-Order Ambisonics (HOA), a “scene-based” format that’s independent of channels and "can be rendered and optimally mapped into whatever reproduction channels are available to the listener." ATSC will test HOA "as rendered" to 22.2 channels, the newsletter said. ATSC’s S34-2 ad hoc group on ATSC 3.0 audio has selected about 60 sound tracks for testing the three audio systems that have been proposed for ATSC 3.0, it said. The three proponents are Dolby Labs, DTS and the MPEG-H consortium of Fraunhofer, Qualcomm and Technicolor (see 1501130054). March 9 is the deadline for all three proponents to deliver detailed technical proposals to the S34-2 ad hoc group, ATSC President Mark Richer said in the newsletter. In all, about 12-14 clips have been selected for each of the five different channel formats being tested, the newsletter said. They include Suzanne Vega’s "Tom’s Diner," a rare a cappella solo, with very little reverb added, which is why it originally came into use for this purpose, pieces from the Henry Mancini orchestra rendering of "Moon River," a live version of "Whole Lotta Love" from Robert Plant, Fleetwood Mac’s "Never Going Back Again," a clip from the soundtrack from the filmed version of Chicago featuring Catherine Zeta-Jones, and an excerpt from NBC Nightly News. “The rest are from lesser known classical or jazz artists, specialized solo-instrument recordings, applause, sports commentary/game sounds (golf and hockey), ambient recordings and cinematic sound effects,” the newsletter said.

The LPTV Spectrum Rights Coalition joined NAB as an associate member to protect low-power TV and TV translators in the incentive auction and repacking process, the coalition said in an email Friday. It also will work with NAB to see if the ATSC 3.0 standard will be developed before 2016, so LPTV broadcasters can use the standard during the post-auction repacking process, it said. The FCC is closely monitoring the development of the ATSC 3.0 standard (see 1502250051).

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit denied a writ of mandamus sought by PMCM against the FCC Friday, according to a court order. The writ would have directed the FCC to rescind the suspension of operating authority for PMCM's WJLP-TV Middletown Township, New Jersey. PMCM wants the station to be allowed to use virtual channel 3.1, which is opposed by the owners of the station currently using channel 3, Meredith Corp. The Media Bureau issued an order suspending WJLP's operating authority while it holds a notice and comment proceeding on the matter, and PMCM failed to show it needed relief, the court said.

The FCC seeks comments on EchoStar’s petition for a waiver of over-the-air analog tuner requirements, the Media Bureau said in a public notice Thursday in docket number 15-47. EchoStar wants the waiver to market “a new model of SlingLoaded HD, Internet-enabled, digital video recorder” that doesn’t include analog tuners, said its waiver petition filed Thursday. The bureau and the Office of Engineering and Technology previously said the "all channels" provision meant any TV receiver that includes over-the-air digital tuners must include over-the-air analog tuners, EchoStar said. Comments are due March 12, replies March 19.

Cox Media and TubeMogul are partnering to create a cross-device video advertising initiative to give marketers a new way to reach local and regional consumers, a news release from Cox Media said Friday. The partnership offers programmatic digital video ad inventory alongside local TV inventory across many screens including mobile, tablets and on traditional TV sets. The service is available to marketers in all of Cox’s designated market areas.

The FCC Media Bureau denied Gray Television’s request for a waiver of the network nonduplication and syndicated exclusivity rules to allow it to exercise exclusivity rights against West Virginia stations WOWK-TV Huntington and WVAH-TV Charleston, an order issued Wednesday said. Gray had argued that WOWK and WVAH are no longer significantly viewed in Parkersburg, where it owns stations including WTAP-TV. Gray submitted Nielsen survey data showing WOWK and WVAH didn’t meet the requirements for significantly viewed, but the stations’ licensees and cable operator Suddenlink said Gray’s surveys were using incorrect ZIP code data. “Parties opposing the Petition have raised legitimate questions regarding the zip codes used to prepare the Nielsen data that support the Petition,” the bureau said.

The Federal Aviation Administration dropped its proposal of the regulation of FM stations, said a letter posted at the FCC Jan. 28 in docket 12-338. The FAA is no longer pursuing its proposed frequency notification requirements for FM stations operating in the 88.0 to 108 MHz band, it said. The Fletcher Heald law firm blogged about the letter Wednesday.