The top 13 U.S. multichannel video programming distributors lost about 105,000 net video subscribers in 2013, Leichtman Research Group said in a press release (http://bit.ly/1hjx0ds). Annual net MVPD sub additions were about 280,000 subs fewer in 2013 than in 2012, it said. The top nine cable companies, including Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Cablevision, lost about 1.7 million video subscribers last year, compared to a loss of more than 1.4 million subs in 2012, LRG said. The top telephone providers, AT&T U-verse and Verizon FiOS, added more than 1.4 million subs last year, compared to nearly 1.3 million net additions in 2012, it said. Satellite TV providers added 170,000 video subscribers last year, compared to 288,000 net additions in 2012, it said. The MVPDs’ modest losses represent only about 0.1 percent of all subscribers, LRG said. Cable providers now have a 52 percent share of the top MVPD subs in the U.S. compared to a 58 percent share three years ago, it said.

NCTA estimated it would cost about $3,500 per location to order and install new emergency alert system equipment required to recognize a new nationwide EAS code, in comments in FCC docket 04-296 (http://bit.ly/1d221jx). The development and testing processes for the new code for downstream equipment is significantly more time- and resource-intensive “than the encoder/decoder review process and any subsequent modifications,” it said. The aggregate capital and operational cost of deploying a new nationwide location code is about $1.1 million for about 85 percent of cable customers, it said. At least one year is needed to deploy the new location code once it’s adopted by the FCC, NCTA said. Requiring the National Periodic Test Code to filter location codes and to last longer than two minutes is more costly and complex to implement than adopting a nationwide location code, it said. This would cost about $4.4 million for about 85 percent of cable customers, NCTA said. Public Safety Bureau staff discussed with NCTA the importance of achieving a consistent regulatory approach to EAS over an ad hoc interim approach to the handling, routing and security of EAS alerts, said the association.

Comcast’s buy of Time Warner Cable wouldn’t substantially increase Comcast’s power over programmers, Comcast Executive Vice President David Cohen told former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt Monday on The Digital Show, Hundt’s SiriusXM radio show. “I really don’t see how moving from 22 billion customers to 30 billion customers is going to dramatically increase our negotiating leverage,” said Cohen. Since cable faces video competition from DBS, over-the-top and elsewhere, Comcast won’t be in that much better a position after the TWC deal, he said. “Maybe we would have a little more negotiating power, but the control for must-have content is still likely to be in the control of the programmer and not the multichannel video distributor,” Cohen said. He also said the Comcast/TWC deal should be approved because Comcast and TWC aren’t competitors. “I think people should ask themselves why that is and if that’s really the natural state of the world,” said Free Press Policy Director Matt Wood, who also appeared on the episode. “There’s nothing today other than perhaps some licensing agreements and the historical unwillingness of cable operators to cross over and overbuild each other that would prevent Comcast and TWC from competing at least online,” Wood said. Hundt also spoke with MoffettNathanson analyst Craig Moffett about the cable deal. The effect of the Comcast/TWC deal on programmers is likely to “get a lot of scrutiny in the FCC” because it has the potential to create “a company so large that it controls what [viewpoints] Americans can and can’t hear,” Moffett said.

The FCC should take up the Tennis Channel’s carriage complaint against Comcast again and reaffirm its original decision against the cable provider based on evidence that Comcast would benefit from carrying the channel, Tennis Channel said in a petition for further proceedings filed Tuesday. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled in Comcast’s favor in May (CD May 29 p1) because it said the commission had not shown discrimination by providing evidence that carrying the Tennis Channel on a more basic tier would benefit Comcast, Tennis Channel said. Tennis Channel asked the Supreme Court to overturn the decision, but wasn’t granted cert (CD Feb 25 p15). The existing record in the proceeding contains “ample evidence” to satisfy what Tennis Channel characterized as the court’s “new tests,” the channel said. The evidence “demonstrates that Comcast’s distribution business would reap a net benefit from carrying Tennis Channel broadly” or at least that any losses from carrying Tennis Channel on a wider tier “would be smaller than those it was incurring from broad carriage of Golf Channel.” The evidence also shows that Comcast’s justifications for keeping Tennis Channel on a more selective tier were “merely pretexts designed to obscure a discriminatory purpose,” Tennis Channel said. The FCC should set a new briefing cycle and direct Comcast and Tennis Channel to “file limited proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law on the narrow issues” the D.C. Circuit said weren’t backed by the evidence, said Tennis Channel. Those briefings are needed because in the prior proceedings “neither the parties nor the Commission had an opportunity to evaluate the record evidence against the tests that have now been articulated by the court,” said the petition. After the proceeding, the FCC should affirm its original decision that Comcast violated discrimination rules and require Comcast to carry Tennis Channel on the same tier as Golf Channel and Versus.

The FCC Media Bureau is seeking comment on Buckeye Cablevision’s petition for a waiver of the integration ban for its new Hybrid Box set-top box, the bureau announced in a public notice Friday (bit.ly/1glnB3j). Buckeye needs the waiver because the Hybrid Box combines a unidirectional QAM digital terminal adapter and an Internet Protocol (IP) video interface in the same box, which would violate the ban’s prohibition on new navigation devices that allow both conditional access and other functions in a single device. The QAM portion of the new box uses integrated security while the IP portion uses downloadable security, the PN said. Buckeye has said the box will encourage the transition to IP video, promote downloadable security and limit “consumer disruption in the IP transition,” the PN said. Comments and oppositions are due March 27, and Buckeye’s reply is due April 7, the PN said.

"Above all,” Comcast’s proposed $45.2 billion Time Warner Cable buy (CD Feb 14 p1) “will benefit you, our customers,” TWC CEO Robert Marcus said Friday in an open letter emailed to subscribers. “Our two companies have been behind many of the innovative services that you enjoy every day,” including digital cable, high-speed Internet, DVRs, VOD and wireless “in the home and on-the-go -- to name just a few,” Marcus said. “The combined company will innovate faster and deploy even better products and features, including a superior video guide,” faster broadband speeds and “even more” wireless access points “so you can access the Internet wherever you go,” he said. Comcast and Time Warner Cable expect to complete the deal “around the end of 2014,” he said. “In the meantime, all of us at Time Warner Cable remain committed to providing you with great TV, ultra-fast Internet, rock solid phone service and innovative home security and monitoring. And we will continue to make significant investments to improve reliability and to enhance our customer service."

Viacom continues to focus on helping distributors implement TV Everywhere functionality, CEO Philippe Dauman told the Deutsche Bank Media, Internet & Telecom Conference webcast from Palm Beach, Fla., Monday. Distributors’ rollout of such functionality has been slow in coming, he said. But it’s “going to be really important both in retention and expansion” of the number of viewers, he said. If distributors don’t make the content available where viewers want to view it, other companies will come in “to do it,” he said. Viacom’s content must be distributed in a “measured way because that’s how we can get the advertising revenue direct from it,” he said. Viacom content viewers are heavy consumers of the content on multiple platforms, he said. “If we can” get Viacom content “out there more effectively, if we can get it measured,” which is starting to happen, and if Viacom can create content for those new platforms, “particularly small mobile devices, as opposed to the tablets,” it represents a “very significant opportunity” for the company due to the demographics of its viewers, he said without elaborating, although many of its properties skew young. Viacom is “working very hard” with its distributors to achieve all that, he said. The on-demand content offering from traditional distributors, meanwhile, “has not been all that robust,” but the amount of content being offered by at least some of them has been improving, allowing users to “look back” to see older programming, he said. “A lot of it’s been a capacity issue,” Dauman said. “As there’s been more capital spending on the infrastructure, that problem has been alleviated,” he said. Viacom is focused on rolling out and building its apps, as well as increasing mobile distribution and creating content for mobile devices, he also said. Viacom’s Paramount division recently restarted TV production and the company will be announcing a number of greenlit series “over the next several months,” he said. It is doing that with “low overhead” and in an “opportunistic way,” he said. Viacom is, meanwhile, “seeing clear signs of recovery” in Europe and it’s “feeling” that in its ad business and on the “distribution front,” he said. The company sees a “big, big opportunity” in growing its “footprint internationally,” he said. Its MTV brand is distributed globally in many markets and it’s been rolling out its Nickelodeon and Comedy Central brands in more markets also, Dauman said. The latter is now available in 60 territories and Viacom is “continuing to grow it,” he said. As Viacom rolls out its Paramount channel globally, it will roll out another brand globally “behind” it, he said. Viacom will probably expand its Spike brand to more global markets, he said. The company has been creating a lot of original programming on Spike in the U.S. and believes that a lot of it will travel well to other markets, he said.

Cablevision will ask FCC Administrative Law Judge Richard Sippel to dismiss Game Show Network’s carriage complaint, Cablevision said in a status update filed Thursday (http://bit.ly/O2Ibyc). The motion for summary judgment would be based on the majority opinions in two recent program carriage decisions, Comcast v. FCC and Time Warner Cable, NCTA v. FCC, both of which were decided in favor of cable companies. GSN v. Cablevision had been on hold while awaiting the resolution of those prior cases, but after the Supreme Court’s recent rejection of a cert petition from Tennis Channel asking for Comcast to be overturned, Sippel said the GSN case should start up again. Cablevision said the motion will be filed in 30 days. GSN is “evaluating the meaning and reach of the Comcast Cable action and whether the material already submitted in this proceeding or gathered through discovery will be sufficient or whether further discovery is appropriate,” the channel said in the status update. Cablevision said it reserved the right to “object to any new discovery as unjustified at this stage.” Both parties asked Sippel to set an April 7 deadline for a further status report “describing the discovery needs of the parties and proposed dates for deposing witnesses, exchanging evidence, and commencing trial."

Cable One launched a Wi-Fi service that will allow small-business owners to streamline communications and operate more efficiently. It also will allow small businesses “to reduce mobile phone data charges by switching from cellular wireless data plans to unlimited on-site Wi-Fi,” Cable One said in a news release. “With the addition of Wi-Fi service, small businesses will be able to increase productivity by mobilizing their workforce with a seamless and secure on-site connection."

The FCC should grant Buckeye Cable a waiver of the integration ban to allow it to deploy its new set-top “Hybrid Box,” Buckeye said in a request filed Wednesday (http://bit.ly/1ndQNyP). “The Hybrid Box represents an innovative development in set-top technology, combining in one device a unidirectional QAM digital terminal adaptor ('DTA') and an Internet Protocol ('IP') video interface,” Buckeye said in the filing. Buckeye needs the waiver so it can gradually transition to an all-IP network, the filing said. “The Hybrid Box will enable customers to continue to receive QAM digital video as currently delivered. Then, as video services are transitioned to IP, customers will have immediate access to those services, without the inconvenience, delay, and cost of obtaining and setting up a new set-top.” The IP portion of the new box “utilizes an industry standard, downloadable security solution supporting third party retail devices” that will “help achieve the Commission’s goal of common reliance on an industry standard conditional access technology,” Buckeye said. The cable provider said it would commit to making at least 85 percent of its video services available in IP within 36 months of receiving the waiver.