DirecTV urged Raycom to let DirecTV customers see opening weekend NFL games and upcoming NCAA football games while the companies continue to negotiate a carriage deal. Raycom stations were pulled from DirecTV’s lineup this month due to a carriage negotiation dispute (CD Sept 3 p17). DirecTV subscribers were to be able to view Thursday’s NFL opener at NBCSports.com, it said in a news release Thursday (http://bit.ly/1uoNokG). The direct broadcast satellite company said it was ready to compensate Raycom the final price that the parties agree upon for the days its customers are permitted to see Sunday’s NBC, CBS or Fox NFL coverage, and the NCAA games that took place over the weekend. Raycom offered Thursday to make the games available to DirecTV customers, “but DirecTV turned us down,” said Susana Schuler, Raycom senior vice president. “We're doing all we can to bring the local stations back,” she said in an interview. It’s unfortunate that DirecTV refused the offer, but “we remain hopeful that DirecTV will put their subscribers first and do the right thing, so viewers will see NCAA and NFL games this weekend,” Raycom said Thursday in a news release.

The Fox Sports GO app will live stream 97 regular season NFL games, along with four NFC playoff games. The games will be available on tablets through the app and on desktops at www.FoxSportsGo.com, Fox Sports said in a news release Wednesday (http://foxs.pt/1nXW64c). NFL games aren’t available through the app on mobile phones due to league restrictions, Fox Sports said.

Gannett got federal regulatory clearance under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act to take full ownership of automotive website Cars.com, the company said in a news release Wednesday (http://bit.ly/1pNNB1d). Gannett already owned 27 percent of Cars.com’s parent Classified Ventures, and agreed to pay $1.8 billion for the remaining 73 percent (CD Aug 6 p16). The sellers include former Washington Post owner Graham Holdings, and newspaper publishers McClatchy and Tribune.

The World Teleport Association is accepting survey responses for its 2014 Top Teleport Operator Rankings. The report ranks companies operating teleports for commercial purposes, including independents, satellite carriers, fiber carriers and technology providers, WTA said in a news release Wednesday (http://bit.ly/1qglR4y). The survey doesn’t include broadcast networks, it said. “Rankings are based on total revenue from all sources and on year-on-year growth."

Oral argument in broadcasters’ latest attempt to get a nationwide preliminary injunction against streaming TV service Aereo is Oct. 15, said an order issued in U.S District Court in Manhattan Tuesday. The broadcaster request for a preliminary injunction while the case against Aereo is tried on the merits is the same one that led to the ABC v. Aereo U.S. Supreme Court decision in broadcasters’ favor in June (CD June 26 p1). Aereo has argued that the ABC v. Aereo majority opinion classified it as identical to a cable system, entitling it to a compulsory copyright license (CD July 11 p10). “Aereo has paid the statutory license fees required under [Copyright Act] Section 111, and thus Plaintiffs can no longer complain that they are not being compensated as copyright owners,” said Aereo Friday in an opposition filing to the injunction motion. “Aereo is entitled to a compulsory license under the Copyright Act, and no preliminary injunction should issue on remand.” Aereo pointed to statements from CBS CEO Les Moonves that Aereo hadn’t affected CBS retransmission consent negotiations as evidence that the requested injunction wouldn’t be preventing any harm to broadcast businesses. The injunction request is also “overbroad” in targeting both Aereo’s offerings of real-time and time-shifted viewings of retransmitted broadcast content, Aereo said. Since the Supreme Court’s Aereo ruling didn’t overturn the Cablevision decision that provides the legal underpinning for Cablevision’s remote DVR technology, the injunction shouldn’t include Aereo’s time-shifted offerings, Aereo said. “Cablevision remains the law in this Circuit and Aereo’s time-shifted DVR is functionally identical to the Cablevision system."

A petition asking the Obama administration to protect journalists' “right to report” in the digital era was launched by the Committee to Protect Journalists Wednesday (http://bit.ly/1rMWbig). The petition seeks three commitments from the administration: a presidential directive banning the “hacking and surveillance” of journalists and media organizations; putting limits on “aggressive prosecutions” of journalists and whistleblowers; and preventing the “harassment” of journalists at all U.S. borders, it said. The petition was signed by individual reporters, news organizations and free speech groups, including The Associated Press, Bloomberg News and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, it said.

Audible Magic joined RGB Networks to offer ad insertion that lets cable and direct broadcast satellite operators replace ads embedded in streams lacking advertising markers. The technology is particularly applicable outside the U.S. “where ad markers such as SCTE-35 cues are often not included in broadcast content,” Audible Magic said Wednesday in a news release (http://bit.ly/1u131zm). When ad content is detected in the broadcast stream, Audible Magic’s technology signals RGB’s ad marking device that injects SCTE-35 cues into the transcoded system, it said. Ad insertion equipment responding to SCTE-35 cues “can then be utilized downstream to enable ad replacement that is invisible to the viewer yet cost-effective to implement,” it said. SCTE is the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers.

Gracenote said it bought film and TV information and services company Baseline for $50 million (http://bit.ly/1qozazG). The acquisition strengthens Gracenote’s existing video metadata by adding movie and TV information for more than 300,000 movies and TV projects, information on nearly 1.5 million TV and film professionals, and box office data for 45 territories, it said Wednesday. Baseline’s subscription-based The Studio System platform expands Gracenote’s reach into the studio and TV network communities with data and services targeted to entertainment industry professionals, Gracenote said. Baseline’s licensed data powers video search and discovery features and TV Everywhere apps for satellite operators, on-demand movie services, Internet companies and online streaming providers including Hulu and Vudu, it said. Gracenote was bought by Tribune Media Co. earlier this year.

Broadcasters that stop retransmission by pay-TV providers to get “negotiating leverage” should not be allowed to prevent pay-TV providers from importing distant signals of the same network affiliation, said Mediacom in an ex parte filing posted in FCC docket 10-71 Wednesday (http://bit.ly/1nxfXqX). An NAB study showing broadcasters have better ratings under exclusivity rules is comparable to a report in satirical publication The Onion proclaiming that stab wounds mean shorter lives, Mediacom said. “Who, after all, would spend good money commissioning a study that even Captain Obvious might be embarrassed to make?” Cable providers could commission a similar study showing cable had more video customers before DBS service, Mediacom said. A request that the FCC revoke DirecTV and Dish Network’s licenses based on such a report would be greeted with “derision,” Mediacom said. Network non-duplication rules are used during retrans blackouts to “inflict a stab wound” on pay-TV providers, Mediacom said. “It is incumbent on the Commission to take the knife away."NAB appreciates “that Mediacom is attempting -- however badly -- to inject humor into a business model under tremendous pressure from cord-cutting, sorry customer service, and abusive annual customer rate hikes twice the rate of inflation for 20 years,” responded an association spokesman.

Thirty percent of consumers in Brazil, the U.K. and U.S. stream music, and 20 percent of those consumers pay to stream, said a MIDiA Research report (http://bit.ly/1qNxgF3). MIDiA surveyed 3,000 online users in Brazil, the U.K. and the U.S. in June, a spokesman said Tuesday. Twenty-three percent of streamers said they used to buy more than one album per month, but no longer do so, the firm Friday said. Forty-five percent of music downloaders surveyed said they also stream music, it said. Just 15 percent of streamers say they have tried a music subscription service, and 22 percent said they would pay $9.99 for such a service, it said. MIDiA’s website describes the company as a boutique media and technology analysis company.