Matt Daneman

Univision is complaining to the FCC and FTC about -- and suing Dish Network over -- advertising by the direct broadcast satellite company featuring Univision, even though its content went dark on Dish at June's end (see 1807020030). Dish said the marketing materials were an oversight. In a letter dated Monday to the agencies' chairmen, Univision said Dish made "excuses" for its materials but continued to market Univision program services months after they were dropped and Dish should waive cancellation fees for customers who signed up since June 30 and release from contract customers who had watched the broadcaster extensively. In a docket 17-cv-05148-AJN-OTW amended answer and counterclaim (in Pacer) last week in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, Univision alleged Dish did false advertising, breached a contract and infringed trademarks for advertising on its website and on flyers and the site of a Dish retailer that Dish still distributed Univision services. Dish sought unspecified damages and permanent injunction against using Univision logos and marks when it doesn't have a right to distribute that programming. Dish emailed it's "a business dispute," with Univision demanding "considerably" higher fees "despite a material decline in its overall ratings." It said when channels went dark, it tried to remove references on marketing materials and websites, but the logos of some Univision channels were inadvertently left on regarding a package and have been removed. It's providing its DishLatino customers with a $5 monthly credit, replacement content and antennas in select markets.

With one Missouri community attempting to levy fees on Netflix and Hulu like it does cable TV, other states and localities are likely to try to head down the same road, experts told us. “I don't know that anybody is jumping on the bandwagon per se but I think [other communities] are interested in seeing how [the city's litigation] plays out," said Creve Coeur, Missouri, Mayor Barry Glantz.

Disney/Fox will likely shed its Sky stake, but Hulu's fate is unclear, said analysts after Comcast's $40 billion auction bid over the weekend that was accepted by Sky's independent committee (see here). Comcast will likely follow up with deal that has it buying the rest of Sky from Disney/Fox "for the same stupendous price," and possibly as part of a swap where Disney takes Comcast's stake in Hulu, MoffettNathanson analyst Craig Moffett wrote Monday. He downgraded Comcast stock to neutral. He said Sky could be "an albatross" for Comcast given its satellite TV business and that satellite video distribution "is increasingly becoming obsolete." He said expanding Sky's nascent over-the-top business will be a challenge, with a variety of programmers going direct to consumer, meaning Comcast will have to ramp up creation of its own video content. BTIG's Richard Greenfield wrote investors Monday that given cord-cutting and cord-shaving trends, Disney/Fox and Comcast/Sky are "actually depressing" examples of legacy media staying locked in a comfort zone. He said Disney/Fox will likely tender its Sky stake as part of Comcast's offer to Sky shareholders since there's not an obvious strategic benefit to Disney/Fox remaining an investor in Sky. The analyst said Disney wants Comcast's Hulu stake, but Comcast isn't likely to sell since it can thus prevent Hulu from becoming a Disney-branded OTT service. He said with the Sky deal, Comcast is signaling that a deal for Charter Communications seems unlikely and that U.S. expansion isn't a priority. Instead, Discovery could be the next acquisition target for Comcast given Discovery's investments in Europe in recent years, Greenfield said. Comcast plans to keep its stake in Hulu, an informed person said. U.K. M&A rules are such that it couldn't make a side deal with Disney to sell its portion, the person noted. Comcast didn't comment. The company closed down 6 percent at $35.63.

As it looks to unload some mobile traffic carried via its mobile virtual network operator, Charter Communications is considering licensed as well as unlicensed spectrum and Wi-Fi, Chief Financial Officer Chris Winfrey told analysts Thursday. He said the company is doing tests to evaluate 3.5 GHz spectrum and hopes to do the same with 3.7-4.2 GHz spectrum. Asked about 5G competition, he said it's unlikely to be direct competition for fixed line service, though Charter likely will employ 5G in some limited use cases or in partnership with other operators. He said Charter's footprint-wide rollout of its Spectrum Mobile service (see 1809040003) -- as well as other cable operators' own mobile offerings -- could help push broadband penetration broadly since customers could get web and mobile service at bundled pricing comparable to what many pay for mobile service alone. He said the Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks integration "has gone extremely well" and New Charter will operate as a single cable system by early next year. He said New Charter's conversion to all digital and all DOCSIS 3.1 will be done by year's end. Asked about declining video subscriptions, Winfrey said Charter is "becoming more and more indifferent" about small growth or losses of video customers, though having a video offering remains important to the connectivity business.

DOJ appeal of a lower court decision allowing AT&T's buy of Time Warner hasn't notably affected how New AT&T operates, WarnerMedia head John Stankey said at an analysts' presentation Thursday. He said the appeal is "a weak case." Over the months since the close on TW, the focus has been on getting management teams in place and on more cooperation between the TW operating divisions that traditionally operated more as silos, Stankey said.

Some of the gray legal issues for the Digital Millennium Copyright Act aren't likely to become more black and white in the near future, with the Supreme Court unlikely to take up one petition for writ of certiorari filed last week on safe harbor issues and no looming good test cases for a host of others, copyright experts said. District Court rehearing of BMG's copyright complaint against Cox, which was to start this week after last week's settlement, pre-empted a 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals remand and decision that the cable operator wasn't entitled to safe harbor protections (see 1808240013).

When BMG's copyright infringement complaint against Cox Communications goes to trial -- again -- in an Alexandria, Virginia, federal courtroom next week (see 1808160006), the jury will see a notably different trial from the first, meaning it's tough to handicap whether BMG will again prevail, experts told us. The Cox internal email -- central in the first trial -- indicating the company's enforcement of its own policy of terminating subscribers for copyright violations was toothless “put [Cox] in a difficult position," said Electronic Frontier Foundation Senior Staff Attorney Mitch Stoltz. But the second trial will no longer focus on whether Cox satisfied the narrow statutory standard of Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) safe harbor protections but instead on almost a more philosophical question of whether it's responsible for the actions of its subscribers, he said. BMG sued Cox in 2015, alleging the ISP was contributorily liable for infringement of BMG’s copyrights by its subscribers pirating BMG's catalog via Torrents.

Public interest groups, think tanks and antitrust scholars are backing DOJ's appeal of the U.S. district court ruling letting AT&T buy Time Warner (see 1807120068), in amicus briefs filed Monday with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. They follow DOJ's appellant brief filed last week (see 1808070025). New AT&T's appellee brief is due Sept. 20, with amicus briefs in support due Sept. 27. AT&T didn't comment Tuesday.

That Cox Communications is being sued again by music interests for alleged willful infringement of their copyrights is no surprise, given the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision earlier this year in BMG Rights Management's lawsuit against Cox (see 1802010026), IP experts told us. Whether Cox can see a different result in the new litigation, filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, will depend on whether it can show it has changed, the experts said.

Having soft launched its mobile service June 30, Charter Communications plans to ramp up features and marketing this summer, expanding mobile devices supported and letting customers transfer handsets, CEO Tom Rutledge said in a Q2 call Tuesday. Rutledge said company labor issues in New York City "politicized the actions" of the state Public Service Commission, which revoked approval of the TWC takeover (see 1807270027). "We're in compliance with the plain reading and the buildout requirements that the state imposed on us in merger conditions and we have a very strong legal case and ability to defend ourselves," he said. "It could play out over a lengthy period of time, if required. If necessary, we'll litigate." Asked about T-Mobile/Sprint, Rutledge said Charter wasn't one of the parties interested in Sprint (see 1807310042). "It doesn't mean in the future mobile assets might be priced right and that natural convergence would occur," he said. The chief said 91 percent of the footprint is all-digital and 6 percent of legacy Time Warner Cable customers had a full analog video lineup. He said about half of the Bright House Networks footprint is analog, and the all-digital shift started in June. He said the whole company will be fully digital by year's end and plans to launch a cloud-based DVR later this year. Rutledge said 62 percent of residential TWC and BHN customers were moved to Spectrum pricing and packaging, up from 55 percent at the end of Q1. He said Charter offers 1 GB service in about 60 percent of its footprint and it raised its minimum Spectrum to 200 Mbps in about 40 percent of its footprint. Charter has 16.2 million residential video customers, down 1.8 percent year over year; 23.1 million residential internet customers, up 4.8 percent; and 10.3 million voice customers, down 0.5 percent. The stock closed Tuesday up 3.6 percent to $304.58