Matt Daneman

Cord cutting is accelerating, with roughly 23 percent of people surveyed who don't subscribe to a pay-TV service having been subscribers within the past 12 months but then quitting their subscriptions, up 4.8 percentage points year over year, TiVo reported Wednesday. It said of those without pay TV, 46 percent catch over-the-air broadcasts using an antenna, a trend up 12 percentage points over the past two years. Price and availability of subscription VOD services continue to be the leading reasons for cord cutting, TiVo said. It said 8.9 percent of those who subscribe to a pay-TV service switched providers in the past three months and churn is up 3 percentage points over the past three years. Comparing commonly selected a la carte channels with existing virtual MVPD offerings, the company said virtual MVPD offerings skew heavily toward sports and medium-to-large market channel offerings, indicating the virtual MVPD market can further diversify offerings without any notable increase in bundle size and that no bundle contains just core channels and most-watched channels, even though that's a bundle commonly cited as desirable by viewers. The survey of 3,069 adults in the U.S. and Canada was done by an outside party during Q2. The results show pay-TV operators can stem subscriber losses by aggregating online video services for customers, and they need to do so quickly since consumers increasingly are opting for subscription VOD over pay TV, nScreenMedia analyst Colin Dixon blogged Wednesday.

Garmin and Iridium brought concerns about Ligado's broadband terrestrial low-power service plans to meetings with Wireless Bureau and eighth-floor staff, said FCC docket 11-109 filings posted Tuesday. Recapping a meeting with an aide to Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, Garmin said it discussed its worries about Ligado interference with Garmin's certified aviation devices. It repeated its oft-made argument in favor of the 1 dB standard for determining harmful interference to GPS receivers. Iridium -- recapping meetings with the Office of Engineering and Technology, the Wireless and International bureaus and the offices of Chairman Ajit Pai and Commissioners Brendan Carr and Jessica Rosenworcel (see here, here, here, here, here and here) -- said it repeated its technical analysis findings (see 1609020029 and 1612140061) that Ligado's L-band operations would cause significant harmful out-of-band emission interference to Iridium's mobile terminals. It said Ligado's proposed OOBE limit at 1626.5 MHz doesn't provide enough interference protection. It said the FCC shouldn't grant Ligado's application on its 1627.5-1637.5 MHz plans but that if it does, it must impose conditions to ensure enough interference protection for Iridium services. Ligado didn't comment.

Despite questions about President Donald Trump's receptiveness to telco and media mergers and acquisitions, the administration likely showed less hostility to larger horizontal or vertical M&A, Comcast Senior Executive Vice President David Cohen said in an interview on C-SPAN's The Communicators to be televised starting Saturday and put online. At the same time, Cohen said, Trump's populist streak "could be a bit of a governor on M&A policy."

The Ajit Pai FCC's top wireless priorities are making more spectrum available for flexible use in the low, mid- and high bands, policies that identify and eliminate barriers to infrastructure deployment, and policies that extend wireless to unserved and underserved areas, Wireless Bureau Chief Donald Stockdale said at an FCBA event Wednesday. He said barriers are "one of the critical issues" the agency is facing in 5G deployment, with the other chief hurdle being the freeing up of more spectrum for fifth generation.

CBS CEO Les Moonves emphatically denied Thursday the network is in talks to acquire CNN. Rumors of such a deal are "real fake news," he said at an Economic Club luncheon, saying he hasn't talked with executives at CNN or parent Time Warner. A TW spinoff of CNN was speculated as part of AT&T's bid for the cable network (see 1701130018). TW didn't comment. Moonves said a programming talent war is growing with streaming services' original content and with tech companies getting increasingly into the TV space. He said CBS' competitive niche is in programming expertise and its broadcast assets' mass audience. With the growth of skinny programming bundles, CBS's strategy is to always be part of those skinnier bundles alongside its CBS All Access direct-to-consumer streaming service, he said. He also predicted a rebound in NFL ratings this season, chalking up last year's 8 percent ratings decline to more interest in presidential election coverage and anemic Thursday night game matchups. Meanwhile, DOJ may soon OK AT&T/TW, reported the Los Angeles Times earlier that day. DOJ didn't comment.

With Q3 being one of the most competitive in recent years for video subscribers, Comcast likely will end down 100,000 to 150,000 subs year over year, said Matt Strauss, executive vice president-Xfinity Services, Thursday at a Bank of America conference. He said the competition has come from new over-the-top services and from incumbent distributors increasing marketing spending and being more aggressive with offers. Strauss said hurricanes cost the company some subscribers. He said Comcast is focused on profitable subscribers instead of overall subscriber numbers, but the company could see a return to video subscriber growth. Strauss also said a major industry trend in video is an increase in time-shifting. "The future is aggregation," with Comcast as a distributor aiming at offering an increasing variety of sources on its Xfinity platform, Strauss said. He said Comcast's streaming video product, Instant TV, which was testing in Boston and Chicago, will be rolled out across its footprint later this month and into Q4. Instant TV is a skinny bundle of content and a cloud DVR, with additional programming packages available as add-ons, he said. He said Comcast will try not to cannibalize its existing video subscriber base by targeting its marketing at specifically high speed data-only customers and limiting the number of video streams. Comcast closed Thursday at $38.60, down 6.2 percent. In a note to investors, Wells Fargo analyst Marci Ryvicker said the stock movement is likely due to the Q3 subscriber news.

Dish Network designated entities SNR and Northstar and the FCC should be able to reach mutually agreeable terms over Dish's de facto control of the companies regarding the AWS-3 spectrum, after Tuesday's appellate court ruling (see 1708290012), insiders told us. "We believe an agreement can be reached and that the FCC will act in good faith," a person involved with the DEs said.

Most or all major programmers are moving toward their own over-the-top video offerings by decade's end, following HBO Now, CBS All Access and -- as announced this week -- ESPN and Disney streaming services (see 1708080065), experts said.

Having received final FCC regulatory approval for its low-power mobile broadband plans in the 2483.5-2495 MHz band, Globalstar is ending for now plans for an L-band mobile broadband network. In a docket 13-213 filing posted Tuesday, the company said it was withdrawing its 2012 request for a rulemaking on terrestrial wireless operations in the 1610-1617.775 MHz band. The International Bureau on Tuesday approved a modification of Globalstar's satellite authorization to include a terrestrial low-power ancillary terrestrial component (ATC) network using mobile satellite service spectrum. The approval said Globalstar's ATC operations in the S-band are subject to the company's 2008 agreement with NTIA on out-of-band emissions into the 1559-1610 MHz band -- an issue raised by GPS Innovation Alliance (see 1706260022). Globalstar's 2012 petition for rulemaking proposed using 2483.5-2495 MHz for a terrestrial wireless service and a longer-term plan to use of spectrum in the 1.6 GHz/2.4 GHz band for an LTE-based mobile broadband network. Globalstar General Counsel Barbee Ponder told us that having received the authority for its short-term plan -- the FCC in December OK'd terrestrial use of the 2473-2495 MHz band for low-power mobile broadband use (see 1612230060) -- the company "is going to focus on that," particularly on getting international regulatory approvals for its terrestrial broadband plans. Ponder said Globalstar has applications pending in various countries and could get some international approvals this year. FCC bureau approval "marks the end of the FCC regulatory process to obtain terrestrial authority over our S-band spectrum and the beginning of a new range of innovative wireless services," CEO Jay Monroe said: It's working with chipset and infrastructure providers "to put this spectrum to more intensive use."

As it looks to harmonize FCC 2016 approval of its broadband terrestrial low-power service plans across jurisdictions worldwide (see 1612230060), Globalstar had talks with regulatory agencies in 15 countries beyond what it announced in May, CEO Jay Monroe said in an earnings call Thursday. He said the company expects to have filed a number of applications internationally for terrestrial use of its 2483.5-2500 MHz band spectrum by year's end. He said it expects FCC approval of its mobile satellite service license modification application "within days," after the comment period ended in July without opposition (see 1705250011). He also said the company is in partnership discussions "with numerous companies" that either have or want their own terrestrial networks, since Globalstar doesn't expect to build its own.