Matt Daneman

Intelsat and OneWeb joining likely would need only FCC International Bureau, not commissioner, approval, although that process still could take months, satellite lawyer and former LightSquared General Counsel Jeff Carlisle told us. He said the deal, announced Tuesday, shouldn't draw a lot of controversial comments. He said the deal doesn't seem to pose horizontal or vertical concentration issues because the two companies operate in different markets. Instead, the combination points to a breaking down of traditional telecom silos of terrestrial/low earth orbit (LEO)/geosynchronous orbit (GEO), much like AT&T/DirecTV did. "You're going to see a lot of these age-old distinctions becoming maybe a little less distinct," Carlisle said. Intelsat said it expects to deal to close in Q3, contingent on regulatory and bondholder approvals. Intelsat CEO Stephen Spengler said in an analyst call Tuesday that the combined company, with Intelsat's GEO system and OneWeb's planned LEO system, opens the door to their together taking a larger satellite broadband market share and doing more work in backhaul carriage, as well as new applications like connected vehicles and over-the-top video distribution. Northern Sky Research analyst Lluc Palerm told us the deal opens the door to opportunities like the joined companies working low-latency markets such as 5G and also would let startup OneWeb piggyback off the international landing rights Intelsat already has.

With its eye on 5G networks enabling products like virtual reality offerings and a route to better serve the enterprise market, Charter Communications is starting "5G-like" field trials using its wireline network and high-capacity radios using licensed and unlicensed spectrum "as learning opportunities," CEO Tom Rutledge said in an earnings call Thursday. He also raised the possibility of a partial commercial rollout before year's end of Charter's planned wireless offering (see 1611030041). And the operator may seek relief from FCC conditions on its approximately $90 billion in cable mergers and acquisitions.

Viacom's turnaround plan will focus primarily on six flagship brands, rebranding its Spike channel as the Paramount Network next year, and be "highly selective" in any over-the-top deals, with those being mostly for library content, CEO Bob Bakish said in an analyst call Thursday. The flagship brands are Nickelodeon, Nick Jr., MTV, BET, Comedy Central and Paramount, with Viacom planning for each brand to contribute a film or two per year to the Paramount slate, Bakish said, with one example being the four Paramount films planned through 2020 using Nickelodeon intellectual property. Other branded networks, like VH1, "will not go away" but will work to reinforce the flagship brands, Bakish said. He said Viacom's turnaround plan also involves using company resources like ad sales and data to help grow multichannel video programming distributor partners as it looks to deepen its MVPD relationships instead of what has been transactional relationships "related to zero-sum economic negotiations." Bakish said Viacom is creating a new business unit to produce short-form video content for distribution by owned-and-operated and third-party platforms. Chief Financial Officer Wade Davis said the company expects strong growth starting in the second half of the year from the changes. Viacom said fiscal Q1 revenue rose 5 percent to $3.3 billion from the year-ago quarter, due mainly to better theatrical sales and growth in domestic affiliate revenue from subscription VOD and OTT agreements. In a note to investors Thursday, Wells Fargo analyst Marci Ryvicker said the results "prove to us that the turnaround is real and likely to continue." She said Viacom's plan "makes sense" and likened it to past Time Warner efforts at breaking down silos between its brands, "which seems to have worked." She upgraded the stock to "outperform." The emphasis on the six flagship properties makes sense but doesn't go far enough, and there should be a wind-down of niche networks over time, Citi analyst Jason Bazinet emailed investors. Viacom shares closed up 4.3 percent on Thursday at $43.89.

FCC Office of Engineering and Technology testing involving spectrum used for Wi-Fi and dedicated short range communications (DSRC) is taking a little longer than previously expected, and the results will help inform how the agency proceeds, commission officials said at a sometimes contentious FCBA CLE Wednesday. The goal was to finish the Phase I testing in January, but “you learn things as you go,” and the testing still is working on DSRC detection protocols, OET Chief Julius Knapp said. "We are trying to move things as fast as we can."

Time Warner shareholders will vote Feb. 15 on the proposed $108.7 billion purchase by AT&T Feb. 15, TW CEO Jeff Bewkes said in an earnings call Wednesday, saying the regulatory process continues and the deal is expected to close later this year. He said HBO passed 2 million over-the-top subscribers in the U.S. and launched OTT offerings in Spain, Brazil and Argentina last year. Bewkes also said there will be a growing number of partnerships with OTT services that offer HBO. He said Turner is "an anchor tenant" on the various virtual multichannel video programming distributors that have been launched, and also will be on Hulu's upcoming service. Turner CEO John Martin said virtual MVPDs DirecTV Now, Sling and PlayStation Vue are gaining subscriber traction, having close to 2 million subscribers in aggregate. Warner Bros. CEO Kevin Tsujihara said it sees big growth opportunities in China via a subscription VOD partnership with Tencent and the creation of local language content. He also said Warner is making "a lot of progress" on launching its own premium VOD offering, with a big driver being an alternative distribution route for middle-market films such as adult dramas that increasingly are challenged in standard theatrical releases. TW said it finished the year with revenue of $29.3 billion, up 4 percent, with growth in HBO, Turner and Warner Bros.

The average monthly cost of basic cable service was $23.79 at the end of 2014, a 2.3 percent increase over the preceding 12 months, and the average monthly cost of expanded basic was $69.03, up 2.7 percent over the same time frame. Meanwhile, monthly video average revenue per unit for some of the biggest multichannel video programming distributors went up about 1 percent to 6.5 percent between 2014 and 2015. Those are among the findings in the FCC Media Bureau's 18th annual Video Competition Report posted Tuesday in docket 16-247.

Whether the Supreme Court opts next month to take up an appeal of a 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in a Nickelodeon video privacy case could hinge on whether the 3rd and 1st U.S. Circuit are split on what constitutes personally identifiable information (PII) as laid out by the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA). The case, C.A.F v. Viacom, was distributed for a conference to be held Jan. 6, according to the Supreme Court docket.

Comcast doesn't see its broadband subscriber growth slowing in the near future, Chief Financial Officer Mike Cavanagh said at a UBS investor conference Wednesday. Comcast has added a million-plus broadband subscribers annually the past 10 years, and expects to ultimately add about 1.3 million this year, roughly the same as 2015, Cavanagh said, saying it still has big potential markets such as the roughly 6 million DSL homes in its footprint. Asked about the likelihood of the Trump administration undoing FCC Communications Act Title II reclassification of broadband, Cavanagh said opposition to that change was about "the overhang of where it could go" in new regulations. "Hopefully, that chilling effect is gone" with any Title II rollback, he said. Meanwhile, 5G is "plenty of opportunity" for Comcast but also potential threat if there are use cases that impinge on the company's offerings, he said. Cavanagh said penetration of Comcast's X1 video platform is about 45 percent of its footprint and that growth isn't expected to top out soon.

With AT&T's Wednesday launch of DirecTV Now (see 1611280058 and 1611290039) making it the second multichannel video programming distributor with a national video product, MVPD industry insiders and experts are divided over whether others will soon follow suit. It wouldn't be surprising if Comcast or Charter Communications decided to go national with an over-the-top offering, but they would be smarter to wait and see how the OTT market develops, cable industry consultant Steve Effros told us.

The median broadband speed among U.S. consumers hit 39 Mbps this year, up 22 percent from a year ago, and most providers' actual download speeds are as good or better than what's advertised, said the FCC offices of Engineering and Technology and of Strategic Planning in their 2016 Measuring Broadband America fixed broadband report Thursday. Some say speeds may continue rising, as shown by past FCC MBA reports.