Cable executives and America’s Communications Association representatives worry about rising retransmission consent fees (see 1903230001 or 1903250065) and about Nexstar's buying Tribune, they told aides to all FCC members and front-office Media Bureau staff. "Member companies pass through most, if not all, of these fee increases to consumers, such that subscribers’ bills have increased precipitously. Devoting additional resources and bandwidth to broadcasting also hinders efforts to expand and improve broadband in rural areas," said a filing posted Tuesday in docket 10-71. Consider "the recent behavior of Nexstar, which has earned itself a reputation as an exceptionally bad actor in an already dysfunctional retransmission consent marketplace," ACA said. It's difficult to negotiate retrans deals with the broadcaster, executives said. "Nexstar has promised to raise retransmission consent rates -- and, indeed, cites this as a benefit of the proposed transaction." As the agency weighs letting one TV station owner reach a larger percentage of U.S. viewers, cable executives noted that increasing the cap "will invariably lead to higher [retrans] prices," they said. Another ACA-member confab included Wireline Bureau Chief Kris Monteith and commissioners' aides, and Pai Chief of Staff Matthew Berry attended another gathering. Executives attending at least some meetings came from Armstrong Utilities, Cable One, HTC, Liberty Puerto Rico, Shentel and TDS. Nexstar didn't comment. The FCC meetings occurred Thursday during ACA's conference in Washington (see 1903200009), noted Senior Vice President-Government Affairs Ross Lieberman. Most of the group's members attending went to Capitol Hill, he emailed. "Two small groups were taken to FCC as reflected in ex parte" filings, he added. NAB responded to the lobbying, saying ACA "rehashes tired anti-broadcaster rhetoric that we’ve heard before." TV stations and networks "provide the most popular content on cable systems," emailed NAB's spokesperson. "The FCC should reject ACA calls to inject itself into the free market retransmission consent negotiation process, and should allow local TV stations modest relief from 'I Love Lucy' era ownership rules.”

T-Mobile/Sprint and Dish Network letters at the FCC argue over which economic models better capture the effect of the proposed deal between the carriers. At issue is which numbers are better -- Cornerstone’s Nielsen Mobile Performance (NMP) data set favored by T-Mobile/Sprint or Brattle Group filed on behalf of Dish. “Brattle’s income estimates are more realistic than those used by Cornerstone, which simply assumes that all consumers in the same zip code have the same income,” Dish said in a redacted filing in docket 18-197. “Brattle’s method for estimating income (based on the income brackets reported by the majority of consumers in Cornerstone’s NMP data set, as well as other data set characteristics) was accurately and explicitly disclosed.” T-Mobile/Sprint fired back, posted Friday. “DISH now admits that the Brattle Economists ‘used an unconditional expectation of income … for both respondents and non-respondents,’” the carriers said. “In other words, DISH concedes it manufactured ‘an estimated unconditional expectation of income’ and used that ‘data’ in the place of the NMP survey.”

T-Mobile and Sprint said economists Mark Israel, Michael Katz and Bryan Keating presented updated economic data to the FCC transaction team reviewing their deal. The economists offered numbers for 2019 and 2020, said a filing posted Tuesday in docket 18-197. “Consumers benefit from the merger in each and every year from 2019 through the foreseeable future, with a net present value for consumers of $359 billion, which corresponds to gains of $1,036 per subscriber.” Staffers for both companies and lawyers working on the deal attended. Meanwhile, Sprint CEO Michel Combes and other staff met all five commissioners. “Sprint’s representatives discussed the financial, network, and scale challenges Sprint faces, how the proposed merger would address those challenges as well as spur competition, and the deployment of 5G in the United States,” Sprint said. T-Mobile John Legere blogged Wednesday on how the deal will be good for competition. It "will make wireless and in-home broadband MUCH more competitive because we will finally have the scale and capacity to challenge the entrenched Big Guys like never before and break into new opportunities to benefit consumers," Legere wrote. "We’ve already been kicking their butts in what has been a pretty unfair fight to date… imagine what we will do when the playing field is better balanced.”

Cablevision founder Charles Dolan asked the New York Public Service Commission to look into Altice USA's compliance with conditions the PSC put on the 2016 buy of Cablevision. In a letter Tuesday to the state, Dolan said Altice potentially "has flouted its commitments" by its layoffs of close to 70 workers at Cablevision's News 12 subsidiary. It said a finding that Altice violated the conditions should be met with an order it restore or replace the terminated workers and should bar further staff reductions. The layoffs are also subject of Dolan family litigation in Delaware Chancery Court against Altice (see 1809050032). Altice emailed that it "continues to invest in News 12 and we are pleased with the network’s ongoing achievements, including growth in ratings and digital viewership," "has met all of its workforce commitments" and is "in compliance with our merger agreement.”

Twenty-First Century Fox's broadcast assets are now a stand-alone company, Fox Corp., trading on Nasdaq, New Fox said Tuesday. Disney's buy of the Fox nonbroadcast assets takes effect Wednesday (see 1903120006).

NSI bought Platinum Tools to broaden its product portfolio and reach new customers, it said Thursday. Platinum Tools provides cable management solutions, structured wiring products, tester kits, cutters, crimpers and other products for electrical, industrial, security, audio/video, commercial, residential, datacom and telecom applications. On possible organizational changes resulting from the acquisition, an NSI spokesperson emailed that the companies are working to create a “unified path forward” over the next 90-100 days. Meantime, it’s “business as usual,” she said. Platinum employs about 40 and will continue to operate out of Newbury Park, California.

T-Mobile acquiring Sprint would be "bad news for consumers and workers," wrote 33 Pennsylvania state lawmakers in a letter last week to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and DOJ Antitrust Division Chief Makan Delrahim. The deal would "reduce consumer choice, competition, jobs, workers' wages, and raise prices for consumers," said Sen. Lindsey Williams (D), Rep. Gene DiGirolamo (R) and others. The letter, shared by the Communications Workers of America, was also signed by the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO and other state consumer and worker groups. Too many Pennsylvania rural communities have no broadband, but "T-Mobile and Sprint have largely built their networks in urban areas," and "the spectrum assets that Sprint brings to this merger are not well suited for rural areas," they said. A T-Mobile spokesperson replied, "As the merger review processes continues, we remain confident that the facts and data will demonstrate that the New T-Mobile will bring tremendous benefits to American consumers -- including those in Pennsylvania." In California, T-Mobile urged the California Public Utilities Commission to deny a CPUC Public Advocates (Cal PA) motion to compel further data responses related to the carrier’s proposed Sprint buy. “Cal PA attempts to transform its prior request for additional time to digest allegedly ‘new information’ contained in the Joint Applicants’ Rebuttal Testimony -- and to submit additional testimony in response to that information -- into a quest for even more information beyond that which was already timely provided by T-Mobile over the course of this proceeding,” T-Mobile responded in docket A18-07-011. Let parties “focus their efforts on the preparation of post-hearing briefs including, for Cal PA, the possible submission of sur-rebuttal testimony based on the information already contained in the Joint Applicants’ Rebuttal Testimony,” T-Mobile suggested. CPUC recently extended the briefs deadline to March 29 (see 1902270016). In Hawaii, the Consumer Advocate slammed T-Mobile and Sprint for not saying how nationwide pricing and job commitments will be monitored and implemented there. The Public Utilities Commission “should be provided Hawaii-specific and credible information that the Commission can use in its decision making process,” the advocate responded, posted Friday in docket 2018-0157. California, Hawaii and Pennsylvania are the last three state OKs needed.

Cinedigm's buying Future Today for $45 million cash and $15 million in stock will expand its over-the-top footprint to over 7.6 million monthly active users, it said Friday. Future Today, with 2018 revenue of $23.9 million, has 700 channels with more than 60 million app installs and manages some 200,000 film, TV and digital content assets that get 85 million-plus views monthly. The acquisition gives Cinedigm a fully scaled video advertising platform, increases opportunities in China and India and strengthens its channel and content portfolio for distributors, it said.

That DOJ's case against AT&T/Time Warner was shown to be right points to the importance of the agency bringing vertical deals in the future, Public Knowledge Senior Counsel John Bergmayer blogged Wednesday. Noting reports AT&T is hiking DirecTV Now pricing while dropping some affiliated channels and adding more AT&T-owned content to its channel bundle, PK said "something may need to be fixed in antitrust" when arguments "breezily dismissed" by defendants and ignored by the courts "nevertheless come true so quickly after the trial is over." It said there needs to be vertical deal guidelines that show courts how markets actually work and how vertical integration can play out, and there could be a legislative fix to the hurdle the government has to clear for proving a vertical challenge. AT&T emailed us that DirecTV "gave us the scale needed to acquire the mobile rights for content," which in turn let it launch the DirecTV Now streaming service in 2016 at lower prices than the direct broadcast satellite service. "Even with our new DirecTV Now packages, the prices are still significantly lower and there are more choices than ever for live TV service from DirecTV," it said. BTIG analyst Rich Greenfield wrote investors Wednesday that prices for new plans -- $50 a month for DirecTV Now Plus and $70 for DirecTV Max -- and the elimination of its $35 plan were expected, as were the channels to be included and excluded. Both plans include HBO, which AT&T picked up with the TW deal.

After the ink dried on Amazon's eero purchase, eero CEO Nick Weaver pushed the companies' attention to product integration and “customer trust." In a Tuesday blog post, Weaver said Amazon’s financial muscle will allow it to improve products via more frequent software updates, launch new products and services, and expand globally. The companies have begun building customer experiences together such as Amazon’s WiFi Simple Setup, he said. Soon, when customers who own both an eero system and an Echo smart speaker set up connected devices bought on Amazon, the devices will look automatically for the eero network and use encrypted credentials to connect, he said: “Gone will be the days of manually setting up each smart product we bring into our homes.” Convenience doesn’t matter “if you don’t feel safe using our products and services,” said Weaver, “so we want to reaffirm our commitment to your privacy head-on.” Guiding principles shared with Amazon, he said, are: customers have a right to privacy, to know what data is being collected in “easy to understand terms” and have control over their data. Eero collects network diagnostic information only to improve the performance, stability, and reliability of its products and services and for customer support, he said. To mark the occasion, Amazon offered customers a $100 discount on eero home Wi-Fi systems through 11:59 PDT Tuesday.