Dish Network said it's the first major pay-TV provider to offer a Spanish-language customer service app. In a news release Thursday, it also said its DishLatino programming package is now offering a Spanish-language user interface for the Hopper DVR, Joey and Wally set-top boxes.

Connect America Fund Phase II bid weighting rules adopted in February (see 1702230019) "will effectively preclude" satellite operators from taking part in the reverse auction, which will hurt American consumers, Hughes Network Systems told the FCC. In an ex parte filing posted Wednesday in docket 10-90, the company recapped a meeting between Senior Vice President-Regulatory Affairs Jennifer Manner and an aide to Commissioner Mignon Clyburn at which the company said satellite is too heavily handicapped by the weights given to latency and baseline 25/3 Mbps service.

Satellite operator revenue dropped by close to 3 percent in 2016 largely on data market pricing, while some operators dug into their cash on hand for acquisitions or paying down debt, Northern Sky Research said in a news release Tuesday. "Operators are making big, potentially risky plays," including SES taking full ownership of O3b and RR Media, OneWeb combining with Intelsat, Telesat's move toward low earth orbit high-throughput satellites and the proposed geostationary high-throughput satellite constellation spearheaded by APT Satellite, it said. The researcher said 2016 saw satellite operators try to compete better in international data and mobility markets through big discounts on bulk contracts.

21st Century Fox's buy of Sky will cause only a limited increase in Sky's power in the TV content market, so the deal is getting European Commission regulatory approval without conditions, the EC said in a news release Friday. It said the two largely operate in different European markets and compete only in acquiring TV content and in the wholesale supply of basic pay-TV channels. The EC said its review decided Fox/Sky audience share would be too limited for Fox to be able to restrict Sky's competitors' access to video content, and Sky's unlikely to quit buying content from Fox competitors because of the quality of Sky's product. Having received EC approval, Fox said in a statement Friday, it's "confident that the proposed transaction will be approved following a thorough review process" by the U.K.

Hearst Television said a blackout of its stations on Dish Network may not end soon, among answers to FAQs it released Monday to viewers on its stations' websites. Dish saying the retransmission consent spat may end shortly is false, Hearst said. "Unfortunately, we can’t predict how long this impasse will last. In the past several years, DISH has had numerous outages that have lasted for months." Hearst said it "won't point fingers" after Dish said the TV-station owner is at fault, but "have you ever asked yourself why DISH seems to experience more blackouts and outages than other pay-TV distributors?" A Dish spokesman referred us to the company's previous letter to Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif. (see 1703200043) that said the interruption could end now if Hearst took the company's offer to take the same deal as DirecTV. Separately, AT&T's DirecTV ended a carriage dispute with Raycom (see 1703270017).

Alaska Airlines is moving to satellite broadband for its cabins, with plans to begin retrofitting all its Boeings starting in fall 2018, with Airbus retrofits to follow, it said in a blog post Wednesday. It said both fleets will be satellite equipped by the end of 2019. The airline -- which bought Virgin America last year -- is retiring that brand in 2019.

The satellite industry's years of big growth of direct-to-home (DTH) and video distribution are over, but linear TV "will remain the bread and butter" of the fixed satellite service industry for years, said Northern Sky Research analyst Alan Crisp in a blog post Wednesday. NSR said major markets such as the U.S., India and parts of Western Europe are either saturated or stagnating, but growth opportunities remain for enhanced content quality and ethnic programming, and developing regions will see growth for some time of DTH and video distribution. The firm said the number of leased Ku-band DTH channels in developing markets will grow by roughly 50 percent, to more than 12,000 by 2026, while over-the-top video and the general maturity of the North America/Western European markets mean channel growth in the time frame there will be a more modest 10 percent, to roughly 4,100 channels.

Higher Ground (HG) doesn't understand possible interference issues arising from its planned satellite earth station network for various broadband applications, with its "deficiencies in the relevant physics and engineering" putting fixed services (FS) at risk, said the Fixed Wireless Communications Coalition in an FCC International Bureau filing Tuesday. FWCC said HG's promise to comply with out-of-band emissions limits -- in response to concerns raised about adjacent channel interference -- is "troubling" since those are different problems. The coalition said HG assertions that low signal strength and small likelihood of proximity to an FS station means low risk of adjacent channel interference have no analysis to back them up. It said HG shows deficient technical understanding when it tries to argue there won't be interference from unwanted reflections in the environment. The filing responded to an HG ex parte filing earlier this month on meetings between CEO Rob Reis and International, Wireless, Public Safety and Homeland Security bureau and Office of Engineering & Technology representatives about FCC authorization of its earth stations and the subsequent opposition (see 1702100055). The firm argued the earth station transmit power levels will be a hundredth of point-to-point microwave stations' and that its software will let an earth station transmit only if its emissions are at least 6 dB below thermal noise at an FS receiver in line of sight. The Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association in filings Monday (see here, here and here) said it opposed HG's use of 5925-6425 MHz band, which it said could interfere with 6 GHz microwave paths. HG outside counsel Adam Krinsky of Wilkinson Barker -- echoing language in HG's consolidated opposition to the applications for review filed by FWCC, Enterprise Wireless Alliance, Utilities Technology Council and APCO -- emailed us Tuesday that the FCC, after more than 18 months of dialogue with the company and numerous demonstrations, concluded its interference protection regime "provides necessary safeguards against harmful interference and granted Higher Ground’s application. The applications for review are based on ‘what if’ speculation, they don’t provide any technical analysis or support, and they disregard the Order’s finding.” FWCC in a reply Tuesday said the only proof HG's system will prevent interference comes from the firm's statements. With no one ever before having done unilateral coordination of mobile transmitters among fixed receivers, "the stakes here warrant the Commission asking for more in the way of assurance than a further repetition of HG's own claims," FWCC said.

The disruption of carriage of numerous Hearst stations on Dish Network points to a need to reform retransmission consent rules, with out-of-date laws driving "high fees and unnecessary blackouts," said Dish Executive Vice President-Programming Warren Schlichting in a letter Monday to Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif. Dish's letter said Hearst demanded double the rates in its expired retrans agreement and turned down Dish's ask for a short-term contract extension with a retroactive "true-up" clause. Dish also suggested two possible solutions to the blackout that started earlier this month (see 1703030011): letting it import out-of-market signals from other network affiliates, or baseball-style arbitration making whatever new rates are decided by the arbitrator retroactive to whenever the channels are restored. Schlichting responded to a letter from Eshoo in which she said she will "continue to advocate for much needed changes in the law to stop harmful blackouts," and pushed both sides to resolve the contretemps. Eshoo didn't comment. The TV-station owner last week said it was starting a broadcast ad campaign in several markets about the blackout, and it started a "countdown clock" on its station websites tracking the duration of the carriage disruption.

Dish Network likely will "employ any scheme" it can to put off meaningful negotiations with Hearst, the broadcaster said in a letter to customers posted Monday on the website of WBAL-TV Baltimore and other stations. Dish and Hearst blamed each other for the March blackout resulting from a retransmission consent renewal impasse (see 1703030011 and 1703090021). Hearst in its letter called Dish suggestions of the broadcaster's intransigence "untrue" and said it's the satellite company that hasn't budged on its "completely off-market terms in any meaningful way." Dish didn't comment Tuesday.