Cable, DISH & Activists Press FCC on Ownership

A group of unlikely allies have filed with the FCC urging the agency to reform its retransmission regulations. In a letter addressed to the commission Monday, a coalition of pay-TV interests and consumer advocates claims stations unable to legally merge are circumventing the FCC's rules by "consolidating their core operations" to demand higher retransmission consent agreements.

Signed on to the complaint are Time Warner Cable, DISH Network, the American Cable Association, the Newspaper Guild and media reform group Free Press. The collective says current media ownership rules give TV stations too much leverage in retrans negotiations and force cable and satellite operators to pay disproportionate fees to carry local signals.

The letter says separately owned stations in the same market are coordinating negotiations of local advertising sales which unfairly reduces competition and permits them to charge higher fees. "It is a prevalent practice with at least 36 pairs of separately-owned Big 4 affiliated stations in 33 markets, actively engaging in coordinated negotiations," the group writes.

The complaint also suggests that station groups owned by NBCU, Fox, ABC and CBS consolidate newsrooms, merge facilities, layoff dozens of journalists and staff members creating a news product that's "essentially a re-run of stories produced by another station."

Comcast, the nation's largest cable company, is notably not part of the effort. Since merging with NBCU, the MSO is now one of the largest station group owners and has done a well-publicized about-face on its retransmission stance. •

'Modern Warfare' Kills Entertainment Sales

The third release of the video game series "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare" set a new record for the largest grossing entertainment product launch… ever. According to the game's publisher, Activision Blizzard, the military-style game sold more than 6.5M copies in the US and UK alone during its first 24 hours this weekend.

Based on figures gathered from Charttrack, an entertainment sales data firm, and additional customer sales figures, the 6.5M units sold translates into ~$400M in revenue. To put the number into perspective, the highest grossing movie so far in 2011 - "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2" - earned ~$80M in its first day from global box office sales. (A record for the film industry…)

Activision CEO Bob Kotick said the sales figures represents "the biggest entertainment launch of all time in any medium."

Etc.: NBA's "Nuclear Winter" - Google's Media Gobble - SCTE Elects New Board

Disputes: The NBA players union unanimously rejected the league's latest offer Monday and began the process of de-certification. The latest developments mean the entire 2011-2012 basketball season is in serious jeopardy. Calling the owners' latest offer "extremely unfair," union representatives announced they are prepared to file an antitrust lawsuit against the league and that the players "understand the consequences of potentially missing the season." The move is seen as a risky one as the league has already filed a pre-emptive lawsuit seeking to prove the  lockout is legal and that without the union, players' guaranteed contracts could be voided. League commissioner David Stern said taking the dispute into court represents "the nuclear winter of the NBA." --- Consumer rights group the Sports Fans Coalition, joined by the National Consumers League, Public Knowledge, Media Access Project and the League of Fans are petitioning the FCC to abandon its rule that says professional sports leagues can black-out local games if they don't sell out. Coalition executive director Brian Frederick said the rule is "outdated and unnecessary" and if leagues want to fill stadiums than they should charge less for admission. "The public supports the construction of stadiums with tax money… (leagues) should return the favor," he said. NFL spokesman Dan Masonson responded by saying the blackout policy "strikes a balance between encouraging fans to attend games and allowing the games to be broadcast on free TV."

Online: A handful of recent announcements from Google highlight the company's evolution from search giant to media monster… YouTube launched its first TV channel from Clevver Media, a Spanish-language entertainment news channel called ClevverTeVe. (Expect nearly 100 more channels soon…) Count Hearst Magazines among those working on original content for the site producing two channels - one automotive, one fashion. Reports say el Google is 1) redesigning YouTube to integrate with Google+ and 2) launching a music service. "Everybody in the content business is looking at Google and wondering what they want to own, what they want to feed and what they want to disrupt,” says Gartner Research analyst Whit Andrews.

$$$: Fortune Term Sheet's Dan Primack interviewed Carlyle's Jim Attwood (who runs the telecom & media practice) at the Yale SOM Private Equity Conference the other day ... Here's part of Dan's report: When asked if he was disappointed in Carlyle’s recent agreement to sell Insight to Time Warner based on press reports that Carlyle had been seeking between $3.5B to $4B, Attwood replied that "TW was the natural buyer, and that the pricing reports had been incorrect. Rather than $3.5B-$4B, Carlyle had been seeking between $3B and $3.5B. Still a bit low, but not quite as low." --- Shaking up the tech stock world, Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett disclosed that his company dropped $10.7B to buy 64M IBM shares totaling a 5.5% stake in the tech giant.

Strategy: Logitech is pulling the plug on GoogleTV as CEO Guerrino De Luca said the company's Revue STB for GoogleTV was a "big mistake" that lead to a loss of more than $100M in operating profit. Reports quoted the exec saying, "The integration of television and the internet is inevitable, but the idea that it would happen overnight in Christmas 2010 was very misguided…” --- Movie studios don't like Netflix. They don't like rentals, in general. The latest strategy to increase home entertainment revenues is a bet on Flixster, the Time Warner-owned social network designed to get movie buffs to buy movies outright as opposed to renting them for the night. NYT has the story.

Research: McKinsey & Co. says the internet is an $8 trillion global economy which accounted for 21% of GDP growth in the world's largest economies during the last 5 years. The firm says as an entity, the internet accounts for more GDP than Spain and Canada and it's growing faster than Brazil. Read the report. --- Visiongain says strategic smartphone monetization and the growth of LTE networks will revitalize the global MVNO market to an estimated value of $40.5B by 2016. --- comScore says AT&T lead the U.S. business ISP market with 20% of all internet traffic in September, followed by Verizon (12%) and CenturyLink (7%). --- For the retailers out there, a World Vision study says 7 in 10 Americans will spend less on holiday shopping this year due to the current economic climate.

Dist.: Verizon is adding Spanish-language movie channel Cine Nostalgia to its channel lineup across all FiOS TV markets by the end of the week (and its sister channel Cine Estelar in the beginning of 2012). --- Time Warner Cable signed a distribution agreement with Rai Italia to carry the Italian broadcaster in the Carolinas in addition to north-east markets in NY, Buffalo and New England.

Tech: Originally launched as a consumer product for personal computers, SyncTV attempts to support devices and displays from all sorts of sources (Samsung, LG, Vizio, Roku, Boxee, Microsoft and Apple). Now the tech is being distributed to other media companies as a white-label platform offering a solution to link Netflix-style OTT services with any screen you can find. Read more at InformiTV. --- ARRIS launched its new AdManager platform for cable providers to reach targeted audiences on IP connected devices such as tablets, game consoles, smart phones and connected TVs.

SkyREPORT: DIRECTV inked a contract with Arianespace to launch a new satellite in 2014 providing services for DIRECTV Latin America.

Up, Down & Over There: SES said more than 1.5M German HHs now receive the operator's HD+ platform with 250K paying subs at the end of Sept. --- Deutsche Telekom signed up 50K subscriptions to its Entertain Satellite package during the first month of service and said it might bid for all Bundesliga (premiere soccer league) rights. The company said it also has ~1.4M DSL homes subscribing to its Entertain IPTV service. --- Moviecity and Fox Latin American Channels signed a multi-year licensing agreement with Starz Media Worldwide for programming distribution in Brazil and other Latin American countries.

Folks: The SCTE elected new officers to its board including -- Chairman: Mike LaJoie, EVP & CTO of Time Warner Cable; Vice-Chair: Terry Cordova, SVP & CTO, Suddenlink; Secretary: Alan Tschirner, VP of Technology, NCTC; and Treasurer: Steve Taber, VP of Engineering & Ops, Comcast. In addition, the other 10 members of the 2011-12 SCTE board are: Dick Amell (Bright House), Tony Faccia (Rogers), Dr. Richard Green (formerly CableLabs), Tommy Hill (Mediacom), Roger Hughes (Armstrong Cable), Joe Jensen (Buckeye CableSystem), Bob Legg (Suddenlink), Patrick O’Hare (Comcast), Leslie Read, (Read Broadband) and Rick Sullivan (Times Fiber). The organization also said former SCTE Chair Bob Foote (TriNet Communications) will remain on the board's executive committee.

--- Catch today's media market news in The Evening BRIDGE. •