Lauren Frayer

Tom Wheeler came to the Federal Communications Commission in 2013 with a resume featuring stints as the top lobbyist in Washington for both the cable and wireless industries. Consumer advocates weren’t amused. Now, almost two years later, FCC Chairman Wheeler is confounding his former allies and winning praise from public interest groups. He recently pushed for strong net-neutrality rules, and scrutiny by FCC staff helped push Comcast to abandon its yearlong effort to buy Time Warner Cable. “It’s like Nixon going to China,” said Gene Kimmelman, president of the Washington-based policy group Public Knowledge, which opposes the Comcast merger. “He’s used his industry background not to favor his old friends in industry but to take that knowledge and apply it towards strong public interest protections.”

With the cable industry facing its stiffest challenge yet from Internet-based video providers such as Netflix, a central issue for the agency is how to promote innovation as well as protect competition, according to a person familiar with the Comcast case. The FCC’s net neutrality decision and its resistance to the Comcast deal both recognize that the FCC needs to keep up with a world that is changing rapidly. “This is exactly why I thought he was good for the job,” said Andrew Schwartzman, senior counselor at the Georgetown University Law Center’s Institute for Public Representation in Washington. “He’s been around the block, he’s made his money” and he knows the issues, he said.

Apparently, Charter Communications is interested in buying up Time Warner Cable after regulators moved to block Comcast from acquiring the nation's second-largest cable company. Comcast abandoned its pursuit of Time Warner Cable amid federal officials' concerns that the combined company would have too much power over the nascent online streaming video industry. Charter had pursued a takeover of Time Warner Cable in 2013.

It first offered to buy the company for nearly $130 a share. Time Warner officials rebuffed the figure, leading Charter to increase its bid to $132 a share. Then Comcast swooped in with a bid of $158 per share, leading to a merger announcement in February 2014. Nineteen months later, however, the deal fell apart. As recently as February, Charter chief executive Tom Rutledge said he would still be interested in buying Time Warner Cable if it came up again.

Dodgers fans should brace for a second full season without the home team on television throughout Southern California. That was the word from sports business analysts, as the proposed merger between Comcast and Time Warner Cable teetered near collapse. “That creates uncertainty for a while,” said Ed Desser, president of Desser Sports Media. “Uncertainty is not helpful in terms of resolving this.”

Dodgers games currently are televised on SportsNet LA, a team-owned channel distributed by TWC and unavailable in most homes in the Los Angeles market. For now, without the possibility that Comcast could write down the costly TWC deal with the Dodgers, TWC has to decide whether to cut its losses -- more than $100 million per year -- by lowering the price for DirecTV and other television outlets to carry SportsNet LA. “Unless Time Warner does what it should have done when it found out it was overpriced -- bite the bullet and write off a big chunk of what it paid the Dodgers -- it is unlikely Dodgers fans will have carriage this year,” said Marc Ganis, president of the consulting firm Sportscorp Ltd.

The demise of the Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger doesn’t mark an end to the consolidation of the cable and Internet-provider market -- analysts are saying it’s likely the beginning of what will be a new rush of mergers that will make an already consolidated market more so and likely cause prices to rise. While the mega-merger failed, cable companies have indicated a series of smaller mergers are likely shrinking what is already a consolidated industry.

Charter Communications, which was close to acquiring Time Warner Cable before Comcast stepped in with a better deal, has said it would go after Time Warner Cable again. Consumer groups say future mergers will give customers even fewer choices of Internet providers in a market that already offers scant options. Even with four large cable companies -- Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Charter and Cox -- and four large telecommunications providers -- AT&T, Verizon, CenturyLink and Frontier Communications -- Americans still have few choices because the providers avoid competing with each other.

[Commentary] Comcast CEO Brian Roberts made the rumors official: Comcast is dropping its bid to buy Time Warner Cable. Certain regulators and politicians will claim victory. But that’s because they don’t understand the industry they are supposed to manage. In fact, despite the obvious egg on the face, Comcast executives either already know or will soon realize that losing this deal this soon is one of the better things to happen in a long time. Because Comcast needs to direct its attention elsewhere immediately -- or miss the biggest shift in pay TV history since the advent of cable itself. Once it became clear that regulators were going to treat this deal like we were still living in 1985, Comcast executives were smart to realize that wasting a year trying to accommodate regulators’ concerns is a colossal waste of time when there are other, more pressing issues to confront.

Remember that when the deal was announced, HBO still wasn’t going direct, Sling TV didn’t exist, and Verizon hadn’t announced a national, over-the-top pay TV offering. Times have changed and in many regards, that’s the competitive field that Comcast needs to set its sights on, not the mucky and overregulated business of putting cables in the ground and obsolete set-top boxes in people’s homes. Yes, Comcast could have consummated this deal and used those extra revenues to help finance exactly that kind of over-the-top solution. But it would lose at least a year in doing so, a year during which everyone from Apple to Verizon, Netflix to Amazon, Sony to Sling TV, will have shifted the entire pay TV landscape, making Comcast a profitable provider of bits to those services.

[James McQuivey is vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research]

[Commentary] The more ways in which people can engage with TV content, the more time and attention they pay to it. Networks have kept pace with technological changes, extending programming across digital formats to let viewers watch wherever, however and whenever they want. And, increasingly, they're choosing to do that on smartphones and tablets. All the stats on time-shifting and streaming point to a significant consumption surge. Throughout the advertising community, though, people are mistaking the device athleticism and increased streaming for a revolution. Even the lead story in AdAge, "Welcome to the Video Revolution," made this leap. While the piece sets forth overall numbers showing the primacy of TV attention -- 149 hours a month across five screens (TV, desktop, laptop, tablet, smartphone) -- and mentions that TV "may be growing [its] viewership on desktop computers and mobile devices," it still calls a six-hour monthly decline in conventional TV viewing evidence of a revolution. That's confusing the device for the content.

What's actually happening is an evolution: TV viewers are pursuing their favorite content on the best available device. In doing so, viewers extend TV's reach across today's full range of video-viewing devices and conduits. So advertising needs to change its definition of TV. Consider it professionally produced video content that's available across five screens. Appreciate that it takes lots of money and talent to create and bring to market, which is why TV networks invest nearly 50 percent of their revenues back into original programming. And recognize that streaming is a valuable contributor to TV audience and brands. The phenomenon of binging has been accurately linked to record-setting premieres for programs and sports events alike.

[Sean Cunningham is CEO of the Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau]

[Commentary] The Federal Communications Commission’s Media Bureau suspended the September 1, 2015 digital transition date for low power TV (LPTV) and TV translator stations. The FCC’s Second Report and Order had established the September 1 deadline for LPTV, TV translator, and Class A TV stations to terminate analog operations and transition to digital. However, in its Third Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, the FCC recognized that the upcoming spectrum auction and repacking process would likely displace a substantial number of LPTV and TV translator stations, and that 795 LPTV and 779 TV translator stations had not yet completed their digital conversion.

Seeking to avoid requiring those stations to incur the costs of the digital transition prior to completion of the auction and repacking, the FCC proposed suspending the transition deadline. In a new Public Notice, the FCC concluded that suspending the digital transition deadline would be appropriate to permit analog LPTV and TV translators to postpone construction of digital facilities that could be impacted by the spectrum auction and repacking. The FCC’s decision, however, does not affect Class A TV stations, which are still required to complete the digital transition by the September 1 deadline.

US wireless carriers along with Dish Network sit on wireless spectrum worth around $368 billion collectively, according to a report from a financial analyst at Goldman Sachs. According to an Investor's Business Daily report on Feldman's research note, AT&T now holds spectrum licenses worth more than $91 billion. Verizon's spectrum is now valued at $79.4 billion. Goldman Sachs values Dish's spectrum at around $50 billion. The report did not indicate Goldman's valuations of Sprint and T-Mobile's spectrum, but based on a chart from Goldman Sachs, it appears Sprint's spectrum is valued at close to $70 billion and T-Mobile's spectrum is valued at around $56 billion.

Los Angeles city prosecutors will use a highly valued social media app to post about their efforts to combat polluters, school violence and illegal medical dispensaries and to field grievances. But it's not Snapchat or Facebook that they'll be using. Instead, City Atty. Mike Feuer announced that his crew of 22 neighborhood prosecutors would become regulars on Nextdoor, a social networking app that in March announced that it had raised $110 million in funding. The transaction valued the 5-year-old San Francisco start-up at $1.1 billion, according to a source familiar with the matter, putting it in a select class of young companies.

Nextdoor serves as a private online discussion forum for people living in a community-defined neighborhood. There are more than 860 of them in Los Angeles. Addresses of users are verified through snail mail, Social Security records or other means. People post about crime, garage sales or cool new shops while 770 government agencies in 575 cities also send alerts or seek feedback on the platform. The Los Angeles city attorney's office is the first prosecutorial department to adopt it.

Hillary Clinton has had a, well, mixed record when it comes to support from Hollywood. In 2008, many in the entertainment industry threw their support behind Barack Obama over Clinton, and today, a number are/were hoping Sen Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) would consider a run -- something she said she will not do. Enter Martin O'Malley, the former Democratic governor of Maryland, who was in Los Angeles meeting with supporters and appears increasingly as though he will run. O'Malley attended a meet-and-greet hosted by Sony Pictures executive Eric Paquette and Youth Policy Institute executive director Dixon Slingerland, who raised almost $1 million for President Obama's campaigns in 2008 and 2012. O'Malley is looking to campaign to Clinton's left, criticizing her for her stances on same-sex marriage, immigration and, more recently, trade.

It's something that could appeal to the actors, musicians and directors who were hoping -- but won't be getting -- a Warren candidacy, as well as other liberals in Hollywood who haven't been satisfied with Clinton. Winning Hollywood support can be helpful for any Democrat who wants to run for president. Not only does it build their progressive credibility, but it's a huge source for campaign contributions (Obama raised $10 million in one night from a fundraiser held at George Clooney's home). And for O'Malley, a potential candidate in search of a shot in the arm, it could signify his potency as the non-Clinton candidate in the Democratic field. If, that is, he can get support.