Disney's increasing its estimate for Hulu losses this year to $250 million could indicate expectations of the virtual MVPD service gaining a million incremental subscribers, which would help Disney subscriber trends but potentially hurt legacy MVPDs, Barclays analyst Kannan Venkateshwar wrote investors Wednesday. Disney has begun the process of seeking regulatory OK for its Fox purchase in numerous jurisdictions worldwide, Disney CEO Bob Iger said on the company's quarterly earnings call Tuesday. Iger said the deal gives it "significant production capabilities and ... the talent to produce on our behalf." He said those production capabilities would be used in Disney's movie and TV businesses and in creating content for its direct-to-consumer offerings. He said an ESPN direct-to-consumer service will launch this spring in conjunction with a "reconceived and redesigned" ESPN app that will allow livestreaming of all ESPN networks and the ESPN+ subscription service. He said the ESPN+ streaming service will be $4.99 monthly, with the Disney direct to consumer service targeted for late 2019. He said the media company is seeing a trend of cord-nevers "coming into ... the multichannel world," attracted by the lower prices and skinnier bundles of digital platforms.

Any FCC order making Altice USA reinstate Starz would be confusing to consumers and hurt the MVPD and the programmers it added as replacements, Altice said in a docket 18-9 opposition posted Tuesday. Calling Starz's petition for declaratory ruling and enforcement order an attempt at using the regulatory process to get carriage, Altice said the petition uses "a fundamentally flawed argument" that the operator should have given customers notice on Dec. 1 it planned to drop the programmer when Altice didn't intend to do so and continued to work on a deal through Dec. 31, when the existing carriage agreement expired. It's common in the industry for deals to be struck on the eve of expiration, and "no rational cable operator" would conclude on Dec. 1 that Altice's Starz agreement wouldn't be renewed, it said. It said Starz never offered a 30-day extension that would have let Altice give prior notice. The MVPD said the programmer lacks standing to invoke customer service rules and the petition ignores that Altice notified subscribers as soon as possible about service changes after it lost the right to carry the programs. Starz -- which didn't comment Tuesday -- argued the FCC should order Altice to reinstate it on the same terms as before the Jan. 1 blackout, pending final determination of its complaint (see 1801190042).

The FCC Media Bureau turned down a request to stop Suddenlink from identifying the Charleston, West Virginia, Municipal Business and Occupation Tax as a line item on subscriber bills. In a letter Tuesday to City Treasurer Vic Grigoraci, who brought the request as a private citizen, the bureau said since Charleston isn't involved in rate regulation, Charleston arguments about the treatment of taxes as external costs for purpose of rate regulation aren't germane. It said the complaint didn't identify any FCC rule or statutory provision preventing Suddenlink from identifying the tax as a line item. Grigoraci said the decision, while disappointing, wasn't a surprise since he was told during the 2017 oral hearing that the cable industry has wide latitude on its billing format and informational content.

Vodafone likely has its eyes on Liberty Global's German, Czech, Hungarian and Romanian assets, plus Liberty's 50 percent of their Netherlands joint venture, but not U.K. and Ireland, Citi analyst Simon Weeden wrote investors Monday. He said the deals likely will get regulatory approval, though conditions for Germany might be particularly strong since Vodafone is the largest cable operator there. Vodafone said Friday it's in early talks with Liberty Global about buying some European assets of Liberty Global, though not in merger talks.

The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' affirming summary judgment on Cox Communications ineligible for Digital Millennium Copyright Act safe harbor protection (see 1802010026) came as the record was clear Cox took every effort to not reasonably implement its own repeat infringer policy, Stanford Law Center for Internet and Society affiliate scholar Annemarie Bridy blogged Sunday: The 4th Circuit makes clear Cox's failure was in implementation, not design, of the 13-point copyright warning system. The decision "lays to rest" any notion DMCA means adjudicated repeat infringers when it refers to repeats, Bridy said. Some amici worried the 4th Circuit would end up limiting ISP latitude in designing repeat infringer policies, but it didn't criticize the design of Cox's "relatively forgiving system," she said.

Some Charter Communications new product rollouts backburnered in 2016 and 2017 by the Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks integration will happen this year, CEO Tom Rutledge said during a Q4 earnings call Friday. They include broader distribution of its WorldBox set-top, of which 2 million have been deployed, and adding volumes of HD titles to its VOD service, he said. By year's end, its cloud-based Spectrum Guide will be available to almost all new customers, and 1 GB speeds using DOCSIS 3.1 will be available to almost the entire Charter footprint, he said. Rutledge said 30 percent of the legacy TWC and 60 percent of the legacy BHN footprints remain analog but will be digital by year's end. Rutledge said most of the integration is complete. Regarding the mobile service the cable provider plans to launch mid year using the Verizon mobile virtual network operator platform, Rutledge said there's no decision on pricing. He said Charter has been experimenting with licensed and unlicensed spectrum that potentially could become "licensable" alongside Wi-Fi. He said the company may want to bundle licensed spectrum with Wi-Fi spectrum for a broad mobile and in-home platform, though that's not a goal for this year. The ISP said 2017 revenue was $41.6 billion, up 3.9 percent pro forma. It ended 2017 with 16.5 million residential video customers, down 292,000 from a year earlier; 22.5 million residential Internet customers, up nearly 1.2 million; and 10.4 million residential voice customers, up 100,000. Charter stock closed up 4.4 percent Friday at $387.50. Citing federal tax changes and the FCC Communications Act Title II net neutrality rule rollback, Charter blogged it's setting its minimum wage at $15 an hour over the next year. It said most Charter workers are call center representatives, field technicians and Spectrum store workers. The company didn't say how many workers currently make less than $15 an hour. It said the tax changes and rollback also reinforce its plans for a $25 billion broadband network buildout by 2020.

The FCC Media Bureau established "permit-but-disclose" ex parte procedures for Starz's complaint against Altice USA, said a docket 18-9 public notice Wednesday. Starz alleges the Jan. 1 blackout of its channels on Altice's Cablevision violated rules requiring 30-day notice to subscribers (see 1801160058).

Time Warner added 5 million U.S. HBO and Cinemax subscribers in 2017, its largest annual increase, said its Q4 earnings announcement Thursday. It said HBO in November started 11 over-the-top services in Central Europe. It said revenue overall rose 9 percent to $8.6 billion and it recognized $279 million of costs for the year related AT&T's planned takeover. For 2018, TW expects Turner full-year subscription revenue to be up a mid-single-digit percentage compared to 2017, and programming costs to moderate compared with 2017. It expects Home Box Office -- which includes HBO and Cinemax -- subscription revenue to be up at a similar rate as 2017, though content and other revenue to be down significantly due to the mix of home video releases and the comparison to international licensing deals done in 2017. AT&T hopes to prevail in court so it can buy TW, AT&T's CEO said on its Q4 call Wednesday (see 1801310074).

Charter Communications should end its advertising claims about direct broadcast satellite signal vulnerability to rain, the National Advertising Division said Monday. NAD said DirecTV challenged the ads. NAD said Charter is appealing to the National Advertising Review Board one of its determinations that the company should discontinue a particular version of one of its rain commercials.

Game Show Network's appeal of the FCC's 2017 order that there was no evidence Cablevision discriminated when it retired GSN in 2011 (see 1709140012) was dismissed, said a U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit docket 17-1203 order (in Pacer) last week. GSN and the agency stipulated to a voluntary dismissal (in Pacer) Jan. 12.