Subscription VOD services Amazon Prime, Hulu and Netflix combined are expected to be spending $10 billion annually by 2022 on producing original content, The Diffusion Group said Tuesday. TDG said original content is "extremely important" to retaining subscribers, with 62 percent of Netflix subscribers considering originals critical or very important to their decision to keep Netflix. It said with studios pulling their most compelling content from the big three SVODs, a strong schedule of original content becomes increasingly necessary.

Comcast's declining 2017 pay-TV results show a top-notch user interface, like Xfinity, isn't sufficient to overcome the high cost of cable, nScreenMedia analyst Colin Dixon blogged Thursday. He said the results show consumers increasingly are putting incremental entertainment spending toward subscription VOD instead of cable, and that consumers value the cable bundle far less than programmers do. The cable operator didn't comment Friday. The company ended 2017 with 21.3 million residential video customers, down 185,000 year over year (see 1801240037).

Starz "moved swiftly" for FCC action in its blackout on Altice USA's Cablevision system, but it was the MVPD's misinformation campaign and avoidance of customer concerns that escalated the issue to the point where "seeking emergency relief became imperative," Starz said in an FCC docket 18-9 filing posted Friday. The programmer said it "is aware" of close to 60,000 consumer complaints, with its emergency petition aimed at "stop[ping] this confusion." The filing responded to Altice opposition (see 1801230054) to Starz seeking a petition for emergency injunctive relief. The content company argued the cable operator broke rules by giving customers minutes' notice before the Jan. 1 blackout and denied the emergency petition is aimed at getting regulator involvement in a commercial dispute. The programmer said Altice can opt to not carry Starz channels once the MVPD complies with agency requirements for advance notice to customers. The operator didn't comment.

TPG Capital's RCN/Grande closed on its buy of Wave Broadband, it said Thursday. The parties said Wave will continue to operate under the Wave brand and keep its Kirkland, Washington, headquarters. RCN/Grande CEO Jim Holanda said the addition helps create a national-scale cable ISP "with significant growth potential." RCN/Grande said the deal gives it a broader footprint in seven of the top 10 designated market areas and nearly 950,000 customers. The $2.37 billion deal was announced last year (see 1705220058).

Cable ISP Atlantic Broadband said it hopes to close by late July on purchase of FiberLight's south Florida fiber network. Atlantic said the deal would add 350 route miles to its existing south Florida footprint. Financial details weren't disclosed.

Starz has received more than 3,000 voicemails from subscribers unhappy about the Altice USA blackout, it said in an FCC docket 18-9 filing posted Wednesday. It also submitted more than 200 pages of what it said were compiled tweets and emails from affected Altice viewers upset about the contretemps. Starz separately in an ex parte filing recapped a meeting Chief Operating Officer Jeffrey Hirsch had with commissioners Jessica Rosenworcel and Mignon Clyburn at which it pushed for expedited FCC action on its emergency injunctive relief petition; it has made similar arguments with the Media Bureau (see 1801190042). Starz separately in an ex parte filing recapped a meeting Chief Operating Officer Jeffrey Hirsch had with Commissioners Jessica Rosenworcel and Mignon Clyburn during which it pushed for expedited FCC action on its emergency injunctive relief petition; it made similar arguments with the Media Bureau (see 1801190042). Altice, which didn't comment Wednesday, is fighting the injunctive relief request (see 1801230054).

Comcast's mobile service, Xfinity Mobile, ended 2017 with more than 380,000 subscribers signed up in its first seven months, 187,000 alone in Q4, executives said on an earnings call Wednesday. Comcast Cable CEO Dave Watson said the company is about to start packaging Xfinity Mobile with other offerings, such as broadband. NBCUniversal CEO Steve Burke said virtual MVPDs remain niche areas for NBCU: "We're talking about tenths of a percentage point." Burke said Google and Facebook dominate the growing digital ad sphere, but TV advertising "is roughly flat." He said Comcast's goal is more targetable TV ads, which accounts for the company's investments in BuzzFeed, Snap and Vox. Asked about deal prospects, company CEO Brian Roberts said there's "nothing we feel we have to acquire." Comcast said Q4 revenue rose 4.2 percent to $21.9 billion. It finished 2017 with 21.3 million residential video customers, down 185,000 year over year; 23.9 residential broadband customers, up 1 million; and 10.3 million residential voice customers, down 230,000.

U.K. Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) preliminary findings that Fox's proposed buy of Sky may be against the public interest regarding media plurality issues is disappointing, but the provisional findings move the deal to the next regulatory review step, Fox said in a statement Tuesday. Fox expects final regulatory OK by June 30 now that CMA is taking an eight-week extension, moving the deadline for its final decision to May 1. In a note to investors Tuesday, Wells Fargo analyst Marci Ryvicker said the findings don't close the door on the deal since CMA provided potential remedies. She said a spinoff or divestiture of Sky News is possible, as are behavioral remedies to insulate Sky from the Murdoch family trust. She said Disney's buying Fox would remove the roadblocks to the deal since it would weaken the Sky News/Murdoch family trust ties, but that timing becomes a problem since Disney/Fox is expected to happen after June 30. The CMA said Tuesday its inquiry group provisionally concluded that while Fox/Sky may not be in the public interest regarding media plurality, it's not against the public interest regarding broadcasting standards. It said the deal makes it more likely Sky News and News Corp.-owned newspapers "could take a similar approach on specific topics or issues, push certain stories, or downplay others" and that Murdoch family trust control over Sky News alongside those newspapers would give it oversized control over public opinion and political agendas.

With AT&T seeking third-party pricing information from DOJ as part of the agency's court fight to block AT&T's buy of Time Warner, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon of Washington on Monday ordered Justice to get consent from nine third parties to produce the pricing data for AT&T. The docket 17-2511 order (in Pacer) said the data was given to DOJ during prior deal investigations. The third parties are Altice, Comcast, Charter Communications, Cox Communications, Disney, Fox, Viacom, Discovery and Scripps; the last two companies also are combining. In a note Tuesday, Barclays analyst Kannan Venkateshwar said investor optimism about regulatory approval and smooth execution of the deal might be oversized, since New Disney's scale in sports could be subject to close scrutiny. The integration "is likely to be quite complicated" because of different company cultures and recent and expected Disney losses of some key management personnel, Venkateshwar said, adding the integration will be happening simultaneously with the launch of high-profile over-the-top products.

Multiple district courts have found that a section of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act contains a content-based speech restriction, so plaintiffs suing Charter -- as well as the DOJ as intervenor -- are wrong in trying to trying to justify those restrictions, the MVPD said in a docket 17-1361 reply (in Pacer) posted Monday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. The company said previous unsuccessful First Amendment challenges to TCPA didn't address content-based preferences Charter is challenging and aren't relevant. Charter also rejected Justice claims the company lacks standing to challenge the section of TCPA in question. Charter argued TCPA creates a content-based distinction between exempt calls for collection of private, government-guaranteed debts or government-owed debts like student loans and all other private calls, such as the telemarketing call to named plaintiff Steve Gallion. The department and counsel for Gallion didn't comment Tuesday.