DirecTV and Dish Network raised legal points on permitted amendments and other aspects of the FCC's proposal to amend its regulatory fees schedule. The FCC may engage in permitted amendments "only if a change of law or a commission rulemaking proceeding changes the nature of commission services for which costs must be recovered," the direct broadcast satellite companies said in an ex parte filing posted Thursday in docket 14-92. "No such changes have occurred." The FCC has yet to demonstrate that any direct broadcast satellite category reflects the number of full-time-equivalent employees dedicated to DBS regulation, they said. The filing pertains to a meeting with staff from the Enforcement, Media and International bureaus, and the Office of the Managing Director.

CBS' over-the-top offerings are intended to serve viewers in broadband-only homes, CBS said in an ex parte filing pertaining to a meeting this week with CBS CEO Leslie Moonves, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and other commissioners. CBS is working with its affiliates to ensure that the OTT service, All Access, will give online viewers a broadcast-like service, it said. CBS' incentive to continue to produce, acquire and invest in the highest quality content demanded by consumers shouldn't be diminished or stifled by regulations, it said. Commissioners Mike O'Rielly, Ajit Pai and Jessica Rosenworcel also attended the meeting, it said.

Disney Movies Anywhere partnered with Vudu to give movie watchers more access to Disney, Marvel and Pixar movies. Users can unlock the digital copy from Disney DVDs and Blu-rays purchased at Walmart, Vudu said Monday in a blog post. Connecting Disney Movies Anywhere with Vudu accounts is free, it said.

More than 11,000 people attended the Content & Communications World and SATCON event at New York's Javits Convention Center last week, NAB said in a news release. Total attendee registration is based on pre-show and onsite registration, “and is subject to final reconciliation following the event,” NAB said. The previous organizer, JD Events, said last year’s attendance was 6,898, NAB said. There were 324 exhibiting companies, up from about 260 last year, it said. NAB acquired the event last year (see 1312240044)

The FCC requested more information from AT&T about its proposed takeover of DirecTV. The FCC wants data about AT&T’s current plans for fiber deployment, specifically the current number of households to which fiber is deployed, “and the breakdown by technology and geographic area of deployment,” the commission said Friday in a letter to Bob Quinn, senior vice president-federal regulatory. It requested a description of whether the AT&T fiber-to-the-premises investment model demonstrates that fiber deployment is now unprofitable, and asked for all documents concerning the company’s decision to limit its deployment of fiber to 2 million homes following the acquisition. “We are happy to respond to the questions posed by the FCC,” an AT&T spokesman said in a statement. “As we made clear earlier this week, we remain committed to our DirecTV merger-related build-out plans,” he said, referring to comments by AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson that it would pause fiber deployment efforts not knowing under what rules that investment would be governed.

Gracenote launched a connected music solution for the automotive market linking terrestrial radio to online music services in an effort to create a common platform for music sources within a car’s head unit. The technology will be available for 2017 model year cars, Gracenote said in a news release. The multiple choices for music content in a car -- including AM/FM, CDs, satellite radio, Internet radio, subscription music services and music stored on a smartphone -- have created a disparate audio experience in vehicles, Gracenote said. The company’s goal is to offer a consistent user interface across all sources for metadata presented on a vehicle’s display. Gracenote’s solution, Entourage Radio, adds an intelligent layer that “helps identify what songs are being played and the source,” said Gracenote Chief Strategy Officer Ty Roberts. Gracenote Entourage is the underlying technology that enables continuous audio fingerprinting of songs for real-time music recognition, the company said. Being able to identify the audio source in real time enables Gracenote to deliver the correct song, artist and album information, “driver-relevant” cover art and station logos to the automotive display, it said. After a song is recognized, listeners can direct the head unit to play songs that are similar in genre, mood and era, to play additional songs from the artist or add to an existing playlist within a streaming music service, it said. For carmakers, Entourage Radio solves the challenge of fragmentation of entertainment services by market, Gracenote said. Music streaming services have varying levels of popularity and availability by market, and Gracenote’s large catalog of song IDs for streaming services gives carmakers the ability to link drivers to regional music services, the company said. An option within the platform is to use Gracenote’s Rhythm music discovery platform to enable “automatic playlisting” within a local library, it said.

After months or more of saying it was "gearing up" for 4K content delivery (see 1312160069), DirecTV pulled the trigger Thursday when it said it will become the first multichannel video programming distributor to deliver 4K VOD to customer homes when it launches Ultra HD programming Friday. With additional satellite capacity, DirecTV also plans to launch "linear" 4K TV services in 2016, an executive said Thursday at the SatCon conference in New York (see 1411130033). Its initial offering will consist of "a variety of new releases, popular films and nature documentaries in 4K," the company said in its announcement. Samsung will be its exclusive CE 4K "launch partner," DirecTV said. In addition to owning a DirecTV-ready Samsung 4K TV, DirecTV subscribers will need an Internet-connected DirecTV Genie HD DVR (model HR34 and above), DirecTV said. For more than 20 years, DirecTV "has been changing the way people watch TV as the first to move the industry from analog to digital to HD and now the ultimate TV experience with 4K TV," said DirecTV Chief Technology Officer Romulo Pontual. "The picture quality and depth of detail that 4K provides is nothing short of remarkable and we will continue to expand our 4K lineup as consumer demand grows and evolves." DirecTV chose Samsung as its launch partner because it’s "the leading brand" in Ultra HD, DirecTV said. DirecTV spokeswoman Jade Ekstedt emailed us Thursday to say she was looking into our question whether the company will use any of the brands it has trademarked -- 4KN, 4KNET and 4K Network -- to trumpet the new VOD service with Samsung. As for how long the exclusivity with Samsung will last, she declined comment, saying: "We don't publicly disclose the terms of our agreements." Until Thursday, DirecTV had declined to discuss its specific ambitions in 4K, other than to promise it will be there in a big way as it was with HD. In May, in discussing his company’s proposed buy of DirecTV, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson hailed DirecTV as having "more HD channels than anybody, and a really clear and elegant path to Ultra HD" (see 1405200030). Some 20 movies in 4K from Paramount and K2 Communications will be available at launch, including Forrest Gump and Star Trek (2009), with more titles to be announced soon, DirecTV said Thursday.

Live Nation Entertainment and Vice launched a live music platform Thursday, the companies said in a joint news release. The platform will be distributed via mobile, TV and online, the release said. Vice will work on content and programming and both parties will focus on marketing and sales, it said.

Two library groups opposed extension of an e-reader accessibility waiver at the FCC requested by Amazon, Kobo and Sony that other industry stakeholders backed, according to comments and replies in docket 10-213. The Coalition of E-Reader Manufacturers, representing the three makers of the devices, had sought what it called an "ongoing extension." The Association of Research Libraries and American Library Association oppose the request. "While disabled persons already must routinely (and unacceptably) wait several years before various mainstream technologies become accessible, the proposed waiver extension would leave basic e-readers in a near-permanent state of inaccessibility," said the library groups in a filing last week. "The record contains ample evidence that basic e-readers are designed with, marketed, and used for advanced communications services [ACS]." CEA said an ongoing extension would serve the public interest by permitting the continued availability of the e-readers "while recognizing that accessible alternatives are available in the marketplace," according to its comments. There's no evidence that ACS is the primary purpose of the class of devices, said the association. The library groups disagreed, saying the products are designed for ACS, pointing to use of email and social media. The Internet Association backs the waiver extension request and the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau's Jan. 28 order saying uses like for social media aren't evidence of ACS. "Our thriving industry would benefit from the certainty that merely adding a browser does not mean that future smart, non-ACS devices will be limited by potentially product-altering, ACS accessibility regulations," said the association, which has members including Amazon, AOL, Facebook, Google, Twitter and Yahoo.

CEA President Gary Shapiro used a news conference Tuesday at the CES Unveiled New York conference to announce that CBS President Les Moonves will keynote the Brand Matters workshop at CES on Jan. 7 at 3 p.m. at the theater in the Westgate Hotel in Las Vegas. Shapiro hailed Moonves as "an innovator" who "does things differently," and is "leading his company to the next digital era." Two years ago, Shapiro blasted CBS for "practicing effective censorship over CNET’s editorial staff" when it ordered CNET to pull Dish Network’s Hopper with Sling DVR from consideration for its Best of CES awards (see 1301140063). CNET is an affiliate of CBS, which like ABC, Fox and NBC, has sued Dish in federal court seeking injunctions that would bar the AutoHop feature in ongoing litigation. When we asked Shapiro at the Tuesday news conference about the irony of inviting Moonves to keynote CES two years after blasting CBS for "denying CNET readers full access to information about an exciting innovation" in the Hopper with Sling DVR, he responded with a long answer about how he and CEA have long defended CES as "a very big tent." In retrospect, the dust-up with CBS over CNET was a "tiny issue," though CBS’s actions were "not pleasing to us" at the time, Shapiro said: "I have a personal philosophy that I never make these issues personal. I know that today we may disagree with someone, but tomorrow they’ll be our ally. That’s how we succeed in the business world." At CES, "people disagree with CEA’s position on any issue -- net neutrality, any other issue -- and we invite them to come onstage and present it," he said. "We treat them fairly and respectfully, and that’s indeed why we have over 100 associations supporting CES as our ‘allied associations,’ and their names are posted." CBS representatives didn’t comment.