A one-stop-shop HEVC Portfolio License covering essential High-Efficiency Video Coding patents owned by 23 companies and entities is now available from MPEG LA, the consortium said Monday. “The market is ready for an HEVC License,” MPEG LA CEO Larry Horn said in a statement (http://bit.ly/1vq4gH8). MPEG LA’s objective “is to provide worldwide access to as much HEVC essential intellectual property as possible,” it said. “Therefore, MPEG LA welcomes any party that believes it has patents that are essential to the HEVC standard to submit them for an evaluation of their essentiality by MPEG LA’s patent experts and inclusion in the License if determined to be essential.” The license is royalty-free for a licensee that ships under 100,000 units HEVC-compliant products annually, said an MPEG LA license summary (http://bit.ly/YD51lm). A royalty of 20 cents per unit is assessed at volumes over 100,000, the summary said. The annual royalty cap is $25 million for “present coverage during the first License Term,” which runs through the end of 2020, it said. The license is renewable for successive five-year periods “for the life of any Portfolio patent on reasonable terms and conditions,” it said. Royalty rates or annual caps won’t increase by more than 20 percent at each five-year renewal, it said.

Peer-to-peer file sharing network BitTorrent launched its first “paygated” file, said a company news release Friday (http://bit.ly/1BhhGa4). The bundled file is musician Thom Yorke’s new album Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes, it said. “The torrent mechanism does not require any server uploading or hosting costs or ‘cloud’ malarkey,” said a separate release (http://bit.ly/Zghr3M). Paygated files “could be an effective way of handing some control of Internet commerce back to people who are creating the work,” it said. Yorke is frontman of Radiohead.

Broadcasters said the FCC shouldn’t require that multichannel video programming distributors file their retransmission consent agreements in the agency’s review of the AT&T/DirecTV and Comcast/Time Warner Cable purchase applications. Those materials should be reviewed in consultation with the Justice Department, said Cordillera Communications, Granite Broadcasting Corp. and others in an ex parte filing posted Friday in dockets 14-57 and 14-90 (http://bit.ly/1rqn61r). The FCC protective orders appear to protect against disclosure of highly confidential information only to attorneys involved in competitive decision making with respect to the MVPDs submitting the information, “not with those that are involved in competitive decision making to other parties to those MVPDs’ agreements,” they said. Some broadcasters recently asked the FCC to take similar action on Comcast/TWC (CD Sept 23 p7).

Ninety-four percent of 808 “unique” critically acclaimed or high-grossing films were available through at least one online VOD service in the U.S., said an NBCUniversal-commissioned report by KPMG released Thursday (http://bit.ly/1CnwiY5). The report analyzed the availability of 808 critically acclaimed and/or high box office grossing films, 60 independent films and 724 TV shows among 34 online VOD services, like Hulu and Netflix, it said. The data was compiled in December, it said. Eighty-one percent of the top films were available on at least 10 of the 34 VOD services, it said. Ninety-six percent of the 100 most popular TV shows in 2012 were available on at least one VOD service, it said. The growth of VOD services “reinforces and encourages the creativity and hard work of the men and women behind the scenes of the film and television industry,” MPAA CEO Chris Dodd said, in a separate news release Thursday (http://bit.ly/1ysEqbf).

Entone and ZTE are integrating their products for service operators to quickly start providing IPTV and over-the-top (OTT) services, they said Wednesday. Entone’s hybrid devices will work with ZTE’s IPTV platform to combine live TV, multiscreen applications, OTT, VOD and whole-home DVR, said a news release (http://bit.ly/1ruKyel). It said ZTE’s IPTV platform has almost 50 deployments serving 20 million subscribers total, while Entone makes devices enabled for MoCA (Multimedia over Coax Alliance).

The FCC needs to do more to “encourage diversity of media ownership,” said Chairman Tom Wheeler in a blog post (http://fcc.us/1uE4nhN) Monday. Describing a visit that day to Philadelphia, Wheeler said meeting information needs “requires not only universal access to Internet connectivity, but also having a diverse array of voices on all media platforms. One way to ensure diversity of content is to encourage diversity of media ownership.” Who owns traditional media facilities is less important because of the Internet, he said, but when there are “few minority-owned TV stations in the country, clearly we must do better.” Wheeler said he met with people using public access TV, AM and independent print outlets “to engage and inform minority audiences.” Wheeler also met with local library administrators, teachers and parents to talk about whether additional E-rate reforms are needed, the post said. The E-rate modernization order approved by the commission in July (CD July 14 p1) “will substantially increase funding available to support Wi-Fi connectivity in libraries and schools, will make the program more user-friendly for libraries, and will increase efficiencies to make E-Rate dollars go farther,” Wheeler said in the post.

Broadcast Music Inc. had $977 million revenue, an all-time BMI record, for the year ended June 30, it said in a news release Thursday (http://bit.ly/1yjB4qV). BMI distributed $840 million in royalties, also a record, in FY 2014 it said. “The largest category of the Company’s domestic revenue was delivered by the steady-growth sectors of cable and satellite distributed entertainment,” said BMI. “Licensing income from digital services, international sources and from businesses such as bars, hotels, fitness facilities and restaurants all posted significant gains.” BMI has sought reforms to the consent decree process -- currently under review by the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division (CD June 5 p9) -- in favor of direct negotiations between music publishers and broadcasters (CD June 10 p12).

The reasons for not requiring DBS and IPTV systems to comply with separable security requirements no longer apply in the current market, said TiVo General Counsel Matt Zinn in a meeting with staff from the FCC chairman’s office, Media Bureau and AT&T/DirecTV deal review team Sept. 11, according to an ex parte filing posted in docket 97-80 Wednesday (http://bit.ly/1o3WCOw). CableCARD rules should remain in place until there’s a successor solution, Zinn told FCC staff.

Dish Network and Scripps Networks renewed a deal that expands Dish subscriber access to the programmer’s entire content portfolio. It includes over-the-top multistream rights for live and VOD content, Dish said Tuesday in a news release (http://bit.ly/1qc8PQs). It also expands Dish’s distribution of authenticated live and VOD Scripps programming on Internet-connected devices, it said. “With this capability, the content will be available to an untapped segment of customers that is seeking a flexible, content-driven, Internet-accessible service.”

Clear Channel changed its name to iHeartMedia, said the owner of streaming radio service iHeartRadio in a news release Tuesday (http://bit.ly/1t861tA). It said Clear Channel Outdoor, owned by iHeartMedia, will retain its name. The new name “reflects both the success and the cultural impact of the iHeartRadio business formed three years ago and the evolution of the company’s major local radio station brands and franchises to include mobile, social and events,” it said. IHeartRadio has become “the dominant national consumer brand among the company’s assets” with “record-breaking digital growth,” said iHeartMedia. It said the new name took effect Tuesday, while its over-the-counter bulletin board new stock ticker symbol, which it didn’t identify, will be used starting Wednesday.