Viacom has blocked website content for Cable ONE customers in an escalating dispute with the cable company over the cost of the programmer’s cable networks.

Cable ONE dropped 15 Viacom channels from its cable systems nationwide April 1 claiming Viacom’s contract renewal price was unreasonable. Subscribers found a way around the dispute by accessing Viacom streamed content online. This week, Viacom closed that loophole and blocked access to all streaming content for Cable ONE subscribers.

“Cable One has chosen to no longer carry Viacom programming and, as a result, it is no longer available to Cable One customers in any form,” Viacom said in a terse statement.

All 730,000 Cable ONE customers in 19 states found the Viacom networks replaced on the cable lineup with alternative programming from BBC America, Sprout, The Blaze, Hallmark Channel, National Geographic, Investigation Discovery, TV One and SundanceTV.

Cable ONE is used to playing hardball with programmers and dropped Time Warner-owned Turner Network programming from its systems for three weeks last fall over a similar dispute, now resolved.

There is no word about the current status of negotiations between Viacom and Cable ONE.

LUS Fiber is Lafayette, La., municipal broadband provider.

During remarks at the National Cable Show in Los Angeles, FCC chairman Thomas Wheeler promised he would stimulate more broadband competition by overriding state laws that presently restrict or ban municipal broadband networks.

“One place where it may be possible is municipally owned or authorized broadband systems. I understand that the experience with community broadband is mixed, that there have been both successes and failures. But if municipal governments—the same ones that granted cable franchises—want to pursue it, they shouldn’t be inhibited by state laws. I have said before, that I believe the FCC has the power – and I intend to exercise that power – to preempt state laws that ban competition from community broadband.”

After making the remarks, a debate has emerged over the exact definition of “preempt.” With at least 20 states limiting or banning community-owned broadband networks, the FCC would have to overturn or invalidate the state laws to render them moot.

At least one judge — Laurence Silberman — believes the FCC has the authority to take “measures that promote competition in the local telecommunications market or other regulating methods that remove barriers to infrastructure investment.” In a footnote, Silberman wrote that “[a]n example of a paradigmatic barrier to infrastructure investment would be state laws that prohibit municipalities from creating their own broadband infrastructure to compete against private companies.”

A FCC spokesperson, in response to inquiries about Wheeler’s remarks, was less conclusive.

“It’s too early to say how [Wheeler] will address existing state laws,” said the spokesperson.

That leaves open the question about whether the FCC intends to cancel existing state laws or simply prohibit new ones from being enacted. That distinction could make a tremendous difference in states like North Carolina, where a fierce battle over protecting municipal broadband was lost when Republicans took control of the state government. Telecom lobbyists, often working under the auspices of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) have either directly banned municipal broadband networks from getting off the ground or placed so many restrictions on service to make projects untenable.

The Consumerist points out in Pennsylvania, municipal broadband is only allowed in communities if a telephone company does not provide any type of broadband to anyone in their service area. In Nevada, only towns with fewer than 25,000 people or counties with 50,000 can host community-owned broadband networks — numbers likely too low to sustain such a venture financially.

Britt

While your cable bill reached an all-time high this year, Time Warner Cable’s retired CEO Glenn Britt dumped another 30,000 shares of his stock in the cable company on Monday, raking in another $4,208,400.

Ordinary shareholders have to pay $140.28 a share for Time Warner Cable stock at this week’s prices. But Britt was able to acquire many of his shares at a substantial discount last fall – paying the executive-only discount “strike price” of just $23.48 a share.

It seems no matter how many shares Britt sells, he never seems to deplete his stock in Time Warner Cable. In January, Britt had 158,947 shares remaining in Time Warner Cable. But after selling 30,000 shares in February, his number of shares remaining actually increased to 177,542 shares. Despite this week’s sale, Britt still owns the same amount of stock — 177,542 shares — the same as before, worth $24.9 million at current prices.

Britt has sold about $4.3 million in Time Warner Cable stock just about every month since last fall, earning around $4.2-4.3 million a month.

Despite the fact broadcasters could face steep charges to guarantee their online streamed content reaches viewers in good condition, the National Association of Broadcasters has decided to bow out of the Net Neutrality debate.

The NAB, the nation’s largest television industry trade association, will stay on the sidelines because they fear upsetting Comcast. If Comcast’s merger with Time Warner Cable is approved, Comcast will control 40 percent of the nation’s broadband subscribers and 30% of the country’s cable television viewers.

The trade group is also worried about offending their Republican allies in Congress, which have supported the television industry’s drive towards deregulation. The GOP almost uniformly opposes Net Neutrality.

“NAB has looked at this issue for a number of years and up to this point has decided to remain neutral,” NAB spokesman Dennis Wharton told TVNewsCheck.

That could leave Internet Service Providers free to impose surcharges and other fees on broadcasters to get a needed high quality connection if Net Neutrality is not enforced.

“Anybody who delivers content over the Internet ought to be concerned about the direction this is going,” says one broadcast industry source, who asked not to be identified.

“You could be in the fast lane or you could be in the slow lane, and you have pay to be in the fast lane,” said another broadcast industry executive. “It would be worthwhile [for the NAB board] to have a discussion about it.”

TVNewsCheck also learned that some broadcasters may end up canceling plans to deliver more of their content online without strong enforcement of Net Neutrality.

“Why would we [expand online video] if we’re just going to get throttled?” the broadcaster asks. “These proposed rules give us no incentive.”

AT&T has approached DirecTV about a possible acquisition of the satellite provider in a deal expected to fetch at least $40 billion, spare change for AT&T’s $185 billion operation.

The Wall Street Journal reports the deal would combine DirecTV’s 20 million customers with AT&T’s 5.7 million U-verse customers, rivaling the size of a combined Comcast and Time Warner Cable.

The idea for the merger came after Comcast and Time Warner Cable struck their deal in February, and a person familiar with the merger talks reports DirecTV is receptive to a deal with AT&T. AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson reportedly saw the next wave of consolidation in the American cable market as a potential game-changer, forcing AT&T to refocus its growth priorities back towards the United States instead of Europe.

Satellite companies like Dish and DirecTV are at an increasing disadvantage because growth in television subscriptions has stalled. Neither satellite company has a competitive broadband offering, and as more Americans gain access to wired broadband, many choose to bundle service with the company that provides Internet access.

DirecTV’s growth has fallen every year since 2010 and starting in 2013, the company began losing more subscribers than it signed up.

A combined AT&T-DirecTV would market satellite television nationwide, U-verse TV and Internet where available, wireless phone and broadband service, and rural satellite Internet access.

AT&T has explored an acquisition of a satellite provider for more than a decade and already partners with DirecTV to sell AT&T landline customers a bundle including the satellite provider’s television service.

As with most significant acquisitions proposed by AT&T, the Justice Department and the Federal Communications Commission will likely scrutinize any merger deal carefully. Both companies must prove the deal is in the public interest. But the Journal reports the FCC might be amenable to the deal because it considers satellite television without broadband a threatened business. Lobbyists are likely to argue the joint company would be the best positioned to compete effectively with a combined Comcast-Time Warner Cable.

If a deal appears likely, Dish Network is expected to face immediate pressure to also merge with an existing cable or telephone company.

Another alternative attempted in the past was a direct merger between DirecTV and Dish, an idea regulators nixed more than a decade ago. Today, such a deal would not solve either company’s difficulty providing broadband service.

Consumer groups are likely to oppose the merger because it further consolidates an industry they believe already sorely lacks competition. AT&T’s lawyers are reportedly already laying the foundation for a major lobbying campaign to promote the deal.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WSJ ATT Approaches DirecTV for Merger 5-1-14.flv[/flv]

The Wall Street Journal provides more insight into the proposed merger of AT&T and DirecTV and how government regulators are likely to see the deal. (2:51)