Comcast

Comcast says in an SEC filing that it re-upped NBCUniversal CEO Steve Burke through August 2020 — with a $10 million stock option to reward him for his “outstanding work” and to “incent” him to do a good job.

The increase to $2.1 billion was driven by higher retransmission consent fees, ad revenue as well as money from content licensing.

The deal is a coup for Netflix, and it will be available for X1 customers later this year. The move is an enormous step, given the long and sometimes contentious history between the two companies against a backdrop of increased consumer usage of internet-delivered video.

After having his suit against NBC over loss of NBC affiliation dismissed last month by a federal appeals court judge, WHDH Boston owner Ed Ansin on Wednesday announced: “We filed a notice of appeal with the federal court. We believe the judge got it all wrong, so we are reviewing our options for an appeal.”

Comcast  has asked the FCC to dismiss a complaint filed against it by Liberman Broadcasting, which claims the MSO is discriminating against its Estrella TV network to favor the Spanish-language programmers it acquired during its NBCUniversal purchase.

In one of the most all-out offensives launched at the FCC’s “Unlock the Box” set-top regulatory proposal, Comcast and the NCTA each filed searing reply commentary to the agency. A day after AT&T referred to the NPRM as a “radical unbundling scheme,” the National Cable Telecommunications Association ramped up the rhetoric even further, calling the proposal a “radial re-invention of the video marketplace.”

WHDH Boston’s bid to hang onto its NBC affiliation was tossed out of court by a federal judge who said the station fell victim to “doing business in a competitive and unsentimental marketplace.” The suit, which argued that Comcast violated federal and state law when it decided to drop the Sunbeam Television-owned station, lasted less than four months.

WHDH Boston and NBC wrangled in court with conflicting versions of whether the station has a right to keep carrying the network, as NBC’s parent company seeks to set up a new Boston-area Peacock affiliate.

It might not be entirely over, but Comcast can take some relief in the ruling Tuesday to dismiss the $20 billion racial discrimination lawsuit from the Byron Allen-founded Entertainment Studios Network and the National Association of African-American Owned Media. This latest amended complaint from the plaintiffs was given the boot by U.S. District Judge Terry Hatter Jr. — but Allen and NAAAOM have one more chance in the more-than-a year-long suit to make their case.

DreamWorks Animation stockholders will receive $41 for each share they own. That’s a 24% premium to the company’s Wednesday closing price of $32.20. The companies put the deal’s value at about $3.8 billion.

Comcast is now in talks to acquire DreamWorks Animation. The acquisition would fit squarely into Comcast’s entertainment strategy by allowing it  to build on its successful NBCUniversal entertainment business, which includes TV, film and theme parks.

First quarter revenue is up 11.4%, not counting Super Bowl windfall for the 1Q 2015.The increase is driven by higher ad rates for NFL games and one additional game compared to last year’s first quarter. Counting Super Bowl, revenue was down 7.3%

After years of on-and-off flirtations, Comcast is in talks to buy DreamWorks Animation, the boutique studio run by Jeffrey Katzenberg that has struggled to move past the boom-and-bust cycle driven by its sporadic film releases. The possible deal would value DreamWorks Animation at roughly $3 billion, or about 30 percent more than its current market value, according to two people with knowledge of the talks,

Comcast continues to vigorously defend its diversity record with the FCC, calling accusations that it launched figurehead channels to satisfy mandates associated with the 2011 purchase of NBCUniversal “rank speculation.”

Comcast is going to launch an app on the streaming-TV gadget Roku that takes the place of a cable box. Comcast is also working on a cable-TV app for Samsung smart TVs. Comcast doesn’t say when the apps will be available. Only people in places where Comcast provides cable service could get it, but they don’t have to get Comcast internet too.

Comcast wants a federal court to throw out WHDH Boston’s lawsuit against the cable giant over its refusal to extend the station’s NBC affiliation, arguing that WHDH signed a contract that expires in January and must live by its terms. WHDH filed the lawsuit in March, claiming the move violated antitrust law and Comcast’s agreement with affiliates.

Estrella TV, the third-ranked Spanish language TV network behind Univision and Telemundo, says cable giant Comcast is discriminating against the network to benefit its own Spanish language networks, Telemundo and NBC Universo. Estrella’s owner, Liberman Broadcasting, has filed a complaint with the FCC against Comcast charging violations of the FCC’s Program Carriage regulations, as well as of the merger conditions imposed on Comcast when it acquired NBCUniversal.

Comcast CEO Brian Roberts’ compensation rose 10% to $36.2 million, according to the company proxy just filed at the SEC. NBCUniversal CEO Steve Burke’s compensation declined 0.7% to $33.7 million. And Senior EVP David Cohen, the company’s point man in the Time Warner Cable effort, got at 32.6% raise to $17.9 million.

It took a week, but Comcast has response to the FCC about the Byron Allen’s Entertainment Studios calling for a probe of the conglomerate’s minority programming efforts. “This is not the first time (or second, or third) that Petitioners have accused a programming distributor of instituting racist practices,” Comcast wrote in opposing Allen’s filing

Byron Allen’s Entertainment Studios and the National Association of African American-Owned Media file a petition demanding the FCC take Comcast to task for what they claim are failed promises to add majority-controlled African American-owned and operated networks.

NBC has announced that it is not renewing its affiliation for WHDH Boston at the end of this year so that it can launch its own station in the market, but WHDH owner Ed Ansin isn’t accepting the news. He’s taken NBC and parent Comcast to court and is convinced he has a strong case for reversing the move. By Ansin’s own reckoning, hundreds of millions in station value are at stake.

The new Amazon Cable Store sells Comcast’s Xfinity-branded bundles, including dedicated customer service for Amazon customers. Charter Communications Inc. is also in discussions with Amazon about a retail partnership.

The Sunbeam Television-owned Boston station says the loss of its NBC affiliation violates its agreement with the network as well as the conditions of Comcast’s acquisition of NBC. NBC calls it a “meritless lawsuit.”

With the Yankees in spring training and its carriage impasse with Comcast into its fourth month, regional sports channel YES Network has initiated a multi-million advertising campaign urging the MSO’s subscribers to change pay TV services.

Public Knowledge has filed a complaint with the FCC over Comcast excluding its Stream TV OTT service from its customers’ data caps. The complaint says the service doesn’t gel with the FCC’s Open Internet rules and also violates Comcast’s NBCUniversal merger commitments.

  Customers of Comcast Corp. lost part of their cable television service for several hours in many major U.S. metropolitan areas Monday, but the company said the problem was fixed […]

Comcast execs say that there’s a lot of life left in traditional TV advertising, and in the expanded basic pay TV bundle, even in a time of growing cord cutting and shaving. The scatter market is “as strong as it’s been at any time in recent memory,” says NBCU chief Steve Burke. There’s “nothing to worry about” from automakers, usually the biggest buyers, giving him “reasons to be optimistic about the trajectory for the upfront” sales market in the spring.

The fourth quarter increase to $2.5 billion was driven by higher retransmission consent fees, ad revenue as well as money from content licensing. For the full year, revenue from the Broadcast Television segment was stable at $8.5 billion.

Dish’s Sling TV and Sony’s PlayStation Vue paved the way with innovative online services nearly a year ago. Last fall, Comcast, Time Warner Cable and its buyer-in-waiting, Charter Communications, followed suit with their own online bundles. These now represent the latest gambit from the quasi-monopolistic cable industry, which continues to shed TV customers as more people watch online video from a variety of new outlets.

A Comcast spokesman has formally denied the report of ITV Group being in merger discussions with Comcast’s NBCUniversal. “We don’t comment on M&A rumors but the speculation on ITV is just completely inaccurate,” spokesman John Demming said.

Is Comcast using its muscle as the No. 1 cable provider to restrict competition and set local pay TV ad prices? The Justice Department’s antitrust unit is looking into this, and has asked the company for information.