ESPN has signed distributors across multiple platforms to distribute its new ACC Network regional sports service as it prepares for the network’s Aug. 22 launch.

Satellite provider DirecTV joins telco Verizon FiOS,  MVPD Altice and streaming services Hulu and Playstation Vue in carrying the service, which will provide sports content from such conference schools as Duke, North Carolina, Virginia, Syracuse, Pittsburgh, Notre Dame and Florida State, according to ESPN.

The deal comes on the heels of ESPN’s marketing push for the network. Under the tagline "We Do This," the multi-platform campaign launched earlier this week will run across ESPN’s owned and operated media including TV, digital, radio and social media, and will include insider nods to each of the fan bases, according to ESPN.

“As we developed this campaign, our goal internally has been to revel in the range of the ACC,” said Michelle Berry, Senior Director of Sports Marketing at ESPN in a statement. “We met that challenge by representing the uniqueness of the member schools while celebrating a dynamic conference that adds up to more than just the sum of its parts.”

CBS’ Monday night coverage of the North Carolina-Gonzaga NCAA college basketball tournament finals drew neatly 9 million social media interactions, Nielsen reported Tuesday. 

The game, won by the Tar Heels, drew 8.6 million Facebook and Twitter interactions from more than 3.4 million unique social media accounts, according to Nielsen.

On the entertainment Tv front, the USA Network’s WWE Monday Night Raw was the most social show on April 3, generating 858,000 social media interactions from 411,000 unique accounts, according to Nielsen. VH1’s Love And Hip Hop: Atlanta, ABC’s Dancing With The Stars, NBC’s The Voice, and Fox News’ The O’Reilly Factor rounded out the top five most social TV shows for the day, according to Nielsen.

CBS’s Sunday doubleheader coverage of the 2017 “March Madness” NCAA Basketball Tournament scored big on social media, helping set the stage for the tournament’s Final Four weekend.

North Carolina’s thrilling win over Kentucky on CBS yesterday drew a whopping 5.1 million Twitter and Facebook interactions from more than 2.2 million unique users, according to Nielsen’s Social Content Ratings report. CBS’ coverage of South Carolina’s win over Florida drew 1.6 million social media interactions from 928,000 unique social media accounts, said Nielsen.

CBS will air the tournament's "Final Four" games Saturday night and the "March Madness" championship game on Monday. 

AMC’s The Walking Dead slayed social media Sunday, drawing 555,000 Twitter and Facebook interactions to lead all entertainment shows for the day. Hallmark Channel’s When Calls The Heart finished second with nearly 100,000 social media interactions, according to Nielsen.

As Hurricane Matthew made its way out to sea Sunday night and Monday morning, Comcast said it has begun the process of restoring service to its customers in the affected areas.

Hurricane Matthew, which killed more than 1,000 people in Haiti when it ripped through that island nation Oct. 4, has been attributed to about 22 deaths in Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia as it made its way through those states over the weekend.

The hurricane brought heavy rains and flooding due to storm surges as high as 11 feet in some areas. As of Monday afternoon, the storm moved out to the open sea, but areas of North Carolina were hit hard by flooding ad damage from high winds. A levee breach in Lumberton, N.C., left about 1,500 people stranded on the rooftops of their homes on Monday, as rescue workers moved in.

Comcast Central Division spokesman Brian Farley said most of the service issues in the cable company’s territories in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina were tied to commercial power outages and restricted access to facilities due to hazardous conditions and closures.  In an e-mail message, Farley said for most customers services should be restored after power comes back and access to damaged facilities and downed lines have been cleared.

“Once cleared and access is gained, we will continue to work around the clock until services are fully restored for every customer,” Farley said in the message.

Technical crews are well underway placing and refueling generators and are starting to assess damage and beginning repairs where it’s safe to do so.

“We thank our employees who have been preparing for days and are now working non-stop to best serve our customers,” Farley added. “We’re also working very closely with state and local governments and power companies to coordinate efforts during the restoration process. We hope our customers are safe and we appreciate their patience as we know how important our services are to them.”

On Saturday Comcast activated free XFinity WiFi hotspots in all three states, making the wireless high-speed data network available to all residents in the affected areas, including non-Comcast customers.

“During times like this, it is critical that we keep residents connected to family, friends and emergency resources,” Farley said in the mail message. “By creating WiFi access, we hope we’re able to provide some degree of support during this difficult time.

Comcast customers can get outage updates via their My Account app, online at www.comcast.com , or via phone at 1-800-COMCAST.

The FCC's Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau has expanded the Hurricane Mathew-affected areas from which it wants status reports from communications networks.

The FCC activated the Disaster Information Reporting System (DIRS) Friday (Oct. 7) in various counties in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina. DIRS is a voluntary web-based reporting system.

Following reports of dangerous flooding in other areas that could extend into Monday or even Tuesday, the FCC has added new counties in North Carolina and South Carolina as well as a number of cities in Virgina to the list.

Cable operators, broadcasters and others in following areas were asked to start filing reports on the status of equipment, power, restoration efforts and access to fuel starting at 10 a.m. Monday (ct. 10) and each subsequent day by 10 a.m. until the DIRS is deactivated:

North Carolina: Brunswick, Carteret, Columbus, Craven, Cumberland, Currituck, Dare, Hoke, Hyde, Johnston, Moore, New Hanover, Onslow, Pender, Robeson, Tyrrell, Wake Counties

South Carolina: Horry County

Virginia: Cities of Chesapeake, Hampton, Norfolk, Portsmouth and Virginia Beach

Just days after the Tennessee legislature voted down a municipal broadband expansion bill, the State was squaring off with the FCC in federal court over the issue of municipal broadband buildouts and state's ability to limit them.

After the FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler signaled the FCC had the power to preempt state laws blocking the expansion of municipal broadband, the Cities of Wilson, N.C., and Chattanooga, Tenn. petitioned the FCC to do just that. A divided commission complied in March 2015, and Tennessee and North Carolina then filed suit.

The FCC majority in that decision said the agency had the power and the duty to step in when states were limiting broadband buildouts. The commission confirmed it did not have the power to overturn state laws preventing municipal broadband buildouts altogether, but if those states allows such networks, the FCC can pre-empt laws that would limit them.

FCC chairman Tom Wheeler has tabbed those laws as the handiwork of incumbent Internet service providers trying to prevent competition.

The Sixth Circuit federal appeals court--in Cincinnati--heard oral argument Thursday (March 17) in that challenge by the states.

According to Berin Szoka of TechFreedom, who was at the argument, the judges asked tough questions of both sides.

The FCC argued that it did not have to meet the heightened preemption standard of a clear statement of congressional intent because it was not trumping a state's rights to govern its subdivisions, but instead with regulation of commerce more generally, which does not have a heightened bar for preemption.

The FCC is justifying the moves under its Sec. 706 authority to regulate if it concludes that advanced telecommunications is not being deployed in a reasonable and timely manner. "We read section 706 to permit the commission to preempt state laws that primarily serve to regulate competition in the broadband market," the FCC March 2015 order states.

Szoka said two out of the three judges on the three-judge panel hearing the arguments probed on the issue of whether states and their cities were unitary (of a piece) sovereign entities. According to Szoka, the third judge only spoke to wish the court a Happy St. Patrick's day and note the green tie on FCC counsel, which matched his own bright green bow tie.

One judge suggested the FCC might be able to preempt a state's decision to require a radio station to use as different frequency, but that that would be the FCC telling it not to interfere with something over which the FCC has jurisdiction. The judge said that seemed to be different from this case.

In this case, the judge suggested, it was not about the FCC saying what should happen, but saying municipalities should be able to decide, which did sound like an issue with how the state gets to govern its municipal subdivision.

The judges also asked if private companies would also be subject to such a decision, perhaps having to be governed by one of their subdivisions, a board of shareholders, for example, just as municipalities rather than states get to make the decision.

The Tennessee and North Carolina laws are slightly different, Szoka pointed out, with Tennessee's law focused more on geographical limitations on expanding municipal broadband and North Carolina including pricing and not being able to cross subsidize buildouts with money from utility ratepayers, something commercial broadband providers have always been concerned about and one of the reasons they frequently lobby against such laws.

Suddenlink Communications said it has named Mike Shelton as vice president of fiscal operations for its North Carolina Region.

Shelton, a 25-year veteran of the finance industry, will be responsible for all aspects of regional fiscal operations including financial planning and analysis, warehouse and inventory control functions, as well as credit and collections efforts. He comes to Suddenlink from Central Parking Inc., a professional parking management company, where he was vice president of finance. Shelton has previously worked in various positions with Boeing, Fred Meyer grocery stores and Hollywood Video.

“We are delighted to have Mike join the Suddenlink team,” said Senior Vice President of North Carolina Region Operations Jared Sonne in a statement. “He is a proven leader with an extensive background in financial planning and analysis.”

Shelton received his bachelor’s degree in business administration from California State University, Long Beach. He will be based in Greenville