Comcast Promises to Fight Conditions Not Specific to NBC Deal
The federal government shouldn’t impose conditions on Comcast’s deal to buy a majority stake in NBC Universal that aren’t specific to the agreement, David Cohen, Comcast executive vice president, told reporters Friday. He expects to make that argument again and again during a government review of the deal, which is expected to last a year (CD Dec 4 p1).
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“In a transaction of this nature, everybody who has any grievance with Comcast, NBC” or any aspect of their markets “has the ability to say, ‘We have this problem and we want you to fix it,'” Cohen said. “If it is a general grievance, it should be resolved in an industrywide proceeding.” He responded with that argument to questions about the cable operator’s exemption from program access rules in Philadelphia and the way NBCU sells programming to other distributors.
Comcast’s attempt to portray program access and channel bundling as issues of industry-wide import and not linked to the deal is wise and may help convince the commission to look at them outside the NBC Universal transaction, some said. “It’s certainly a strategy that works for Comcast,” said Legal Director Harold Feld of Public Knowledge, a merger opponent. “I don’t think the rest of the industry will thank them for it.” In the past, such arguments have been successful because “very rarely does the commission actually follow up in a rulemaking proceeding,” he added. An antitrust attorney not involved in the deal agreed.
Curbs on previous deals “have largely been inconveniences for the merging parties, they really haven’t had the market impact that both the proponents and opponents of the conditions thought they would have,” said Michael Hazzard of Arent Fox. “The one thing that’s different about this merger than ones we have seen in recent years” is Comcast-NBC Universal represents vertical integration, he continued. “It’s a real open question as to how they'll approach it at both the FCC and the Department of Justice.”
Comcast plans to file with the FCC in 30-45 days its application to transfer NBC’s broadcast licenses and its public interest file, Cohen said. The company expects to file its Hart-Scott-Rodino notice shortly afterward, he said. Unclear is whether it will be the Department of Justice or the Federal Trade Commission that reviews the deal under antitrust law, he said.
Comcast is prepared to discuss the deal’s benefits in congressional hearings, as some Democrats on the Hill have sought, Cohen said. The company hopes the hearings are scheduled for the new year, he said. “Hearings would be much more productive if we have the opportunity to put our public interest file into the record,” he said. “The optimal time is early next year, but that’s not within our control.”
FCC Commissioner Michael Copps said Thursday that Comcast has a “steep hill to climb” in persuading him. Copps repeated the sentiment to him, Cohen said. “He has always given us the opportunity to make our case.” Some of the commitments Comcast has made concerning Spanish-language programming are “near and dear to Copps’ heart,” Cohen said.