Comcast and NBC Universal executives met with senior officials at the Federal Communications Commission this week, urging the agency against conditions to their proposed merger that would require the new company to provide shows and movies to Internet video distributors.
The Monday meeting comes after sources indicated to Post Tech that federal regulators would impose such conditions on their merger. The merger, proposed one year ago, is close to gaining approval if Comcast agrees to voluntary conditions on video program access to Internet companies like Apple TV and Google TV, sources said.
It’s amazing that these greedy pigs can’t even make that concession. America, you are losing your country. Senator Franken is one of the few voices left in our national government who gets it. He has called for the DOJ to investigate Comcast for antitrust violation.
Franken on Monday urged Justice’s head of antitrust, Christine Varney, to investigate whether Comcast’s appointment of 43 individuals to various positions at NBC Universal was “gun-jumping” and violated the “spirit of federal antitrust law.”
“By announcing the future leadership of NBC Universal well in advance of federal approval, Comcast may be seeking to indirectly exert managerial and operational control of that company,” Franken wrote. “Moreover, in doing so, Comcast may purposefully or inadvertently trigger the exchange of competitively sensitive information between the companies, beyond what is customarily permissible in premerger settings.”
You’ve got to use what you’ve got. The antitrust laws are still on the books and if the Obama Administration would show some courage and leadership, these laws would be enforced.
