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FCC Chair Seeks Comcast-NBC Merger Conditions
Anarki2004 writes with this excerpt from an Associated Press report:
"The head of the Federal Communications Commission is proposing regulatory conditions to ensure that cable TV giant Comcast Corp. cannot stifle competition in the video market once it takes control of NBC Universal. The conditions laid out Thursday by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski are intended to guarantee that satellite providers and other rival television services can still carry marquee NBC programming and that new Internet video distributors can get the content they need to grow and compete. ... Genachowski wants to ensure that Comcast won't be able to use its control over NBC's vast media empire to withhold content from emerging online competitors such as Netflix Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and Apple Inc. — locking consumers into costly monthly cable bills to get access to a wide range of popular programming. Genachowski now needs at least two of the other four FCC commissioners to back his proposal, and he is likely to make modifications to win the support he needs to cap off the yearlong regulatory review."
How about making it a condition that they can't purposely slow down the guide menu just so you see the ads for longer? K thx
This issue concerns me because I want to ditch cable for one of those hot new 4G cell phones with WiFi tethering. I don't watch much TV anyway, and anything I want to see is already on the internet. If the cable companies buy up all the good content, I'll be stuck paying $120 per month for a bunch of crap that I'll never watch.
My diabolical plan includes buying a digital antenna so I can get my football games. I also need some way to record those games so I can watch them at my leisure and skip the commercials. Does anyone have any suggestions for how I might do that? A TV tuner card and a big-ass hard drive?
"Crude and slow, clansman. Your attack was no better than that of a clumsy child."
So let me get this straight.
The head of the FCC has just said, "We know this merger could be bad for consumers in several ways. Here are the ways: 'A, B, C'. However, I'd like to let the merger go through, if Comcast just promises not to do those bad things."
Genius. Trust a business to put the interests of the people ahead of their profit. Sounds like a brilliant plan.
Even if the promise is backed by punishment if they break it, it's still a terrible idea, and there's no way they can cover every bad thing Comcast could do in the promise.
If there are such serious concerns for what impact the sale will make, block it on anti-trust issues. I'm not one for government regulation, but we have some laws for situations like this.
These weak concessions, and planning on negotiating them down, makes this appear as little but a panacea for the citizens anger when they start getting shafted.
Lemon, did you see this? Representative Bookman is claiming that our merger with Kabletown must be subject to federal regulation and oversight. They're concerned about "uncompetitive practices". Utterly absurd. I haven't heard such a charge since Hugh Hefner kicked me out of the mansion.
The marketplace is about competition, Lemon, in its purset form. You do whatever you can, whatever you have to, to get ahead. If you don't compete, you die. Nobody steps in to save you from your enemies. This isn't funtimes in the playpen. It's the coliseum, and I'm the biggest, burlyest gladiator of them all.
I have to go, I'm taking Avery to the doctor for a sonogram before the hearing.
what about forcing CSN Philly and others like it to satellite!
Like
CSN NW
CSS
TCN (the comcast network / CSN Philly +)
comcast network 100 / CN100 / comcast network Chicago
comcast network 101 / CN101 / comcast network Chicago (over flow)
other comcast networks in other city's
CSN Huston starts 2011 / 2012
Because, they just stick to their word. just like how wall street did, just like how bp did. just like how any other company does. because... well, because companies are made of love !
Read radical news here
Suppose the FCC showed some spine and said, "No, this is not a merger that we can allow to happen, it would not be in the best interests of the American public." Comcast would sue, and say something to the effect of, "The FCC is going to prevent us from becoming more profitable than we already are, which is clearly a bad thing!" to which the judge would reply, "Hm, yes, you do need to be more profitable," and the FCC would be overruled. The problem is much broader: our government has forgotten that it is supposed to do what is best for all its citizens, not just those who hold stock in large corporations.
Palm trees and 8
Huge content company plus huge isp. How could it miss?
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
I'd like to see them break up both Comcast and NBC into smaller regional outfits. :P
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
I'd be happy if there were laws against the joining of Content and Distribution. This vertical model is bad for the marketplace and for consumers.
Is what this is. Anticompetitive practices is what it is ALL about.
They're not doing this to save money in their accounting offices.
They're doing this so they can make life hard on other cable/internet providers.
And that's exactly what will happen.
If you don't want that to happen, this right here, is the moment in time to do something about it.
Why does every voting official, regardless of position, now demand some type of additional compensation in the form of concessions before they'll vote?
Always someone has power over you. The thing to consider is this: Is the power good, or bad?
Split the content provider and the common carrier apart.
Have gnu, will travel.
Consider the farmer. He owns his land, the equipment he uses to harvest his crops, the truck he uses to drive that product to the farmers’ market where he sells it directly to the consumer. Is that not vertical integration? 1:32 PM. Mark the time, ladies and gentlemen, that congress put a bullet in the head of the American farmer.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
They have the worst service and have been allowed to accumulate the Persian King's ransom they needed to buy NBC by overcharging CATV subscribers month after month, year after year. It's gotten so bad that they're trying to rebrand themselves as Xfinity, to try to wipe their slate clean in people's minds.
Don't let them to do that. Make them spin off, or give back the ill gotten gains through dividends.
Giving a very large media producer one of the largest media delivery companies? Sure, Comcast is already one of the shadiest companies on this planet, screwing over its customers at every turn. But it's still huge. And the possible abuses from this are innumerable (sorry FCC, you're stupid). If Comcast didn't hold a monopoly in so many cities, people would just get upset with the impending bullshit (that'll cost you, but if you go over here to our NBC site for the same thing, it's free!) and leave, so I can't believe this merger will do any more than make people hate Comcast more and prove that NBC really is trying to push propaganda on people, now with monopolistic intent, but nobody except the FCC and our judicial system is posed to do anything about it. Hopefully they will, or someone might need to explode a few Comcast datacenters and/or backbones to send a message. Anonymous, prepare for battle.
You can get DSL from any number of ISPs. You pay rent to the owner of the "last mile" but your packets enter the internet via your ISP.
Comcast has a local monopoly over the last mile so they should be required to lease access to that monopoly to any existing ISP. The competing ISPs would have to put some equipment in the comcast POPs but that's not a huge barrier.
The same should be made true for any other local monopoly like FIOS. The municipality grants the access, so they should be able to require conditions such as equal access.
That's what they do in other parts of the world.
Anything else is just going to be subject to antics on the part of the monopoly...
Government can't mess with corporations; they are the dominant institutions not the peoples' government (what it used to be.)
"Government just needs to leave corporations alone to do the right thing and compete for goodness..."
How could people believe this stupid shit and NOW after all this mess the corporations have caused how can they still have so many supporters??
The officials do not count because their job is to bow to the corporate interests while whitewashing the problems to the public.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
How about adding a requirement that the new owners renew CHUCK for season 5?...It's one of the only shows on a major TV network that specifically caters to nerds like us =).
. . . to act first in their self-interest, just like any wild animal. That is the beauty of them. There is no true pretense of altruism or benevolence, and their words are merely a means to their goals. If Comcast determined that saying "my butt tastes like Godiva Chocolates" would get the FCC to approve this acquisition, it would be their new slogan.
The FCC can add regulatory conditions to all cable companies, which is what the commissioner is proposing now. The regulation is specifically aimed at Comcast so that they don't abuse their position after the merger.
But I don't think the FCC has the power to actually block this specific merger, at least on anti-trust grounds. That might require the Dept of Justice. Does anyone know exactly?
Based upon what I've read about his proposals on this merger and the Net Neutrality issue, Genachowski seems to genuinely care for the public interest, even when it causes problems for himself. I wish we had more officials like him; he might not go far enough in his actions, but his heart seems to be in the right place.
newscrop should rebuy Directv and pull fox / FX / FSN / and others from comcast.
I'd like to see Comcast utterly destroyed... stranding millions of customers... even though Comcast is the sole choice where I live.
Why not just outright deny it? Why does the FCC/government have to approve everything, or provide conditions for approval?
They're like most parents nowadays, or the patent office. They're too damn chicken to just tell their kids NO! YOU CAN'T HAVE IT! QUIT CRYING!!
In a year or two, FCC and/or a federal judge or two will say, well, we didn't really mean it, just like they did with requiring LEC's to open up their DSLAMs, and they look like they're going to do with Sprint/Nextel's commitment to roll out nationwide WiMax as a condition of merger. With or without stimulus grants to pay for the rollout. .
Merry Christmas, suckers
block the transaction. concessions or not. comcast buying nbc SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED.
Just like ISP's and independent phone companies were supposed to be supposed to be provided w/equal access on telco-owned last-mile equipment...or ISP's were suppose to have similar to be able to compete against phone companies.
Then along comes another anti-government GOP president, like Reagan, who dismantles all of those pesky 'consumer' protections to save us all [sic], and we enter a new 'golden age' of media control with married couples relegated to separate bed again. (a symptom of large media companies who colluded to control the market (with the government's help, at the time who then performed government tasks of censorship, skirting the constitution for half a decade.
Another more recent example of government and monopoly mutual 'back-scratching' was in allowing AT&T to re-integrate, Bush declaring that the need for _real_ competition wasn't needed, as long as prices were 'competitive', and in return, AT&T gave complete covert access to the gov (CIA) to monitor all of the nation's internet traffic, also tidily circumventing the constitution.
People think we are so safe with constitutional protections -- but they do nothing to restrict large corporations from the same abusive power and leave us wide open to proven government abuse of constitutional controls by collaborating with monopoly businesses. Without more checks and balances, 'we the people' has been, and still is little more than a nice marketing phrase.
'E pluribus Unum' -- one unified controlling entity, from many: a government fettered by constitutional controls, and unfettered businesses willing to be given market control in exchange mutual benefit...