Comcast Pays Overdue Fees, Offers Freebies For TWC Merger Approval

WheezyJoe writes: In seeking more support for its mega-merger with Time-Warner Cable, Comcast has been going across the country giving local governments a chance to ask for favors in exchange for approving a franchise transfer. In Minneapolis, this turned up an unpaid bill of $40,000 in overdue franchise fees, so Comcast will have to pay the city money it already owed in order to get the franchise transfer. Comcast will also throw in $50,000 worth of free service and equipment.

"Thirty Minneapolis city buildings will get free basic cable for the next seven years as part of a package of concessions (PDF) the city wrung out of Comcast in exchange for blessing its proposed merger with fellow cable giant Time Warner," Minnesota Public Radio reported. The article notes that getting any kind of refund out of a cable company is not easy.

Part of the deal with Minneapolis involves the spinoff of a new cable company called GreatLand Connections that will serve 2.5 million customers in the Midwest and Southeast, including Minnesota. After the deal, Comcast's franchises in those areas would be transferred to GreatLand. Such goodwill concessions may seem impressive as Comcast seeks to foster goodwill, but one wonders how Comcast/Time Warner will behave after the merger.

Comments

Corrupt.

[Anonymous Coward]

They should be dissolved, not merged.

In other words.

[msauve]

"Thirty Minneapolis city buildings will get free basic cable for the next seven years"

Which is to say Comcast is helping Minneapolis increase taxes. We all know there's no such thing as "free," so this is simply a hidden tax on cable subscribers, who will now be subsidizing municipal cable.

Re:In other words.

[Anonymous Coward]

And it looks like Comcast is writing checks they don't even have to cash. They'll provide the "free" cable until the merger goes through, then it becomes the burdon of GreatLand Connections.

And I'm sure GreatLand Communications will be spun off with a competent staff utilizing new and robust hardware, not the crappy group of staff that you've been waiting to cheaply divest along with crappy and aged equipment serving less desirable markets.

When Lobying becomes bribery

[houghi]

This is so obviously bribery it isn't even funny anymore. Obviously nobody will do anything about that. There will be no investigation. There will be nobody actually trying to stop it.

The merger will go on and I would not be surprised if they did not even pay out their bribery.

I can imagine that some of the big shots will get a much larger bonus when the merger goes through.