A coalition of Comcast/NBCU deal critics has asked Comcast to withdraw its support from a Cablevision court challenge to the program access rules.
The companies promised to abide by those rules and voluntarily extend them to retransmission-consent negotiations as well, regardless of the outcome of the court case if the companies are allowed to merge some of their operations.
The program access rules require a vertically integrated company--with both content production and distribution businesses--to make the programming/networks in which they have a financial interest accessible to competitors on nondiscriminatory terms and conditions.
Comcast and NBCU made that pledge two weeks ago at Hill hearings on their proposed $30 billion joint venture. The D.C. Circuit could come out with a decision any day on the program access rules.
In a letter to Comcast chairman Brian Roberts, a dozen groups including Media Access Project, Consumer Federation, Free Press, Public Knowledge, the Satellite Broadcasting & Communications Association and the American Cable Association, called it "highly unusual that Comcast would continue to spend shareholder dollars to overturn an FCC regulation that it has promises to follow regardless of the case's outcome."
At the Feb. 4 Senate hearing, Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) a former NBC employee as a Saturday Night Live writer and performer, suggested the companies' public interest promises could not be trusted and that Comcast, for one, was arguing that FCC rules would protect consumers on one hand, while fighting the same rules in court.
In their letter, the groups associated themselves with that criticism. "We share Senator Franken's concerns regarding your pledge. Your assurances are undercut by the fact that your company has a history of opposing the program access rules," they said.
While those groups did not say that would be sufficient to assuage their other concerns about the deal, some, like Media Access Project and Consumer Federation, have already said they are opposed to the deal regardless--they suggested it would be a start. "Withdrawing from the litigation will neither assuage all of our concerns about Comcast's past and present actions with regard to the program access rules, nor diminish the need for the Dept. of Justice and FCC to conduct a thorough review of your transaction. It would, however, be an important gesture to bolster the promises you made to Congress on Feb. 4," they said.