Related: Comcast Walks Away From TWC

The crash and burn of the Comcast-Time Warner Cable deal continued to draw applause from its critics as the deal was officially scrapped.

Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), arguably the deal's biggest congressional critic, called it a "huge" victory.

“This is a great day for American consumers," he said. "When Comcast’s proposal to buy Time Warner Cable was first announced 15 months ago, I came out against it, saying that it would be terrible for consumers. Tens of millions of Americans would have faced higher prices for cable and broadband services, fewer choices, and even worse service. It looked like a lost cause, especially given Comcast’s lobbying might: they hired an army of more than 100 lobbyists and spent millions of dollars on advertising to sell the deal. But more and more people came to see it the way that I did and joined the fight. People believe, as I do, that consumers should come first when it comes to technology policy. This was an uphill battle, and I’m enormously proud of our victory."

“Today’s news is the best possible outcome for consumers, who deserve innovative, thriving video and broadband marketplaces," said Jeff Blum, senior VP and deputy general counsel of Dish.

"The decision today reflects the clear consensus among consumers, competitors and policymakers not to Comcast the Internet," said Don't Comcast the Internet, a coalition of competitive video providers including COMPTEL, the Independent Telephone & Telecommunications Alliance and NTCA- The Rural Broadband Association.

"Today is a huge victory for consumers and competition. COMPTEL commends the Department of Justice and Federal Communications Commission for their work on this merger, and we urge them to release their analyses so that all interested parties and the public will fully benefit from the year-long review of the merger," said COMPTEL in its own statement.

“Since the Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger was announced 14 months ago, the WGAW has maintained that it should not be approved because of the irreparable harm it would cause to competition, consumers and content creators," said Writers Guild of America, West president Chris Keyser. "In recent weeks it became clear that regulators had similar concerns."

"We share with our allied organizations the satisfaction of knowing that this merger has been stopped and that both the public interest and writers’ interests have been protected.”

Consumers Union has been campaigning against the deal almost since the beginning.

“This mega merger was a sweet deal for Comcast but a poor one for consumers that would have hurt competition and stifled innovation,” said Ellen Bloom, senior director of federal policy for Consumers Union. “Comcast would have profited handsomely, while consumers ended up paying more and facing fewer choices."

The American Cable Association was not a big fan of the merger, but used its dissolution to look forward.

“Although the Federal Communications Commission no longer needs to review Comcast’s attempt to supersize itself by acquiring Time Warner Cable, the agency’s work is far from done," ACA president Matt Polka said. "The FCC should acknowledge now that the Comcast-NBCU merger conditions it put in place in 2011 have been ineffective at addressing the harms stemming from the troubling combination of Comcast’s cable assets with NBCU’s content. To protect distributors and consumers from the harms posed by vertical integration, the FCC needs to act on its long-pending program access and retransmission reform rulemakings and adopt ACA’s proposed solutions.”

"This is a historic victory in the fight to stop the consolidation of the corporations that control our access to the Internet,” said Josh Nelson, campaign manager at CREDO Action. “This victory belongs to the hundreds of thousands of activists nationwide who pressured the Department of Justice, Federal Communications Commission and state regulators to reject the merger. Without the scrutiny progressive grassroots activism brought to the debate, this anti-competitive, anti-consumer merger would likely still be on the table.”

Rep. Chellie Pingree (the former head of Common Cause) launched a petition via CREDO Mobilize urging attorney general Eric Holder to block the deal. According to CREDO more than 160,000 activists signed the petition.

"This was a bad idea from the start and although the big cable companies kept telling us it was going to be a good deal for consumers, the public knew better," said Pingree. "Tens of thousands of Americans spoke up and I think it became clear to Comcast they  weren't going to be able to get away with making themselves the only cable or Internet provider for millions of Americans. I think the FCC and the Department of Justice did their jobs and heard what the American people had to say..."

“Artists of all backgrounds welcome the news that Comcast is abandoning its plan to control even more of our nation's communications infrastructure,” said Future of Music Coalition CEO Casey Rae of the deal's demise. “Musicians and independent labels understand what happens when gatekeepers control access to audiences and are allowed to set the economic terms for our participation. We were here at the start of this fight and we’ll remain vigilant to ensure that our creativity has a chance to thrive wherever audiences connect.”

“Families and consumers have won this battle. If Comcast and TWC had merged, it would have created a giant with enormous control over nearly half of all TV sets in the country – and that union would have inevitably been anti-family and anti-consumer," said PTC president Tim Winter. "We are glad that the opposition to this merger was so strong and fierce."

Comcast was not commenting at press time on reports that it was pulling the plug on its Time Warner Cable merger proposal, but critic of the deal certainly were.

The celebrations for the potential fall of the deal were already beginning.

"Comcast's withdrawal of its proposed merger with Time Warner Cable would be spectacularly good news for consumers concerned about the spiraling costs of cable and broadband and for millions of citizens who want nothing more to do with gatekeeping and consolidation in the communications ecosystem on which our democracy depends," said former FCC chairman Michael Copps, who is now special advisor to Common Cause's Media and Democracy Reform Initiative.

"Comcast's apparent failure to take control of Time Warner Cable should be a lesson for the industry," said Free Press President Craig Aaron. "Communications giants should stop trying to consolidate and instead focus on providing the fast, affordable and neutral Internet services that Americans demand."

“The Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE) is gratified that Comcast/NBCU has dropped its bid to merge with Time Warner Cable," said the guild in a statement. "The purpose of the merger was to give the merged company even greater leverage over content creators, including our members, and over consumers.  Our members create shows and craft compelling stories, and their work is enhanced when there are multiple opportunities to obtain distribution, funding and direct access to audiences.  Their work (and therefore the audience experience) is diminished by the increased power of content-and-distribution behemoths like the proposed Comcast/NBCU/TWC.”

Comptel, NTCA-The Rural Broadband Association, and others who banded together as the "Don't Comcast the Internet Campaign," was also hopeful for the deal's death knell.

"The record in this transaction supports only one outcome: ending the proposed merger of Comcast and Time Warner Cable. Consumers and competition will be the big winners if this merger is indeed blocked or withdrawn," the campaign said in a statement.

"Today’s announcement is a major victory for consumers and the future of communications in the U.S., said Benton Foundation director of policy Amina Fazlullah. "With high-capacity broadband growing in importance each day, more and more consumers are realizing that putting 50 percent of the broadband market into Comcast’s control would result in too much power in the hands of one company. Hopefully, moving forward, Comcast and Time Warner will take the path of competition over consolidation and consumers will benefit with more choices, better services, lower prices, and increased innovation."

"The collapse of this dangerous merger would be a giant victory for Latinos, and renew faith in US regulators," said Latino group Presente. "[W]e will continue to monitor the situation and strongly oppose the merger until the official withdrawal happens."

“If the media reports are accurate, today is a tremendous victory for consumers, innovators, and the future of the Internet," said Joshua Stager, policy counsel for New America’s Open Technology Institute. "This merger would have given Comcast the power to stifle small businesses, raise consumer prices, and undermine the Internet economy. Americans don’t need a gatekeeper who decides who wins and loses on the Internet — they need affordable, fast broadband and a competitive market. That’s why nearly 1 million Americans, a record-breaking number, have asked the FCC to block this deal."

The National Association of Broadcasters has told a federal court that its retransmission consent deals with MVPDs are among their "most closely guarded secrets" that should not be shared with third parties.

That came in NAB comments filed Monday (Dec. 15) with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in support of a challenge by CBS and other programmers to the FCC's decision in the Comcast/Time Warner Cable and AT&T/DirecTV merger reviews to make contracts and work product from retrans and other programming deals available to hundreds of third parties.

The court has stayed that FCC decision and Dec. 15 was the deadline for briefs from CBS, the other programmers, and NAB, which was granted leave to intervene in support of the programmer challenge.

The FCC is free to view and vet those contracts (as the court made clear when issuing its stay of the decision to let third parties also vet them).

NAB says that is fine with broadcasters.

"NAB is not arguing that the Commission should not have access to the programming agreements and negotiating materials submitted by the merging MVPDs," the association said, according to a copy of the filing obtained by B&C. "But revealing to other MVPDs or their representatives the terms of agreements and details of negotiations with the merging companies --which collectively negotiate with television stations in almost all of the nation's 210 television markets-- would play havoc with broadcasters' ability to negotiate retransmission consent agreements on anything approaching a competitively level playing field. Notably, those entities supporting the broadest third-party disclosure before the FCC and in this Court are either competing MVPDs or trade associations representing them."

NAB notes the "breathtaking scope" of the documents given the size of the transactions, pointing out the FCC also recognized that could be problematic. "One of the merging parties --DirecTV-- has retransmission consent agreements with television broadcasters in all but a handful of the nation's 210 television markets," said NAB. "Comcast, Time Warner, AT&T and Charter collectively have agreements covering most of the major television markets in the United States [the deal includes system spin-offs to Charter].

NAB suggested its stations are not interested in being part of the transaction --except the NBC stations owned by Comcast-- but that the FCC "has dragged our member stations unwillingly into the current controversy by permitting disclosure of their most confidential information to third parties who would use that information to disadvantage them."

NAB also says that release of the information does not square with the FCC's prior implementation of rules under the Trade Secrets Act that "confidential financial information can only be disclosed after a 'persuasive showing' of the need for disclosure. And under the FCC's long-standing interpretation of that mandate, confidential information should not be disclosed, even under a protective order, 'on the mere chance that it might be helpful.'"

The FCC adopted protective orders for the information that limit third party viewing to outside counsel and no one involved in "competitive decision-making." But NAB said that as a practical matter, nothing prevents outside counsel from using the knowledge gained to advise clients about FCC rulemakings governing programming negotiations or on negotiating strategies. Then there is the possibility that outside counsels become inside counsel, where it would be tough to "unknow" the "detailed, industry-wide" contract information in the documents.

"The Commission failed to give serious consideration to whether this sweeping disclosure was necessary, whether alternatives would meet third parties' needs, or whether the holes in its protective orders would render them nugatory," said NAB. "Under well-established standards, the ruling under review cannot be sustained."

Joining CBS in challenging the FCC decision were Scripps, Disney, Time Warner, Twenty First Century Fox, Univision, and Viacom.

A group of programmers have told a court that the FCC has not provided sufficient protections for confidential business information it is ready to share with some 260 outside parties.

CBS and other programmers filed the opening brief in their court challenge to the FCC's decision to let third parties see program contracts and work product as part of the FCC's review of the proposed Comcast/Time Warner Cable and AT&T/DirecTV mergers.

The U.S. Court of Appeals has stayed that FCC decision while it hears the underlying arguments.

In their opening brief, CBS, et al. provided three reasons the court should vacate the FCC's order disclosing contract info to third parties.

1. The FCC has not provided sufficient opportunity to review disclosure decisions beforehand, particularly given that they say a party alleged to be a competitive decision maker--precluded from viewing the documents per FCC protective orders--is being given access.

2. The FCC made no "persuasive showing" that disclosure was necessary.

3. The FCC had reasonable alternatives to disclosure, including releasing redacted or anonymized data, as they had requested. And if the FCC contends redaction would be unduly burdensome, that is only because it overreached in the amount of third-party contract info it demanded.

They also ask why the FCC did not require a particularized showing from third parties of how access to the information would help the FCC make the decision about the deals.

Then there is the issue of the number of outside parties the FCC is willing to share with. They say that if the FCC has to share all that confidential information, which it argues it doesn't, then it should have to minimize the risk of disclosure, which means limiting the number of exposures. Instead, "the protective orders in these cases have been signed by more than 260 individuals so far, and additional Outside Counsel or Outside Consultants are entitled to sign the protective orders if they represent an entity that merely intends to participate in these proceedings at some unspecified point in the future."

Joining CBS in challenging the FCC decision were Scripps, Disney, Time Warner, Twenty First Century Fox, Univision, and Viacom.

Intervening in support of the FCC and its decision are the American Cable Association and the parties to the two mergers, who don't want the decision delayed by extended court challenges.

The FCC has signaled that it may wait until the case is resolved before deciding on the mergers, which could push that decision into late spring of 2015. The FCC and its supporters will have a chance to make their cases in mid-January. Oral argument is scheduled for Feb. 20, but with a decision expected no earlier than April, according to one lawyer involved in the case, and perhaps as late as June. If the court ultimately ruled in the FCC's favor, the commission would likely give third parties a chance to see the documents and weigh in before deciding, which could mean mid-summer before a decision.