Groups opposing parts or all of the Comcast/NBCU merger will outline their beefs in a conference call Wednesday, Feb. 3, the day before back-to-back hearings on the $30 billion deal in the House and Senate.
Representatives of Media Access Project, the Communications Workers of America, Free Press, the American Cable Association and Wealth TV, whose program carriage complaint is still pending before the Federal Communications Commission, all argued that the FCC and the Justice Department need to look closely at a number of issues, including pricing, program diversity and access to programming on-ar as well as online.
Comcast does not disagree that the government needs to look at those issues, but says its conclusion should be that the deal is procompetitive, consumer-friendly and with voluntary conditions and existing FCC rules that protect access to, and carriage of, programming.
