Big Money from Big Media in Comcast-NBC Merger

Posted February 5th, 2010 by Josh Stearns

As the House and Senate held hearings to investigate Comcast’s takeover of NBC yesterday, something else became illuminated for the public: This was not the first time these members of Congress had sat down with Comcast.

Members of Congress mentioned meeting after meeting they’ve already had with Comcast and NBC officials and lobbyists, and could have pointed to those in the audience, mostly former policymakers and Capitol Hill staff who now work for Comcast, who have been selling this merger throughout Washington.

Indeed, the night before these hearings, a flurry of articles revealed the dramatic investment Comcast and NBC have made in trying to sway policy makers to support this deal.

Here’s what The Hill reported:

Comcast and NBC Universal’s parent company have showered campaign contributions on members of two panels holding hearings Thursday on the cable giant’s proposed purchase of the television network. Comcast and General Electric have already spent $474,000 on contributions to members of the panels, about 70 percent of what they spent over the entire political cycle of 2008.

And the Salt Lake Tribune:

General Electric Chairman Jeffery Immelt sent Sen. Orrin Hatch a $2,000 campaign contribution the same day his company announced a deal giving Comcast controlling interest in NBC Universal. It was the first time Immelt has donated to the Utah senator, and yet the contribution capped a fundraising barrage during the previous month where top GE vice presidents and the company’s political action committee funneled a total of $23,000 to Hatch’s campaign account. Hatch is expected to play a key role in the congressional review of the controversial merger.

And finally, The Washington Post:

The tale of Comcast’s remarkable rise in Washington tracks the story of how the cable giant built its business. In the same way that it aggressively grew its empire by acquiring one cable system at a time, the company has methodically added one lobbyist after another and steadily spread more money around the nation’s capital as its interests expanded beyond the television screen.

If this deal is in the public’s best interest, then why would Comcast and NBC need to spend this kind of money to grease the wheels in Washington? Comcast is hoping to use their big bank accounts to silence any protests about this merger. But across the country, in local communities, in Web forums, on Twitter and on Facebook, people are fed up with the media giant’s bad actions.

They may have the big bucks, but we have you. Help us raise just one day of Comcast CEO Brian Robert’s salary to fight back against this merger.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 5th, 2010 at 12:07 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.