Comcast Can’t Be Trusted
Posted February 24th, 2010 by Josh Stearns
Every day it becomes more and more clear that Comcast and NBC are willing to do whatever it takes to shove their merger down the throats of Congress and the American people. Comcast has a long history of saying one thing and doing another, a trend that has continued in recent weeks. This doesn’t bode well for the future of American media.
Every time Comcast makes a promise, it seems to have its fingers crossed behind its back.
For example, earlier this month, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts promised Sens. Al Franken and Arlen Specter that his company would abide by critical pro-competition “program access” rules established by the Federal Communications Commission. However, at the same time Comcast was pouring money into a court case trying to overturn those same rules.
We can’t let this merger skate through on the back of meaningless promises like this.
Comcast still hasn’t withdrawn from this lawsuit – raising real questions about whether the company can be trusted to follow through on its commitment to pro-competition rules. Now that the lights and cameras are off, no one is holding them to it.
“What Comcast conveniently failed to tell regulators is that it has no intention of letting the FCC rules remain in place,” said Andrew Jay Schwartzman, president and CEO of Media Access Project. “If Comcast is successful in eliminating the ban, the FCC’s current program access rules would no longer exist, and Comcast’s commitment will have vanished before the merger review is even concluded.”
Comcast also promised that this merger would have little or no impact on jobs, and that the company would honor all union contracts in place at NBC after the merger. But Larry Cohen, president of the Communications Workers of America, has real doubts about these promises. “What does it say about Comcast’s overall ‘public interest commitments’ when it so clearly is working to undercut public policy for program access?”
Indeed, last December, when Comcast and NBC Universal announced their $30 billion merger, they also announced an assortment of “public interest” commitments that were nothing more than promises to do what is mandated by law. “Comcast is either promising to do what it was already planning to do or simply what it is required to do by law,” says Corie Wright, policy counsel here at Free Press. “I don’t think Comcast can just tie a bow around the status quo and call it a public interest commitment.”
Consumer and industry groups are calling on Comcast prove they can be trusted by backing out of the lawsuit they are currently pursuing against the FCC. We sent the letter a week ago, and so far we haven’t seen any response. No surprise there.
Once again, Comcast shows they can’t be trusted.
Read the full letter here: www.freepress.net/file/Comcast_Program_Access_Litigation_Letter.pdf
