Your Calls Were Answered
Posted March 12th, 2010 by Josh Stearns
This week we asked our members to contact members of the Senate Commerce Committee before Thursday’s hearing on Comcast’s proposed takeover of NBC Universal. In turn, hundreds of people called their senators and made the case for why the Comcast deal would be bad for local consumers and citizens.
Judging by Thursday’s hearing, the Senate got the message. Senators on both sides of the aisle voiced concerns about this mega-merger.
Early in the day, Sen. Maria Cantwell took a strong stand against the takeover. “At this point, I can’t support the merger,” Cantwell said. Quoting local organizations, citizens and newspapers — all of whom had come out against the merger — Sen. Cantwell pointed out, “obviously we like media diversity in the Northwest.” She then reminded the audience that the last time the FCC came to Seattle, more than a thousand people turned out (with less than a week’s notice) to argue against further media consolidation.
When it was Sen. Claire McCaskill’s turn at the mic, she warned, “This is pointed, but that’s kinda my job here.” She then went on to call out Comcast on its hypocrisy and broken promises. “If you are relying on the program access rules to reassure people about this deal – isn’t it true you are in court challenging those very program access rules as we speak?” Comcast CEO Brian Roberts danced around the issue, without giving much of an answer.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar is the only Senator on both the Judiciary and Commerce committees, so this was her second time in the ring with Comcast CEO Brian Roberts (the Judiciary Committee held a hearing last month). Her focus was on how this deal would impact consumers. “What assurances can you give that this merger will not result in higher prices for consumers?” she asked. She also pointed out the real threats the merger would pose for competition: “There are concerns over the leverage you would have over both your video distribution competitors, your program distribution competitors” Without clear protections, she warned, Comcast could have an unfair advantage over competitors.
Tired of seeing so many media mergers pass through Washington with little or no scrutiny, Sen. Olympia Snowe cut right to the chase, “Obviously there has been a perception in the past that some of these mergers have been rubber stamped especially amongst media related mergers.” The results, she argued, have been troubling. “The number of independent radio produces has plunges by 39 % in last 11 year years. Between 1995 and 2003 owners of the top TV stations have increased their ownership of stations from 144 to 299.” In response, Christine Varney, the Department of Justice staffer who is leading the Comcast investigation, assured Sen. Snowe, “There is no rubber stamp at the Department of Justice.”
Sen. Mark Begich’s line of questioning focused more on getting some facts on the table, and those facts were startling. He asked Comcast’s Roberts to outline the total combined revenue of NBC and Comcast ($50 billion) and the total number of cable subscribers Comcast has (24 million). Begich also asked Roberts to guess how much they are planning to make on this deal in the long term. Roberts responded that they are expecting a “double digit” rate of return on their investment in NBC.
It was these sorts of facts that made Sen. Byron Dorgan concerned that this deal was just another case of Big Media getting even bigger. Dorgan, who has been a long-time advocate for strong media ownership laws to limit media consolidation, promised that “If [the merger] is approved it would have be approved with conditions.”
