Comcast Is Not The Future of News

As the Federal Communications Commission takes a hard look at the impacts of the Comcast/NBC-Universal merger, the companies are doing their dog and pony show for anyone who will listen.

Along with pledging that the merger will spur competition, promote innovation and increase diversity, Comcast and NBCU this week made another outrageous claim: The merger will support the future of journalism.

At a meeting with staff from the FCC’s “Future of Media Proceeding,” lawyers for Comcast and NBCU made the case for how their merger will impact the future of local news in America. The companies suggested their merger would further the FCC’s goal to bring quality, diverse reporting to local communities and would “nurture the next generation of professional journalists.”

Also, everyone will get a pony! (The last one is made up, but it’s about as likely as their other promises).

Comcast and NBCU are trying to convince us and the FCC that allowing a single corporation to control cable operations, Internet access, movie studios, broadcast and cable networks, and local broadcast stations will bring us better journalism. It’s time for a reality check on Comcast and NBCU’s wild promises and a fact check on their past performance with regards to serving communities with quality journalism.

Big Promises = Small Impacts
Comcast and NBCU promise that NBC stations will collectively provide an additional 1,000 hours per year of local programming. Let’s do the math: 1,000 hours divided by the ten NBC owned and operated stations is only 16 minutes per day, per station. Comcast and NBCU claim that the merger will promote “a stronger system of free over-the-air broadcasting,” but their promises just don’t add up.

Quantity or Quality? Neither.
More telling than the issue of quantity is the issue of quality. When Comcast and NBC say they will do more local programming, they don’t actually explain what kind of programming it will be. They don’t promise that the programming will be locally produced or even whether it will address local news or public affairs. The danger is that rather than invest in genuine local news programming, Comcast and NBC will fill this already meager promise by airing more of the same celebrity news and gossip.

No News for Telemundo
While Comcast has made a half-hearted nod to local news on NBC, it has made no promises to invest in local programming for the Spanish language Telemundo stations. When NBCU bought Telemundo a few years ago, it quickly gutted Spanish language local news operations. In 2002, NBCU promised to expand news on Telemundo, but instead of investing resources to improve local news service to Spanish language communities, NBCU laid-off 700 employees. They also eliminated local newscasts at Telemundo stations in Houston, Dallas, Denver, San Jose and Phoenix, replacing them with a single “hubbed” newscast out of Fort Worth, Texas.

More Reruns, Less News
Telemundo’s viewers have already suffered from NBCU’s last bout of media consolidation and now neither Comcast or NBCU is promising to invest in any new local news programming for Telemundo stations. Instead, their offering to re-run a bunch of old Telemundo shows on a new channel. This means no new investment in up and coming Latino producers or reporters, no new investment in Spanish language news coverage, and essentially, no real investment in Spanish speaking media. So, it appears that many of the reductions to local news and programming that were perpetrated in NBCU’s initial takeover of Telemundo will be compounded by Comcast’s takeover of NBCU.

Comcast has been making outlandish promises at almost the same rate it has been making outlandish campaign contributions. Past mergers have shown that it’s easy to get media giants to make bold promises before the deal is done, but once approval is granted, these promises succumb to bottom-line pressures. Even the best intentions, absent concrete enforcement, rarely translate into action.

In other words, if I had to bet on which of these promises is most likely to materialize, I’d put my money on the pony.

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FCC Wants More Answers from Comcast and NBC

This week, the Federal Communications Commission announced that it is looking deeper into the proposed merger between Comcast and NBC-Universal. In letters to both firms, the FCC asked a series of questions about the companies’ plans to deploy broadband service to unserved and/or underserved areas, and information about competition.

Free Press Policy Counsel Corie Wright commended the FCC for scrutinizing the merger’s impact on the media marketplace. “The FCC should leave no stone unturned in reviewing the proposed union between Comcast and NBC Universal,” she said. “The FCC’s job is to ensure that this merger is in the public interest. So far, Comcast and NBC have failed to meet their burden of demonstrating that the merger would benefit competition or consumers.”

The FCC’s letter comes on the heels of the announcement that Comcast COO Steve Burke is taking the reins at NBC as Jeff Zucker steps down. The move indicates that Comcast and NBCU consider the merger a done deal, despite ongoing review by both the FCC and the Department of Justice.

Businesses and Public interest groups, including Free Press, don’t think Comcast and NBC should count their chickens just yet. In a letter to the White House this week, the Coalition for Competition in Media wrote, “While Comcast continues to court regulators and the Congress, it has simultaneously begun to form the corporate infrastructure for the currently unapproved combined entity, Comcast-NBCU…Comcast’s actions are a complete affront to the regulatory process and the job asked of your administration to protect consumers and competition.”

If approved, the merger would represent the first time that a content provider and a distributor merged, setting the stage for future transactions that would transform our media landscape.

A lot of questions remain about the companies’ intentions and the impact of a merger of this magnitude. The FCC should use the next few weeks to cut through the company’s extreme lobbying efforts and leadership swaps to find out whether it’s possible for one company with so much control to actually serve the public interest.

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