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.”
We have all heard the old saying, “If it bleeds, it leads,” and most of us have seen the results of this flawed approach on our evening TV news. However, sometimes it’s what we don’t see that’s most worrying. If stories of crime and car accidents make headlines, what stories are left untold?
A new study from the Norman Lear Center at the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism tries to capture what is lost when our news is full of crime, weather, fluff and sports. For example, in L.A., crime stories led in one out of every three stories, but reporting about L.A.’s budget crisis “topped local news only one time out of 100.” The study also explored how L.A.’s TV stations compared to the L.A. Times coverage of local city government.
In the video below, Marty Kaplan, Director of the Normal Lear Center, discusses some of the report’s findings.
Comcast and NBC Universal executives were back in Congress last week to answer more questions about the proposed mega-merger of the two companies. Comcast CEO Brian Roberts and NBC’s Jeff Zucker tried to paint a rosy picture for the House Judiciary Committee about how the deal will be great for the industry, and shrugged off questions about future layoffs.
But Larry Cohen, President of the Communications Workers of America, wasn’t impressed. Neither was the President of the Independent Film & Television Alliance, Jean Prewitt.
The CWA, which represents network and content providers, has members who work for Comcast and NBC Universal. Cohen blasted Comcast for their strong anti-union tactics and trail of broken employee promises. He warned that the merger would “aggravate — not encourage — current anti-competitive behavior in the current television industry.”
Prewitt described to the committee how vertical integration has forced independent producers out of the TV industry and created the dearth of diverse and socially relevant programming that exists today. Five major conglomerates that now own the major broadcast and cable networks produce over 80 percent of all entertainment programming on primetime and on the three major children’s networks. Prewitt said that the percentage of independently produced series on the networks has declined from 50 percent in 1989 to 5 percent in 2008. And she expects those numbers to get worse with the Comcast-NBC deal.
Cohen and Prewitt urged lawmakers to create strong conditions for the merger that will protect consumers, workers, unions and independent content creators.
You can listen to Larry Cohen’s opening statement (audio 4:51) here. Jean Prewitt’s statement (audio 4:54) is here.
When we talk about the possible merger of Comcast and NBC-Universal, we are talking about a deal that will reshape our media system. As we consider the threats and opportunities this merger presents, we should ask ourselves what we want our media to look like in five years, in ten years, and even further into the future. If we envision a democratic, diverse media system, then this merger should raise some red flags.
Both Comcast CEO Brian Roberts and NBC CEO Jeff Zucker claimed in their opening remarks that they had made diversity a priority in their companies. But when pushed by representatives at the hearing, this commitment to diversity began to look as hollow and empty as all their other promises. Zucker claimed that NBC can’t find any good programming that includes African American themes and issues. Brian Roberts had no excuses for why his board includes just one woman and one person of color.
Watch:
Rep. Maxine Waters (D.-CA) summed it up when she said, “You’ve got a diversity problem, you’ve got a labor problem and you’ve got an ownership problem… So I don’t know why I should be supportive of your merger.”
But then, this is not a new issue for Comcast. In his book Comcasted, Joseph Distefano from the Philadelphia Inquirer, chronicles how Comcast built its media empire:
If we’re disturbed by how our media looks now, we should be even more worried about what will happen when these two companies team up. If we let this merger go through, this is what the future of our media system looks like. I personally don’t like what I see.
Monday, March 1st, 2010 by Felix Sanchez and Joseph Torres
Latino leaders are gathering in Philadelphia on Monday to meet with the top brass at Comcast and NBC Universal.
They’re being sold on why the merger of the biggest cable TV and residential broadband company in our country with one of the largest television networks and programmers allegedly would be good for the Latino community and the public interest.
The merger would give Comcast unprecedented control over the commanding heights of our nation’s media system. If allowed to go forward, Comcast would own the broadcast networks of NBC and Telemundo, part of at least 30 cable networks, eight regional sports networks, more than two dozen local NBC and Telemundo TV stations and a movie studio.
If this takeover goes through, the control that Comcast would exert over our TV and Internet experiences will be considerable. We can expect cable rates — which already have increased three times the rate of inflation since 1996 — to spike even higher. We can be sure it will be even harder for independent and diverse programming to find a spot in the cable lineup. And we know mergers almost always mean job cuts.
And let’s not kid ourselves. If this merger is rubber-stamped, it won’t be long before we see another wave of mergers among companies like Verizon, AT&T, CBS and Disney. That’s what always happens, even though these deals historically have been disastrous for consumers – and especially for people of color.
Historically, that’s why leading Latino organizations have been very skeptical of runaway media consolidation. When NBC announced its plan to buy Telemundo in 2001, many of our nation’s leading Latino groups opposed the transaction. They urged the FCC to reject the deal, claiming it wouldn’t serve the public interest or promote diversity.
But now that Comcast wants to buy NBC — which includes the Telemundo network — it will make this deal one of the most consequential media mergers in our nation’s history. But Latino civil rights groups have been strangely silent.
A decade ago, NBC made all sorts of promises about how the Telemundo deal would benefit local communities – and then it reneged on them. For starters, it cut the local Telemundo newscast in 2006 in major cities like Dallas, Houston, San Jose and San Antonio after promising to compete against Univision.
It also stated that the deal would “benefit NBC’s English-only audience by creating new possibilities for the cross-fertilization of ideas and viewpoints.” But those benefits never materialized.
Comcast, too, has a long record of making promises it doesn’t keep. For example, after promising to respect collective bargaining deals, it has turned around and busted the unions of companies it has taken over. That’s cold comfort for the union workers at NBC and Telemundo.
And we can’t overlook the programming. During a congressional hearing on Feb. 24, Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) lambasted NBC for the misogynistic and homophobic programming that airs on Telemundo, and he criticized Comcast for not having a single Latino board member.
In that same hearing, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) ripped Comcast for only having one African-American on its board, and took NBC to task for having only one African American and no Latinos among its top executives. Maybe that’s why there’s no black- or Latino-oriented programming on the network.
Comcast wants Congress to believe its bad actions are all in the past. But even in sworn testimony to Congress, the company is talking out of both sides of its mouth.
Comcast Chairman and CEO Brian Roberts promised Congress his company would abide by a series of self-imposed “public interest” concessions. But the list of promises they’ve offered is just a bunch of things they’re already doing, things they were already planning to do, or things they’re required to do by law.
It should be noted that Comcast has given generously to support the work of many leading Latino groups. But this does not justify or rectify the damage this merger would cause for consumers, for the public and for our community.
Comcast wants help from Latino groups to push through this mega-deal. But before offering their stamp of approval, we hope Latino leaders will ask some important questions: Will the merger increase cable prices? Will Comcast try to reject labor agreements? Will the merger increase the representation of Latinos on network and cable programming? Will it result in greater Latino ownership of broadcast stations and cable networks? Or will it increase the barriers to ownership?
Will Comcast make sure the open Internet stays that way so that small business can prosper and independent voices can be heard, even though it is in court trying to strip the FCC of its authority to protect an open Internet? Will we be better able to speak for ourselves or will this deal just create an even bigger gatekeeper?
Comcast and NBC Universal will undoubtedly make all sorts of promises about how Latinos would benefit from this massive merger. But they don’t have a believable answer for how this merger will actually benefit our community.
That’s because it won’t.
Felix Sanchez is the chairman of the National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts and Chief Executive Officer of TerraCom, a government and public relations firm. Sanchez does not represent nor is receiving direct or indirect compensation to take a position on the merger.
Joseph Torres is the government relations manger for Free Press and former deputy director of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. Free Press is a nonpartisan, nonprofit group that does not accept money from businesses, the government or political parties.
It was another bruising day for Comcast and NBC on Capitol Hill. The House Judiciary Committee seemed to be taking a page from Sen. Al Franken – asking tough questions, calling CEOs Roberts and Zucker out on their meager talking points, and articulating serious concerns about Comcast’s proposed takeover of NBC-Universal.
As noted in the headlines above, the issue of jobs and diversity were lightning rods at this hearing, and some of the questioning left Roberts and Zucker stammering.
One highlight included Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) running down the list of board members for each company and noting the extraordinarily low number of women and people of color in the companies’ leadership. Neither company has any Latinos on its board, even though NBC owns one of the nation’s largest Spanish-language TV networks, Telemundo. “A board can tell us a lot about an organization,” Rep Waters said in response to the CEOs’ claims of prioritizing diversity.
Another highlight came when Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D- Ill.) reminded NBC’s Zucker about the labor promises NBC made and then broke when it acquired Telemundo. Earlier in the hearing, Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-Texas), also frustrated about the companies’ past labor practices, made both Roberts and Zucker publicly commit to schedule a meeting in the near future with Larry Cohen, president of the Communications Workers of America.
For full coverage of the event, read the articles above or watch the nearly eight-hour hearing archived on C-Span.
Just days after an important media ownership hearing in South Carolina, one of the nation’s biggest media conglomerates illustrates why Big Media mean fewer diverse voices and less local news.
On Tuesday, the Federal Communications Commission held a workshop in South Carolina as part of its regular review of media ownership laws. It was just two years ago that the FCC flew in the face of Congress and 99 percent of the American public and tried to relax these same ownership laws and permit more media cross-ownership.
The panels focused on broadcast radio and TV. In the past, many local TV and radio stations ignored these hearings. It has always been difficult to get the media to cover the policy debates that shape their industry.
So we were surprised and pleased to see two reports about the FCC event from local TV stations in South Carolina. However, when we went to the WSPA (CBS Channel 7) and WJBF (ABC channel 6) Web sites, it turns out that they posted the exact same story.
A case of plagiarism? Nope – actually something a little more disconcerting. The two supposedly different and competing news stations are engaged in “news sharing,” giving the public the same news and perspective on both channels.
WSPA and WJBF are owned by Media General, one of the nation’s largest media conglomerates. Usually ABC and CBS stations would compete in an effort to produce the best news and attract local viewers, but instead these two stations share newsroom operations and just recycle stories across their sites. If the FCC had any questions about the impact of media consolidation, they should just look no further than at how these South Carolina stations reported on the FCC hearing held in the same state.
It’s interesting to note that the author of the duplicate news story doesn’t seem to be employed by either newsroom (where are the reporters?), but by an advertising company owned by Media General. Joseph Kasko’s e-mail address is listed as jkasko@florencenews.com, but Florencenews.com redirects to an advertising agency for local newspapers.
Digging a little deeper gives us an even more troubling picture of the ways that media consolidation has gutted the media system in South Carolina and surrounding states. In addition to WSPA, WJBF lists four other partner newsrooms that they collaborate with: WSAV, SCNow, WRBL, WCBD. When they are not recycling news stories among these partner stations, WJBF is simply posting links to Associated Press stories – an accepted industry practice gone awry at this station; of the eight “top news stories” on WJBF, every single one was from the AP.
This is media consolidation at work. As more and more of our vital public airwaves are put in the hands of fewer and fewer companies, we can expect to see a lot more of this news sharing between stations, leaving us with less local news, more layoffs, and the same story on every channel.
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.
Senator Al Franken stole the show at this week’s Senate hearing on Comcast’s proposed takeover of NBC-Universal. As a former employee of NBC and a long-time media insider, Franken unleashed a scathing critique of both Comcast and NBC, outlining their long history as corporate bad actors with a string of broken promises.
Franken drew on his years as a writer and performer on “Saturday Night Live,” arguing that previous actions by both companies give him “reason to be very concerned about this potential merger.” However, Franken did not just feel betrayed by past actions. At the hearing, he argued that Comcast CEO Brian Roberts had misled him about the company’s commitment to public interest concessions. It turns out that Comcast promised Senator Franken that FCC rules would protect the public and prevent the company from discriminating against competing video distributors and programmers even while Comcast was trying to get those rules thrown out.
Witnesses at the hearing pointed out that, in addition to challenging the existence of rules, Comcast is the frequent subject of complaints from rival programmers and cable operators for violating the rules. The company has also been cited for lying to the FCC about blocking Internet users’ access to a competing a video application.
“You’ll have to excuse me if I don’t trust these promises,” Franken said in his remarks.
While Sen. Franken was the most vocal in his concerns about this merger, he was far from alone. Sen. Kohl, the chairman of the subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights, Sen. Klobuchar and Sen. Feingold were also skeptical about the deal. There was a significant amount of concern about what this deal would mean for local affiliate stations, local sports coverage, small businesses and jobs.
Andy Schwartzman from the Media Access Project and Mark Cooper of Consumers Federation of America offered powerful arguments against the merger.
Schwartzman focused his criticism on the ways this merger would impact the nation at large. “Concentration of control in the mass media poses unique questions for policymakers and regulators,” Schwartzman argued. “Unlike any other line of business, media properties raise important questions which go to the very nature of democratic self-governance.”
He pointed to three threats this merger poses: It would increase Comcast’s power to squeeze out independent programmers with diverse editorial perspectives; give the merged company vastly increased power over content distribution markets; and, jeopardize development of a free and open Internet. Cooper, instead, honed in on the unique local issues raised by this deal. Comcast competes head to head with NBC for eyeballs and advertising revenue in at least 11 cities. These 11 markets account for nearly a quarter of U.S. TV households.
Cooper argued that the decreased competition in these cities will have a chilling effect, leading to a greater consolidation of voices and viewpoints.
“NBC and Comcast do not sell widgets,” Cooper reminded the Senators. “They sell news and information and access to the primary platforms Americans use to receive this news and information. Control over production and distribution of information has critical implications for society and democracy.” Franken echoed this statement, “It matters who owns our media. When one company owns the production and distribution of content it gives reason for concern.”
Comcast CEO Brian Roberts stammered through the afternoon, clearly caught off guard by the hard questioning. Members of both the House and the Senate ended their hearings calling for further investigation, and future hearings with the Department of Justice and the Federal Communications Commission.
One thing was clear at the end of the day: This deal is far from a sure thing.
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.
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.
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.
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.
