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UPDATES: ABC/CBS/Fox Affiliates Demand Meeting With Comcast About NBCU Deal
With the deadline looming for the FCC to receive comments by May 3rd and reply comments by June 17th, expect to see more opposition surface to the Comcast/NBCU deal. Here’s the letter which Tim Busch, the head of CBS affiliates, just circulated to his stations:
March 29, 2010
Dear CBS Affiliate:
Your Association is carefully monitoring the proposed merger of Comcast and NBC Universal. We are concerned that the proposed merger would competitively disadvantage CBS affiliates by reposing an unprecedented level of media market power in a single, vertically integrated cable/television broadcast network company. Our specific concern is that Comcast/NBCU would have incentives to competitively disadvantage and discriminate against non-NBC affiliated stations in terms of Comcast’s cable carriage, retransmission consent negotiations, and advertising and promotion practices.
To that end, upon the direction of your Board, I have conferred with the FOX and ABC Affiliate Associations, along with legal counsel, for the purpose of communicating our concerns to the FCC. We are in the process at the moment of arranging a meeting with Comcast in the hope that Comcast will voluntarily agree to have certain regulatory conditions incorporated in any FCC approval of the merger to assure non-discriminatory and fair treatment of CBS-affiliated stations following the merger.
The FCC has announced a deadline of May 3 for comments and June 17 for reply comments.
We will keep you informed of our efforts and welcome your helpful thoughts and suggestions on this important issue. In that regard, please feel free to reach out to your district representative or any Board member at anytime in the near future.
Sincerely,
Tim Busch, Chairman
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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The merger shouldn’t be allowed.
They’re taking public comments in opposition to the Comcast-NBC merger at http://www.fcc.gov Freepress.net also has a portal to make filing comments easier & if your views fit with theirs you can submit comments through their site pretty easily.
Where’s Teddy Roosevelt when we need him? Not only should the FCC prevent this deal, they should break up the major media conglomerates that already exist.
Agreed, but CBS opposing the merger is sort of like King Kong asking a traffic cop to protect him from Godzilla.
While they are at it, get rid of the sin-fin. That’s a major reason networks are suffering
It’s fin-syn, and getting rid of it made the networks rich; it’s a couple of hundred thousand indie producers, companies, directors, writers, crew, and performers whom getting rid of it hurt.
Blame it on a bit of dyslexia. I MEANT fin-sin. Thanks for the correction.
I wasn’t referring to profits when talking about networks suffering. I was talking about ratings.
They are quick to blame the boom of cable and the internet, but with showing favoritism to your own moderately-rated programs instead of higher rated (more expensive) ones done by others, the ratings have been going farther and farther down.
Look at the CW. When it was The WB, Angel (from 20th Century FOX) got 3.5 million viewers back in its 4th season – and that was considered moderate. There were talks of not bringing it back.
Later, CW was created as a way to broadcast only the co-owners’ studio work (CBS & WB). Flashforward to today, and that 3.5 million would be considered a smash hit.
Once again, that’s just an example, so go back to the second paragraph for the main point. it’s amazing how ratings have dropped since the fin-sin rule was thrown out