ACA, NTCA Raise Comcast/TWC Issues

Author: 
Coverage Type: 

The American Cable Association and NTCA: The Rural Broadband Association, wrote the Senate Judiciary Committee in advance of the hearing on the proposed Comcast/TWC merger saying that as currently constituted it would cause harms to consumers and competition.

They say Comcast's public interest statement, which includes a number of voluntary conditions, many it would be extending from those in its NBCU deal, are not sufficient to address its concerns about the impact "downstream" on the MVPDs, "upstream" on the video programming industry via a combined company's 16 regional sports networks, and the combination of Comcast's programming assets and TWC's distribution assets, which include systems in New York and Los Angeles, the top two markets. They argue the deal has both horizontal and vertical components and that the deal needs to be vetted for both.

As for vertical issues, they say the merged company would have an incentive to disadvantage competing MVPDs by withholding programming. They concede Comcast has offered up conditions—which include nondiscriminatory access to online and video programming -- but they say that, while well intended, those are hardly sufficient to solve the problems in the deal.


ACA, NTCA Raise Comcast/TWC Issues