Comcast, NBC argue against sharing with Internet TV

Comcast and NBC Universal executives met with senior officials at the Federal Communications Commission, urging the agency against conditions to their proposed merger that would require the new company to provide shows and movies to Internet video distributors.

Comcast executive vice president of content acquisition, Matt Bond, and Kathy Zachem, vice president of regulatory affairs, joined NBC general counsel Rick Cotton to argue against conditions. They met, according to an ex parte filing, with the FCC’s senior counsel on the merger, John Flynn, and Chairman Julius Genachowski’s chief counsel, Rick Kaplan. “The program access rules were designed to regulate traditional linear delivery of video programming, a market with an established business model,” Comcast and NBC wrote in their filing. “In the nascent, rapidly-evolving online video market where there is no established business model, it would be difficult as a practical matter to compare distributors for purposes of determining whether a programmer had unreasonably discriminated against a distributor.” The companies said the FCC needs to more clearly define what an online video distributor is if it were to establish program-access rules for the Internet.