Consumers Union and Common Cause Urge FCC to Reject Comcast/Time Warner Cable Deal

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Consumers Union and Common Cause urged the Federal Communications Commission to reject Comcast's deal for Time Warner Cable.

It sounds a warning that the transaction would give Comcast too much control over video choices. “This merger would harm competition, impede innovation by online video distributors, threaten innovation in equipment and platforms and reduce the diversity of information sources and services to the public, all to the detriment of consumers and contrary to public interest,” the groups said in a joint filing with the agency. The organizations also struck out at a key argument the two companies have employed in asking the FCC and the Justice Department to approve the deal. That previous request claimed that the combination doesn't harm competition because TWC and Comcast operate cable systems in different markets. “By the logic of that narrow view, Comcast should be free to acquire every cable and Internet company throughout the country in every market it does not already serve — amassing a nationwide monopoly,” the groups said. The groups said the deal isn't fixable by imposing conditions. They suggested that the right approach for the FCC's review is to examine what the deal would do in giving a single company “unprecedented control over the means by which video programming is distributed to American consumers” and to reject it outright.


Consumers Union and Common Cause Urge FCC to Reject Comcast/Time Warner Cable Deal CU, Common Cause Ask FCC To Block Comcast/TWC (Multichannel News) Consumer groups to FCC: Reject Comcast merger (The Hill)