FCC Asks for More Information From NBC in Comcast Deal in Second Request

The Federal Communications Commission asked Comcast and General Electric's NBC Universal to answer more questions about their advertising and broadcast agreements, raising the potential for the merger to take longer to complete.

In a second information request, the FCC wants to know about NBC Universal's top advertising partners, its advertising revenue and cable carriage agreements for NBC and Telemundo broadcast stations. The FCC asked for copies of agreements NBC Universal has to distribute its USA, Oxygen, Chiller and Sleuth through TV-service providers led by Time Warner Cable Inc., DirecTV, Dish Network Corp., Verizon Communications Inc. and AT&T.

Comcast, the largest U.S. cable-television company, was asked about agreements with other TV-service providers to carry its programming such as E! and the Golf Channel. Comcast was asked about agreements to carry channels the cable company owns including E!, regional sports networks, the Golf Channel, Style, Versus and Sprout. The FCC lodged 31 information requests for Comcast, and 10 for NBC Universal.

The FCC requested answers from the companies no later than October 18.