FCC likely to hire outsider to oversee NBC-Comcast review

The Federal Communications Commission may soon hire an outsider to oversee its review of Comcast's bid for NBC, in part to free up the commission's resources so that it may focus primarily on its new broadband agenda.

Typically, FCC chairmen task their own staff with such reviews, though they do occasionally outsource their work. But the NBC-Comcast deal presented the commission with a new challenge: how to coordinate a merger that "goes across bureaus," requires input from more than one of the FCC's divisions and touches everything from Web video to cable television. Outside help was consequently thought of as one way to keep the commission on track, the source added. That shift would at the same time free up other FCC staff members to focus their efforts on the National Broadband Plan.