Sanders Calls On Justice To Block NBC-Comcast Merger

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) called on the Justice Department to block Comcast's proposed merger with NBC Universal, saying combining the nation's biggest cable company with a major content provider will drive up cable television prices and hamper competition.

In a letter to Christine Varney, assistant attorney general for antitrust, Sen Sanders said the merger would likely result in "substantially lessening" competition in the video programming market and the cable TV and online distribution markets. "The proposed Comcast-NBCU merger poses substantial new risks not seen in past transactions because of both its size and the dynamic evolution of distribution models for video content," Sen Sanders wrote. "These risks go above and beyond even the hypothetical ameliorative potential of current [Federal Communications Commission] and statutory protections. We're the merger to be approved I have little doubt that Comcast-NBCU would retain hundreds of attorneys and lobbyists to exploit the gaps and loopholes in current regulations."