These are the FCC merger hawks who’ll decide your cable future

[Commentary] The most interesting people on the Federal Communications Commission’s team that will review the Comcast-Time Warner Cable and the AT&T-DirecTV deals come from outside.

One of them, Jamillia Ferris, spent several years during the first Obama Administration in the Justice Department's antitrust division in various roles, including as chief of staff. Ferris will be looking at the AT&T-DirecTV deal. Then there's William Rogerson, the economics chair at Northwestern University. Rogerson served as the chief economist of the FCC during the Clinton administration. He'll be the senior economist overseeing both the AT&T-DirecTV deal as well as the Comcast-TWC deal, at least where the FCC is concerned. Rounding out the outside hires is Shane Greenstein, a management professor at Northwestern who studies communications. Consumer advocates and analysts largely agree that the lineup will likely require the companies to tread carefully. "Outside hires for merger reviews aren’t unusual, but these particular officials certainly bring heavy-duty antitrust expertise," said Paul Gallant, a telecom analyst at Guggenheim Securities. "I think the chairman's message is that these deals will not be a cakewalk."