FCC Releases Details From Comcast, NBCU Meeting
The FCC Monday released some details - though not much - of a private meeting held on Friday to discuss economic issues related to Comcast's merger with NBC Universal.
Among the few details included in the disclosure document filed with FCC Secretary Marlene H. Dortch was who attended the meeting. The meeting was divided up into two panels with the first focused on multichannel video programming distributors.
The first panel included economists representing Comcast and NBCU: Michael L. Katz, director of the University of California at Berkeley's Center for Telecommunications and Digital Convergence, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research Deputy Director Gregory L. Rosston and Mark Israel, senior vice president of the economics consulting firm Compass Lexecon. Critics of the deal also attended including Northwestern University economics professor William P. Rogerson, who representated the American Cable Association, and Bloomberg representative Leslie M. Marx, a Duke University economics professor.
The second panel focused on online issues and included other critics of the deal, according to the disclosure filed by William D. Freedman, associate chief of the FCC's Media Bureau. Among those on the second panel were Consumer Federation of America Research Director Mark Cooper, Navigant Economics Managing Director Hal Singer, who represented the Communications Workers of America, and University of Southern California economic professor Simon Wilkie, who attended on behalf of Internet service provider Earthlink and the satellite programming provider DISH Network.
Critics assert that the merger will hurt competition and media diversity. Comcast argues that those concerns are misplaced and that the transaction will strengthen marketplace competition and benefit consumers.
The merger is being weighed by both the FCC and the Justice Department.
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