"We continue to believe that while a December conclusion is possible--particularly if Comcast trades additional concessions for speed--the most likely timing is that it will extend into early 2011," the report notes.

The proposed union of the two companies has come under much scrutiny with public interest groups and Comcast's industry competitors saying the merger will hamper competition and raise prices for the consumer. Comcast refutes these claims arguing that these concerns are misplaced and that the transaction will strengthen marketplace competition and benefit customers.

The FCC recently asked Comcast and NBC Universal for extensive information and documents on programming deals and other issues related to the commission's review. The request for this additional information is not uncommon, the report noted, but it "increases the likelihood the government's review will not be completed until early next year."

Comcast, who had hoped to complete the merger this year, did not respond to a request for comment.

UPDATE: 4:20 pm

"we continue to expect regulatory approvals by year-end," a spokesperson for Comcast said.

CDT examined a dozen cases in which YouTube and other online sites were sent notices demanding that online videos be taken down because they allegedly infringed the senders' copyrighted material. CDT claimed in its report that all 12 cases it examined involved short clips of copyrighted works that are covered under the U.S. doctrine of fair use and therefore should not have been removed.

The 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act provides protection from liability for Internet service providers, online sites and other intermediaries who take down infringing material when notified of its existence on their networks or Web sites.

"We actually think the DMCA notice and take-down process ... is a good and balanced approach," CDT Senior Policy Counsel David Sohn said during a conference call with reporters. "The problem is that the process is being abused."

Given the growing importance of online ads in modern campaigns, meritless requests for take-downs under the DMCA sent to sites like YouTube threaten online political speech, Sohn said.

"Advocacy organizations and individual candidates increasingly rely on [user-generated content] platforms to communicate more directly with voters. In addition, such sites have given individuals powerful new platforms for expressing their opinions and participating in the political process," according to the report. "Therefore, if spurious DMCA takedowns targeting such online advocacy are widespread, the impact on political speech - highly protected under the First Amendment - could be significant."

CDT noted that its report was prompted by an incident from the 2008 presidential campaign when Republican presidential nominee John McCain's campaign complained in a letter to YouTube about several incidents when online videos posted by the campaign on the site had been taken down after YouTube was sent take-down notices under the DMCA from parties claiming infringement. In the letter, the McCain campaign argued that such take downs were unjustified because the material at issue was covered under fair use.

The allegedly meritless take-down notices CDT identified involved a number of news organizations including Christian Broadcasting Network, Fox News, MSNBC and National Public Radio, CDT said.

CDT said the cases it examined were not motivated by copyright concerns but often related to issues not covered by the DMCA such as "concerns over reputation and false endorsement." CDT also argued that given the widespread use of what it deems as meritless take-down notices, safeguards included in the DMCA to challenge such notices "have not been effective," particularly when they involve ads from campaigns that may not have the time or resources to challenge take-down notices.

YouTube did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report.

In December, Bluewater productions will publish "Mark Zuckerberg: Creator of Facebook," a 48 page biographical comic book. The comic, written by Jerome Maida and penciled by Sal Field, will sell for $6.99.

"This is a fascinating story," Maida said. "Mark was offered loads of money at a young age and turned all his suitors down because deep down he knew he had higher goals than to work for someone else."

The book attempts to identify the real Mark Zuckerberg, someone in between a cold-blooded business man and a benevolent donor of millions to public schools.

"Rightly or wrongly, Mark dealt harshly with some people on his way to where he is today," Maida said. "I try my best to be fair here."

Facebook declined to comment on the pending comic.

In other news about the social media giant, Facebook DC Live launched on Monday with a broadcast from the Future of Music Coalition's policy summit. Check out the video here to see attendees chat with FB spokesperson Andrew Noyes about net neutrality and how social media has impacted the music industry, among other topics.

*Incidentally, Jerome Maida is not the alter-ego of Sara Jerome, the technology reporter at The Hill.

"We urge your administration to ensure this unprecedented combination receives the scrutiny that it deserves," the letter concluded.

The signatories, also known as the Coalition for Competition in Media, attacked Comcast in the note saying the company's lobbying efforts "are a complete affront to the regulatory process and the job asked of your administration to protect consumers and competition."

In particular, the coalition took issue with Comcast's recent announcement that Steve Burke, currently chief operating officer at Comcast, will lead the united companies upon completion of the merger. The release wrongly assumed "the merger was a foregone conclusion," the coalition noted.

Opponents of the merger say it will harm competition and consumers by potentially leading to higher prices and fewer choices for programming. The matter is currently under review by the FCC and the Justice Department.

The letter comes shortly after it was revealed that Comcast executive vice president David L. Cohen had a meeting last April with Rahm Emanuel, Obama's former chief of staff. A spokesperson for Comcast told Broadcasting and Cable that Emanuel and Cohen discussed the merger among other topics. Cohen and Emanuel have been friends for several decades, the spokesperson noted.

UPDATE: 3:30 pm

In response to the letter, Comcast refuted the assertions made by the coalition in the following statement:

"The Comcast NBCU transaction has already been the most thoroughly reviewed merger in media history - with the longest FCC comment period and the most congressional hearings, six, of any similar transaction. For a lobbying coalition funded by our competitors to imply the review of this transaction has not been deliberate and thorough is insulting to the Congress, the FCC, and the Department of Justice. We're proud of the over 1,000 local community organizations, elected officials, diversity organizations and others that have expressed their support for this transaction that is pro-competitive and fully in the public interest."

The Future of Music Coalition, as part of two-day forum, hosts an 11:00 am policy panel to discuss ways government can foster the presence of music in American culture. Speakers include Ron Sims, Deputy Secretary of Housing and Urban Development and Michael Bracy, co-founder and policy director, Future of Music Coalition.

Tuesday
The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation hosts a 9:30 am discussion about the political landscape of the Internet. Speakers include ITIF president Rob Atkinson and Tech Daily Dose reporter, Juliana Gruenwald.

The Future of Music Coalition, as part of a two-day forum, hosts 10:00 am speech by Victoria Espinel, US Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator at the Office of Management and Budget.

The New America Foundation hosts a 4:00 pm discussion on "Public Media in a Digital Age: Broadcast, Broadband and Beyond." Speakers include Josh Silver, president and CEO of Free Press and Mark Thompson, director general of the British Broadcasting Corporation.

The Institute for Policy Innovation holds an evening reception on the Capitol as part of the communications summit, "Crisis or Opportunity : A Regulatory Crossroads"

Wednesday
The Institute for Policy Innovation holds a all-day communications forum, "Crisis or Opportunity : A Regulatory Crossroads." Speakers include Veronica Bloodworth, VP of network management at AT&T and Larry Plumb, executive director of emerging issues and technology policy at Verizon.

The new gallery at the Washington-based museum focused on the news industry is set to open in 2012. It will explore how technology has affected how information is reported, distributed and accessed.

"Technology is changing the face of news," HP Vice President Philip McKinney, chief technology officer for HP's personal systems group, said during a news conference to announce the gift. He and others noted how social media and blogs are changing how information is disseminated today and that the exhibit will change with time to reflect future technologies used to help spread information.

McKinney and other HP officials said the company would be using some of the new technologies developed by researchers at HP's labs as part of the new exhibit.

At an event sponsored by the Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy, Leibowitz and other speakers at the event discussed the importance of journalism to an informed and democratic society.

Among the ideas the commission is considering proposing is allowing new news organizations or blogs to apply for loans from the Small Business Administration and promoting transparency and access to government records, Leibowitz said.

Leibowitz dismissed the idea of providing news organizations with an antitrust exemption, saying "I'm not sure that would be a good policy."

He added that "government shouldn't be picking winners and losers and [any proposal] should be platform neutral."

Leibowitz's remarks at the Newseum were interrupted by a fire alarm, which prompted him to quip as the crowd got up to file out that "the enemies of journalism are making us leave here." When the crowd returned, he finished his stand-up comic moment by joking that the alarm was not caused by "the enemies of journalism," but by a boiler problem.

The main message about technology, the study shows, is that it makes life more productive--but that idea is followed closely by the notion that the Internet is not secure.

Conducted from June 2009 to June 2010, the report aimed to examine how the media reports on technology when it reaches the top of the American news agenda. Pew researchers analyzed 437 tech-related stories that appeared in the lead sections of 52 different news outlets.

The study found that technology seldom makes it to the lead sections of main stream media outlets. Tech articles made it to the front of the news less than 1.6 percent of the time ranking 20th out of 26 subject areas identified by Pew.

While the positive theme about technology outpaced the negative one, by a narrow margin, the single biggest storyline of the year involved the hazardous practice of texting while driving. Pew found that "Nearly one-in-ten technology stories were about this subject, more than five times the coverage of either the U.S. plan for broadband access or net neutrality."

The study also found that Apple generated the most media coverage of tech companies, slightly ahead of Google, and that the most popular topic of tech stories reviewed (18 percent) concerned social changes and cultural trends.

Top aides to Genachowski -- Chief of Staff Eddie Lazarus, Senior Counselor Josh Gottheimer, Chief Counsel and Senior Legal Advisor Rick Kaplan and agency spokeswoman Jen Howard -- gave reporters plenty to chew on.

As word leaked out about the off-the-record gathering, they were mum about who cooked up the idea and whether it was part of a new charm offensive aimed at burnishing the image of the agency, which was raked over the coals this summer during a protracted battle over broadband policy.

In an e-mail, Howard said the event was "the first in a series of informal chats with those who are on the FCC reporting beat." Officials declined to answer other questions about the event.

The dinner featured cheese pizza, Heineken beer and both red and white wine. A few journalists who attended said they didn't find the gathering particularly useful and that in typical form, the notoriously scripted Genachowski did not reveal anything substantive. While there were attempts to pepper the regulators with questions, one source panned the dinner as more akin to a "schmooze" than a news briefing.

Genachowski, who has repeatedly claimed to run an open and transparent FCC, appears to have a penchant for shadowy meetings. In July 2009, shortly after taking the helm at the agency, he held an off-the-record "meet and greet" with reporters who were advised beforehand that he wouldn't be taking tough questions.

Over the summer, the agency drew criticism for a series of clandestine sessions with telecommunications industry lobbyists that it originally insisted were not subject to its public disclosure rules. After an outcry from critics, the agency reversed itself by declaring those rules would apply after all.

In the post, Buckmaster chides Lyon for now seeking an interview about claims that Craiglist's adult services ads help promote prostitution, including sex trafficking of children, after promoting Lyon's impromptu interview with Newmark for weeks. Craigslist has come under increasing scrutiny for its adult services ads. Last week, a group of state attorneys general wrote Buckmaster and Newmark urging them to drop adult services ads.

Buckmaster noted in Monday's blog post that Lyon "sidestepped company channels in favor of ambushing our semi-retired founder," who is seen on camera in the May CNN report as not responding to some of Lyon's questions after she caught Newmark after speaking at a conference. Buckmaster then went on to claim Lyon is using the story to promote her career.

"Seeing how you've pinned your career hopes on butchering this story, I'll have to pass," he wrote of an interview with Lyon. "If Anderson Cooper would like to come out to SF [San Francisco] and sit with us for an interview worthy of CNN's viewers, we'll consider it."

Without specific conditions, Rogerson argued, the merger will hamper competition resulting in higher programming fees for rivals and in turn, higher fees for consumers, a disclosure document filed with the commission states. Rogerson, currently a professor of economics at Northwestern University, concludes that a condition-free merger could increase programming fees by 20 percent or more.

The meeting--which included ACA president Matthew Polka and the association's VP of government affairs, Ross Lieberman, as well as John Flynn, senior counsel to the FCC's chairman for transactions--came a day before a broader meeting about the merger convened by the FCC.

Friday's meeting brought economists representing Comcast, Bloomberg, ACA, and possibly other companies, to the FCC for discussion about the potential effects of the merger. Rogerson also spoke for ACA on Friday and Michael Katz and Mark Israel spoke for Comcast, according to a source familiar with the situation. Katz, director of the Institute for Business Innovation at the University of California at Berkley, has also served as chief economist for the commission. Israel is a senior vice president at Compass Lexecon, an economic consulting firm.

The FCC has declined to comment about the meeting.

Last week's meetings mark the latest in the ongoing saga surrounding the potential union between Comcast and NBC Universal, a matter that's currently under regulatory review by the FCC and the Justice Department. If government greenlights the merger, it will unite the nation's biggest cable and broadband operator with the parent company of the NBC broadcast network, Universal Pictures, and its passel of popular cable channels including USA, MSNBC, Bravo and Syfy.

Critics assert that the merger will hurt competition as well as media diversity. Comcast argues that those concerns are misplaced and that instead, the transaction will strengthen marketplace competition and benefit the consumer.

The merger, currently under regulatory review by both the FCC and Justice Department, has brought public interest groups, lawmakers and industry into a heated debate about whether it should be allowed to move forward. Critics worry that the merger will threaten diversity of the media and hamper competition.

The economists attending the meeting, the Los Angeles Times reports, will be representing companies that both support and oppose the controversial deal. Comcast, Bloomberg, and the American Cable Association are among the companies participating. A member of the Justice Department also is expected to attend.

Both the Justice Department and the FCC declined to comment.

According to the Los Angeles Times, attendance is limited to representatives of the companies, not the company executives themselves.

For more details on the transaction, visit the FCC's merge page here and this site featuring comments, testimony and other documents issued by the merger parties.

The FCC filed a brief in the U.S. District Court of Appeals in Philadelphia defending the media ownership rules adopted in 2007 under Republican Chairman Kevin Martin. The FCC relaxed rules on cross ownership of newspapers and broadcast outlets in the nation's 20 largest markets

"While the rules being challenged were adopted before I became chairman, I support our general counsel in arguing that the order was within the discretion of the commission and the brief's general defense of the commission's authority to make decisions based on the information before it at the time," FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said in a statement.

Alex Nogales, president and CEO of the National Hispanic Media Coalition, echoed the criticism with this claim: "NBC has a relatively fair record with the diversity initiatives I mentioned earlier. Comcast does not." His group has battled Comcast for years in an effort to convince it to carry more Spanish-language channels in markets with sizable Hispanic populations.

Aiming to deflate the criticism, Paula Madison, executive VP of diversity at NBCU, revealed in written testimony that if federal regulators approve the transaction, the new company would take several steps to promote diversity. This would include the
addition of three networks "substantially" owned by minorities and the creation of four "advisory councils" to guide the company's diversity initiatives, she wrote. Some witnesses came to Comcast's defense, including William Jenkins, chairman and CEO of Hip Hop On Demand, who described the company as very supportive of his entrepreneurial efforts, and those of other blacks seeking to launch channels, and as having a solid record of adding minorities to its management ranks.