Everybody's favorite cable company filed a public interest statement with the Federal Communications Commission on Thursday, explaining why Comcast's proposed joint venture with NBC Universal (NBCU) will be, well, just a beautiful thing for everyone."By bringing together NBC's high-quality content with the technology and innovation of Comcast's technology platform, the new venture will increase the amount, quality, variety, and availability of content more than either company could on its own, which will promote diversity," declared Comcast's Public Policy Veep David Cohen on his policy blog. "The new venture will also provide more and better local programming, including local news and information programming, advancing localism."
To which Josh Silver over at the reform group Free Press had these choice words: "Comcast's reputation for customer service ranks about one rung above Enron and Blackwater. The idea that it is magically going to be consumer friendly after it gets bigger doesn't pass the laugh test."
Perhaps we should all calm down just a bit here. Say what you want about Comcast (as we at Ars do quite often), but last time we checked, Enron helped trigger power blackouts across the west coast, then went down in financial flames, wrecking the portfolios of tens of thousands of small investors. As for Blackwater, the White House just announced that the government is appealing a court's dismissal of charges that its security guards bumped off over half a dozen Iraq civilians in 2007.
So as HAL the computer said to Dave in 2001: A Space Odyssey, let's take a stress pill, then keep in mind that we're talking about cable TV and ISP service in this instance. We'll be checking in on what the critics say as the FCC's public interest review goes forward. For now, here's what Comcast is offering the agency at this point in the process.
The case for the merger
Comcast's argues that its 51 percent acquisition of NBCU (General Electric will own 49 percent) is in the public interest because it will enable the company to provide better service in a highly competitive video landscape. All-in-all, the new entity will control just 12 percent of all cable network ad and affiliate revenue, behind Time-Warner, Viacom, and Disney-ABC, the cable giant estimates. And the venture will be surrounded by online, non-cable video distribution services.
Sure, Comcast acknowledges, NBCU owns a 32 percent interest in Hulu.com. But the video site only enjoys a "single-digit share" of online traffic. "Even if one restricts the analysis to 'professional' online video content, the combined entity will still have a small share of an exceptionally dynamic and competitive field," the company argues.
On top of that, investments in the new venture and lower costs will allow NBCU/Comcast to provide a wider range of programming. "This includes content of specific interest to minority groups, children and families, women, and other key audience segments," Comcast writes. "The new venture will also be able to provide more and better local programming, including local news and information programming."
So here's what Comcast is offering in specifics via David Cohen's blog and its public interest commitment summary to the FCC.
Free over-the-air
Comcast promises that Comcast/NBCU will continue to provide free over-the-air via its broadcast stations and local affiliates. For the next three years, Cohen pledges, NBC's owned and operated broadcast outlets will provide "at least the same amount of local news and information programming as today—and will not cut the amount of news programming." In fact, the venture will kick in 1,000 more hours of local news and informational fare.
The FCC filing is a little cagier about this. "As Comcast negotiates and renews agreements with its broadcast affiliates," it explains, the company will foster a "cooperative dialogue" towards a business model to sustain free over-the-air "that can be workable in the evolving economic and technological environment."
You can translate this in a variety of ways. Here's one possible parsing. 'We think that over-the-air TV is on the way out, but one never knows what the landscape will look like in 2013, so we'll keep our options open.'
Better programming for kids, more options for parents
Comcast also pledges to add an "additional 1,500 programming choices for children and families within three years" on video on demand, plus an extra hour of children's programming per week, over and above the three hours required by the FCC's Children Television's Act rules.
Plus Comcast promises to triple duration of program-rating data that appears on TV screens to 15 seconds during commercial breaks, and making the information box bigger. And the company will work with Common Sense Media (on whose board FCC Chair Julius Genachowski used to sit) "to creatively incorporate CSM information on its emerging On Demand and On Demand Online platforms."
More indie fare
In addition, the new venture will boost Telemundo VOD programming, launch a new over-the-air multicast with Telemundo fare, and ensure "that the two new independently owned and operated cable networks we have committed to add to our digital line-up each year for the next three years are truly independent—i.e., networks that are not currently carried by Comcast Cable, and are not affiliated with Comcast, NBCU, or any of the top 15 owners of cable networks as measured by revenues."
Not sure whether that last sentence translates into much more than "we promise to do what we've already promised to do" in the first public interest commitment statement the cable company made back in early December.
If you are a bit underwhelmed by these commitments, here's that summary again, which also talks about Comcast maintaining public, educational, and government [PEG] channels on any cable system until it has gone all digital (AT&T's handling of this conversion via its U-VERSE IP-TV service is hated by community media groups). But our guess is that this is just the beginning of a set of negotiations with the FCC about what Comcast must offer in exchange for merger approval—assuming that the Commission chooses to bless the proposed marriage at all.
And don't forget that the Department of Justice is also reviewing the deal.
Source: Arstechnica.com
