Bloomberg has told the FCC that Comcast
mischaracterized its position and again asked the FCC to reconsider its Aug. 14
decision to stay a portion of its order that Comcast include Bloomberg TV in
news neighborhoods on its systems.
That
came in a filing with the FCC Wednesday, Bloomberg's response to Comcast's
comments on Bloomberg's request that the FCC reconsider that stay.
The
bureau stayed the portion of the order relating to Comcast channel lineups with
only one standard-definition news neighborhood below channel 100. Bloomberg
says it doesn't support that stay and that Comcast had no basis to claim that
it did. "The Commission should immediately reverse the stay and direct
Comcast to neighborhood Bloomberg TV on [those] channel lineups," said
Bloomberg in the filing.
The
FCC back in May ordered Comcast to reposition the Bloomberg Television business
news channel into "news neighborhoods" in 106 headends -- spanning
the 35 largest U.S. markets -- to comply with a condition of the FCC's approvalof the NBCUniversal deal.
It
issued a clarification of the order Aug. 14 that included the partial stay.
Those
decisions have been interspersed by a series of legal moves and counter-moves
by Comcast and Bloomberg. Comcast says the NBCU condition does not mean that
Comcast is required to relocate Bloomberg TV to three-and-four channel
groupings "almost" all of which were in place "years
before" the NBCU deal, which is why it is fighting the FCC decision.
Bloomberg says it has been trying to avoid a condition it agreed to as part of
the deal.
