In meetings with
staffers for Republican FCC Commissioners Robert McDowell and
Meredith Attwell Baker earlier this week,
lobbyists for Bloomberg LP explained their petition to deny the Comcast-NBC Universal
deal.
Bloomberg is concerned
that without certain conditions, Comcast will have the motive and opportunity
to disadvantage its
Bloomberg Television, which is a competitor to NBCU's CNBC. That is according to ex
parte filings at the FCC.
Bloomberg's position is
that the FCC "must deny" the deal unless it requires Comcast to put
all business news nets on channels
adjacent to CNBC, so that it cannot put BTV on a more expensive tier, and
to continue to carry all
business news channels.
Bloomberg wants the FCC
to prevent Comcast from packaging ad sales for non-Comcast owned business
channels with its owned channels
without those other channels' permission and prohibit it from offering
advertisers discounts tied to not
purchasing ads on competing business channels or distributors discounts tied to
less favorable carriage
terms.
It also wants the FCC to
streamline the complaint process, including arbitration for fee disputes.
