Content companies Wednesday told a D.C. court that it definitely needs to block the FCC's decision to make thousands of programming contract documents in the Comcast/Time Warner Cable and AT&T/DirecTV merger reviews available to hundreds of third parties.
Companies seeking the stay are CBS, Scripps, Disney, Time Warner, Twenty-First Century Fox, Univision and Viacom, joined by the National Association of Broadcasters in support. On the other side is the FCC, joined by AT&T, Comcast, Charter, DirecTV, Dish and Time Warner Cable, which all oppose the stay.
CBS et al said they are likely to win on the underlying merits of their challenge of the FCC decision and the protective orders the FCC asserted protected that sensitive information and allowed it to be shared. They also call the sharing of not only contract info but work product including emails and memos "Unprecedented, Unnecessary, and Unexplained."
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