Dish Asks FCC to Deny Charter/TWC

Dish has asked the Federal Communications Commission to reject the Charter/Time Warner Cable merger. In a petition filed Oct 13, the satellite operator pointed to the "potential for the merger to significantly damage competitive development of over-the-top (OTT) video and limit consumer access to online video programming." Joining with Dish was Roger Lynch, CEO of Sling TV, who included in the petition this declaration: “I believe that the proposed merger.... would cause significant and irreparable harm to emerging competitive online video products and services, as well as the performance of traditional satellite television service, ultimately reducing competition and choice for consumers. Accordingly, I believe that the merger as currently constructed is not in the public interest and should be denied.”

Dish says that the problems with the deal cannot be remedied with conditions, but if the FCC disagrees, those conditions should include prohibiting the merged company from "restricting the ability of third-party programmers to grant online rights to OVDs," and should require it to unbundle its broadcast services by offering residential stand-alone services and bundle its broadband with competing pay-TV and online video providers (OVD) services. In addition, it should have to abide by the FCC's Open Internet order regardless of whether or not it is overturned by the court.