Waxman Sends FCC Conditions for Comcast-NBC Merger

House Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) sent a letter to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski regarding the proposed combination of Comcast and NBC Universal expressing his view that the FCC should impose conditions on the transaction in four key areas to protect consumers and promote competition in the marketplace.

Chairman Waxman is suggesting that the FCC:

1. impose requirements to ensure that competing program distributors have access to programming or channels in which Comcast-NBCU has a financial interest;
2. impose conditions that a) prevent Comcast-NBCU from degrading or blocking online distribution of programming that competes with Comcast and its offerings, b) ensure that Comcast-NBCU does not prioritize or guarantee a higher quality-of-service for its own video-on-demand and other online offerings over competitive video services that are delivered over Comcast’s broadband network, and c) protect third-party programmers’ ability to make their content available online via competitive Internet websites and other competitive platforms;
3. not allow Comcast to isolate competitive offerings to these channels by placing them outside of the “neighborhood” for such content; and
4. impose conditions that measurably strengthen the creative and economic opportunities of independent writers, producers, and directors.