FCC Says First-Year Films Are Covered By Comcast/NBCU OVD Condition

In a partial defeat and partial victory for the company, the Federal Communications Commission has ruled that NBC Universal cannot exclude films less than a year old from its Comcast/NBCU Order benchmark condition requiring NBCU to make its content available to competing online video distributors (OVD) if that distributor gets comparable programming from one of NBCU's peers not affiliated with that OVD. But the commission also said that requirement does not extend to such programming or other programing that would breach particular exclusive licensing agreements common to the industry.

NBCU had petitioned the FCC to review an outside arbitration award to Project Concord under that OVD access deal condition. The FCC had to rule by Wednesday, Nov. 14. It originally had a deadline of Sept. 14 to act on the petition per the Comcast/NBCU order, which required it to act within 60 days of filing. But it exercised an option to give itself an additional 60 days. The arbitrator had concluded that the first-year films are subject to the condition, which the FCC upheld.