Kerry Urging Careful Examination Of Comcast-NBCU Merger

Senate Commerce Communications Subcommittee Chairman John Kerry (D-MA) called on the Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Justice to focus on ensuring that consumers are protected and that competition is not hampered as the agencies contemplate possible conditions to attach to the proposed merger of Comcast with NBC Universal.

In a letter to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski and Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust Christine Varney, Sen Kerry did not call for blocking the merger as some lawmakers have insisted. Instead, he said he wanted to "reinforce the need for this merger to work for consumers, and enhance innovation and competition. I believe it can, but we count on you to ensure that it does." Sen Kerry said regulators should consider offering remedies if the merger would pose a risk to such goals as ensuring consumer access to video content on the Web including programming the merged company will control. In addition, he also noted that the merged company should not "act unfairly as a bottleneck or gatekeeper for critical programming for competing distributors or leverage its distribution network against content that competes with its new property."