Sen Kohl asks NBC about Olympic site pay-TV link

Senator Herb Kohl (D-WI), chairman of the Senate antitrust subcommittee, has written to NBC to express concern that some of its Internet coverage of the Winter Olympics is limited to pay television subscribers.

The letter says sports fans who want to see some of the Olympic coverage on the site NBCOlympics.com must first register with the site after validating a subscription with "your cable, satellite or IPTV provider." "I fear that this practice of locking up certain content only for pay-TV subscribers may be a preview of what is to come with respect to TV programing shown on the Internet, particularly in the context of the proposed Comcast/NBC Universal merger," Chairman Kohl wrote in a letter to NBC President Jeff Zucker. NBC Universal responded it was spending nearly a billion dollars to bring the Vancouver Olympics to U.S. fans in on broadcast television, cable and the Internet. "This three-part offering has been structured to provide the financial support to help justify that investment, and bring U.S. fans the high-quality, professionally produced content they demand," the company said.