Read the letter below and click on the link to sign the petition.

Dear President Obama and Members of Congress:

We represent a broad group of industry, labor and public interest organizations that are gravely concerned about Comcast’s proposed acquisition of NBC-Universal. We believe that a merger of this size and scope will have a devastating effect on the media marketplace. It will result in less competition, higher consumer costs and fewer content choices. It also will give one company unprecedented control over innovative new media that offer news, information, entertainment and cultural programming through emerging technologies.

A combined Comcast/NBCU would control a major television network and film studio, the nation’s largest cable company and its largest residential broadband provider. The merged giant would have strong incentives to discriminate against other multi-channel video providers in granting access to its wealth of programming, including all of its broadcast stations and “must-have” national and regional networks that air live or same-day sporting events, as well as the market power to enforce anticompetitive “bundling.” The proposed deal could make it even harder for diverse and independent voices to find an audience, as Comcast would have the incentive to prioritize NBC channels and programs over others. Control of NBCU programming also would give Comcast the opportunity to prioritize its own online video products over those of its competitors – or sharply reduce online video distribution altogether – pushing independent producers out of the picture.

Comcast has proposed to voluntarily agree to a handful of commitments in an attempt to avoid the imposition of more effective, and competitively essential, conditions on this merger. While these “commitments” purport to address concerns about localism and program diversity, and would extend the current (and arguably ineffectual) program access rules to broadcast and HD programming, they are mere window dressing. Moreover, they do not mitigate the competitive danger of the vastly increased vertical integration that would result from a Comcast/NBCU marriage, and they do not address the competitive issues raised by the merged company’s control over online video distribution – an increasingly important platform for television distribution. To prevent a disastrous impact on competition and consumer choice, any approval of the merger must include meaningful conditions that extend well beyond those previously imposed on less significant mergers.

The proposed deal raises the most basic antitrust and public policy issues for an administration that has declared both the importance of media diversity and an intention to be more vigilant against anticompetitive conduct and abuses of market power. We ask that you take a hard look at this merger and take the necessary measures to prevent harm to both consumers and competition.

Signed,

American Cable Association

Center for Media Justice

Common Cause

Communications Workers of America

Concerned Women for America

Consumer Federation of America

Consumers Union

Free Press

Kids First Coalition

Media Action Grassroots Network

Media Access Project

Media and Democracy Coalition

Morality in Media

National Association of Independent Networks

National Consumer League

National Organization for Women

National Telecommunications Cooperative Association

Organization for the Promotion and Advancement of Small Telecommunications Companies

Parents Television Council

Public Knowledge

Satellite Broadcasting and Communications Association

Sports Fans Coalition

U.S. PIRG

Writers Guild of America East

Writers Guild of America West

A letter from an SFC member:

I’m a student at the University of Pennsylvania, a lifelong Philadelphia
area resident, and a die hard Phillies fan.  In Philadelphia, Comcast is the
biggest company around, and their station, Comcast Sportsnet, carries most
Phillies games on TV.  

This wasn’t a problem when I lived at home since we had Comcast.   However, since moving to Penn’s campus, neither the school cable provider nor the cable provider I’ve used since I’ve live off campus has CSN  (I don’t get Comcast because it is far too expensive for my college student budget).  

This is because Comcast refuses to allow most other cable providers to carry the network, basically holding Phillies, Sixers, and Flyers fans hostage (Comcast owns large chunks of the Sixers and Flyers, so guess what channel has the rights to their games).  

My sophomore year, I lived on the 14th story of a building.  My windows faced south, and I could see the entire sports complex from my bedroom.  I saw the fireworks go off before the game, the Citizen’s Bank Park Bell ring after a Phillies homer, and could hear the crowd when the window was open.  

But could I watch the game from my room?  Not on television.  

Thanks for fighting the good fight Sports Fan Coalition!

Your local sports teams probably got a lot of your public resources to get their arena built.

But you might be shut out from watching those games on TV just based on who provides your pay-TV service. If you live in New York, Philadelphia, or San Diego, for example, you can watch some of your local teams on TV in beautiful High Definition, but only if you subscribe to cable. If you subscribe to satellite or get TV from your phone company or a new provider, you’re probably out of luck. That’s because your cable company either owns the team, owns the venue, owns the network carrying the games, or some combination of all these things. So the cable company wants you to pay it to see the games, and not pay any of its competitors.

You might think that there ought to be a law designed to prohibit that kind of anti-competitive behavior. There is. In 1992, Congress passed a federal statute that requires cable companies to sell the programming that they own to their competitors on fair terms. 47 U.S.C. 548. By making that programming available to cable’s competitors, Congress helped bring in a new age of competition against cable from satellite, phone companies, even small startups.

There’s just one problem: the law has a loophole. A cable company can get around this requirement to sell its programming to its competitors if it uses a certain kind of technology to deliver its signal. Big cable has made sure that this loophole stays in federal law.

So you can guess how this story ends: big cable companies use that loophole to keep your local sports programming away from you, unless you sign up for their service. It doesn’t matter if you think cable is too expensive, or if you just hate your cable company and want something different, or even that your tax dollars went to help build that stadium where the team plays. You’re out of luck, and federal law does nothing to help you.

Final score: sports and cable industries win, sports fans lose.