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

Ever since Comcast and NBC-Universal announced plans to tie the knot, public interest groups and others have thought about what the world might look like after the honeymoon ends.  And it ain’t pretty. 

Here’s one story we’ve heard over and over again from our public-interest advocacy friends here in the Nation’s capital:

Versus, a sports network owned by Comcast, appears to be trying to get more high-quality, high-demand sports exclusives, so that the only way you can watch the game is if you get the Versus network.  Okay, so far that sounds like any other sports network trying to become the best thing since someone handed John Madden a microphone and a digital pen.

But then, take a look at what Comcast does today with sports programming in Philadelphia, where the only way to watch a game is if you pay a bounty to the local cable operator (Comcast). Or what it does around the country with regional sports networks, where you might get the sports you want to watch, or you might not, depending on whether your local pay-TV provider has paid its bounty– an ever increasing bounty, at that.  If you put these things together, our public interest experts tell us, you get more and more sports going exclusively to one network (Versus) and the only way to get that network is if you subscribe to the cable company that owns it.

The story turns into a downright horror show when the next chapter is read:  same deal for NBC sports.  You want to see the game?  Subscribe to Comcast and it’s all there for you.  You don’t pay The Man, you don’t see the game.

Sports fans will remember when Monday Night Football left the free broadcast airwaves for good back when ESPN (Disney) bought the rights.  It meant that you needed to get pay-TV from someone (cable, satellite, phone, whatever) if you wanted to watch MNF.  Can’t afford pay-TV?  Sorry.  To hear the public interest groups tell it, the Comcast-NBC merger could put one more brick on your back:  now, in addition to needing to subscribe to pay TV, you’d only have ONE COMPANY to choose from:  Comcast.

So, what do you think about the latest story circulating through Washington?  Is this a real threat to sports fans, or just another typical day in the sportsocracy?

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!

Today’s announcement of a merger between Comcast and NBC-Universal raises some pretty important questions for fans:
 
Will you have a harder time watching your home-town games after the merger?
 
Will you have to pay to watch online sports video or participate in online fantasy leagues?
 
Will we see more places like Philadelphia, where one company (Comcast) owns the team, arena, sports channel, and cable system, then makes you subscribe to the cable system in order to watch the games?
 
Sports Fans Coalition will ask whether this merger is bad for fans.  We’re going to ask tough questions in Congress, the Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Communications Commission, and elsewhere.

But we need you!  Join the SFC, submit your thoughts on the issue, and  send a signal that your government needs to make sure that sports fans don’t get played.

We want access to our local games, online sports, and not get held over a barrel.
 
Sports Fans Coalition

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.