Bloomberg Opposes Proposed NBCU-Comcast Joint Venture

After being rejected by the Federal Communications Commission in its request for more time for the federal agency to review the NBC Universal-Comcast deal, media company Bloomberg LP now says it opposes the proposed joint venture.

In a letter to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski and Christine Varney, who is overseeing the Justice Department's review of the deal, Bloomberg and other interested parties -- including Free Press, Media Access Project (MAP), and small cable network WealthTV -- are worried about the deal's effect on small and independent programmers.

One of Bloomberg's main worries, according to executives close to the company, is what this means for NBC Universal's CNBC, the dominant business television network, and its affect on Bloomberg TV.

Executives believe the Comcast joint venture with NBC Universal would give the network even more influence in the marketplace. Comcast Corp. is the largest U.S. cable operator, with 25 million cable subscribers.

Up until this letter, Bloomberg did not express an opinion on the deal -- just that it wanted more comments to be extended until Aug. 5, which would push the deadline for opposition to those comments to Sept. 4 and reply comments to Sept. 19.

advertisement

advertisement

The letter, which was supplied by Bloomberg, said: "[W]hat is completely predictable is that a company of this size will be able to exert an unhealthy degree of influence over the media landscape absent strong efforts to limit that control," they write, specifying the potential for editorial control over news, increased power in labor negotiations, control of ad messages, and even "determining how the Internet evolves."

The letter was released as the FCC's midnight June 21 deadline for initial comments on the deal approaches -- and after the FCC rejected Bloomberg's effort to delay the process for a possible approval of the deal.

Next story loading loading..