Comcast critics make final push to block Time Warner Cable merger

Critics of Comcast’s $45 billion bid to buy Time Warner Cable are making their final pleas to urge regulators to block the deal.

As the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) closes its window for public comments on the deal to combine the nation’s two largest cable providers, opponents issued a final flurry of comments.

{mosads}Advocacy groups Common Cause and Consumers Union sent in nearly 600,000 people’s comments urging regulators to block the deal.

At the same time, a new industry and nonprofit coalition aiming solely to block the merger hit the ground running with a call for regulators to stand strong.

“We believe the evidence clearly demonstrates that this merger is not in the public interest, that the benefits are de minimis if any and that no set of conditions can eliminate the harms,” Dish Network lobbyist Jeff Blum told reporters in a conference call on Tuesday morning. Dish Network has been a vocal critic of the deal and is a central player in the new Stop Mega Comcast coalition, which was launched earlier this month and is being run by the Glover Park Group, a major lobbying and consulting firm. 

One of the main concerns for companies like Dish, which has announced plans to launch a new Internet-based video service to compete with cable companies like Comcast as well as Hulu and Netflix, is the company’s dominance as an Internet service provider. If the merger is approved, Comcast would control more than half the nation’s high-speed broadband above 25 megabits per second. 

Comcast would also be the top cable provider in 20 of the nation’s major media markets.

The effect of that would be “higher prices for consumers, fewer choices and less incentive for the combined company to be responsive to consumers needs,” said George Slover, a senior policy counsel at Consumers Union, the advocacy arm of Consumer Reports. 

Comcast is not taking the criticism lying down.

The company has repeatedly emphasized that Comcast and Time Warner Cable do not operate in any of the same media markets, so local competition would not be directly affected by the deal.

In a blog post on Tuesday, Executive Vice President David Cohen pointed to public comments detailing “concrete and personal accounts of their positive experiences with Comcast and our commitment to the communities we serve.” 

Concerns about control of the national Internet service market are based on “improper definitions” that ignore “market realities and established principles of economic analysis,” he added.

Tuesday’s closing of the public comment period brings an end to one chapter of the government’s review of the Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger, but a resolution is still weeks away.

On Monday, the FCC suspended its internal shot clock for reviewing the deal after discovering that more than 7,000  Time Warner Cable documents were not properly handed over to the agency. 

Executives have said they expect a final ruling on the merger early next year, but continuing delays could threaten that timetable.

In addition to the FCC, the Department of Justice is also reviewing the merger to see if it passes muster under antitrust law.