Comcast/NBC-U Hearings Post-Game Analysis

The hearings just wrapped up on the hill. Mr. Roberts and Mr. Zucker, for the most part, did a good job presenting their case, despite the flogging Al Franken (D, MN) give Brian on Comcast's seemingly contradictory behavoir on program access and program carriage in the afternoon session.

Kudos to Colleen Abdullah of WOW for patiently, calmly and without hyperbole, explaining the position of the small cable operator/competitor. It took a fair amount of guts for her to sit at the same table with Mr. Roberts and Zucker and point out the issues that the entire industry is dealing with: program carriage demands (including tiering restrictions); retransmission consent; smaller operators paying “up to 20% more” for the same channels as larger operators; the squeezing of margins as a result of programming costs increasing faster than they can raise rates to consumers; and the lack of pricing transparency.

Although he was not a witness at the morning House Communications and Internet Subcommittee hearing, Andy Schartzman from the Media Access Project was on top of the facts and presented his arguments cogently in the afternoon before the Senate Judiciary Antitrust hearing. As usual, Mark Cooper from the Consumer Federation of America was big on sweeping generalities without presenting many numbers to back up his case - kind of scary for a guy with the word “Research” in his title. Additionally, he does not seem to grasp what TV Everywhere is all about – a value-add for video subscribers and not a product designed for cable operators to get into the OTT video business. Cooper even brought up a la carte!

Unfortunately a two to two and a half hour hearing in front of each group with each legislator getting only 5-7 minutes to question the witnesses does not provide the opportunity for the depth of discussion needed to really dig into all of the issues in the matter, while only a few of the legislators seemed to have a really good grasp on the issues. House and Congressional staffers will be working hard to sort though all of the testimony and written follow-ups that were requested. There will definitely be more hearings, and I’ll be staying tuned to see what conditions get placed on the merger.

BTW – For all of you folks at Turner, Senator Arlen Specter (D, PA) loves TCM!