Saturday, September 3, 2011

Final Approval for Comcast-NBCU Deal

The U.S. District Judge overseeing the antitrust consent decree between the U.S. Dept. of Justice and Comcast/NBCU has added a final condition before giving final approval.  The deal was effectively completed last January, pending the final approval of the consent decree.
The fundamental FCC and DOJ concerns were Comcast might give NBCU networks special treatment, or might choose to limit access to those networks and Comcast's own cable networks to other video delivery systems.  Both the FCC and DOJ put conditions on their approval of the deal, which are contained in the consent decree.  These addressed a range of access concerns - in particular, providing networks and programming on a non-discriminatory basis to both other multichannel video providers and online video systems and services, and agreeing to comply with the FCC's new Open Internet requirements.  The judge added a requirement that the government monitor, for two years, Comcast/NBCU compliance and the results of the arbitration system set up to resolve issues under the Consent Decree.

Source - Judge Enters Comcast/NBCU Final Judgment, With His Own New OVD Condition, Broadcasting & Cable

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