Comcast-NBCU Draft Order Could Go to Genachowski in a Month
Federal review of the Comcast-NBC Universal deal is intensifying and could lead to government approval with many conditions as soon as December, lobbyists and government officials said. They said the Department of Justice remains further along than the FCC in reviewing Comcast’s multibillion dollar agreement to buy control of NBC Universal. The DOJ may finish its work on the deal in December, while it’s less certain when FCC commissioners will get an order to vote on, said FCC, industry and nonprofit officials. Comcast executives have said they hope to get regulatory approval for the deal this year.
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FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski could get a draft order as quickly as within a month, maybe even around Thanksgiving, agency and industry officials predicted. There appear to be several dozen Media Bureau staffers detailed from their regular work to help review Comcast-NBC Universal, the issue getting the most attention by far of any in the bureau, commission and industry officials said. Genachowski had sought speedier work on the deal, following indications that the commission might not act until the first or second quarter (CD Oct 6 p4). He now appears to want to have a draft order for him and his staff to start looking at in about a month, said agency, industry and nonprofit officials.
Signaling that the DOJ is ahead of the FCC in work on Comcast-NBC Universal, career lawyers from the department’s Antitrust Division who were detailed within the division to review the deal mostly have gone back to their regular jobs, cable industry officials said. There had been about 30 career staffers reviewing the deal (CD July 12 p1). Executives continue meeting with DOJ staffers on Comcast-NBC Universal, and they appear to want to wrap up their review sometime next month, industry lawyers said. Those officials continue working closely with their counterparts at the FCC to figure out which agency should impose which conditions to make them most effective, some lawyers said.
Deal curbs that seem to be getting consideration at DOJ include mandating arbitration of program disputes, though that could instead be an FCC condition, and whether to appoint a special master to oversee it, a cable lawyer said. The department may also have recently considered whether to require Comcast to sell its NBC Universal TV station or its cable regional sports networks in any market where it would own both after the deal, a communications attorney said. DOJ’s “investigation is still ongoing” and the matter of Comcast-NBC Universal still is pending there, an agency spokeswoman said.
Both the Media Bureau and eighth floor continue to be lobbied on the deal, with 18 ex parte filings appearing in docket 10-56 in the week through Thursday. The bureau in particular seems to have markedly ramped up attention to the deal and staffing for it, agency and industry officials said. If the career bureau staffers finish their draft Comcast-NBC Universal order before Thanksgiving, they would have the holiday without working on the deal, but further revisions to that draft would likely occur before Genachowski circulated it, agency and industry officials predicted. A bureau spokeswoman declined to comment.
The chairman’s office doesn’t seem to be extensively focused on the deal and what conditions may be appropriate, said FCC officials and industry officials backing the deal and opposing it. Such focus and attendant work probably would happen once the office gets the draft, they said. There could be a lag between when Genachowski gets the draft and when he sends it to the other commissioners for action, since much work could be done on the order after it goes to the chairman’s office, they said. Extensive eighth-floor lobbying by foes of the deal, and by Comcast, NBC Universal and NBCU parent General Electric, likely would happen once commissioners get the draft order, communications lawyers said.
"It looks like we're at the end of the mid-game” in which career FCC staff work on the deal, said Senior Vice President Andrew Schwartzman of the Media Access Project, a foe of Comcast-NBC Universal. A vote outside of a monthly commission meeting “is more likely than [at] a meeting because the commission typically doesn’t look to spotlight industry consolidation,” said analyst Paul Gallant of MF Global. “And the merging companies are always anxious to have the deal close quickly once the chairman has signed off.”