Six of the largest media companies asked the FCC to...
Six of the largest media companies asked the FCC to stay a Media Bureau order requiring online video distributors (OVDs) to disclose the contents of certain licensing agreements when seeking to license Comcast-NBCU-owned programming under a condition of an FCC…
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merger order. CBS, News Corp., Sony Pictures Entertainment, Time Warner, Viacom and Disney said the commission should stay the bureau’s order while it considers their joint application for review. The bureau’s order “will not simply result in irreparable harm to the Content Companies and the marketplace for programming, but would contravene sound Commission precedent as well as Federal law designed to protect private business information against the threat of undue disclosure,” they said (http://xrl.us/bn68fq). The order violates the Trade Secrets Act, abrogates private contracts “absent any statutory authority,” and suffers from procedural flaws related to the timeliness of the Comcast request that sparked it, they said. At issue is the so-called “Benchmark Condition” to the FCC’s order approving Comcast’s takeover of NBCUniversal, which spelled out a procedure by which OVDs could seek access to Comcast-controlled programming after having already reached a similar agreement with an industry peer.