Public Knowledge said it supports a request by various media...
Public Knowledge said it supports a request by various media companies for a stay of a recent FCC Media Bureau order on how online video distributors (OVDs) can access Comcast-NBCUniversal programming. The bureau’s order clarified the FCC’s order approving Comcast’s…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
takeover of NBCU to say that OVDs exploiting the “Benchmark Condition” of the takeover approval must disclose the contents of their licensing deals with media industry peers. The content companies “are non-parties who are rightly alarmed that one of their competitors, Comcast-NBCU, must be given access to their proprietary commercial information,” Public Knowledge said (http://xrl.us/bn7c2m). The bureau’s order also undermines the purpose of the condition because it could limit companies from working with OVDs and prevent OVDs from licensing Comcast-NBCU programming, it said. “It was designed to promote online video distribution, and if, in the absence of competitors’ confidential information, Comcast-NBCU ends up offering an OVD better terms than it was able to obtain from a peer programmer, that purpose is served,” it said. It also suggested the commission suspend the time limit of any merger condition “while disputes as to its meaning are being heard."