The FCC should not review a Media Bureau order that...
The FCC should not review a Media Bureau order that clarified some of the rules covering how online video distributors can seek to license Comcast/NBCUniversal programming, Comcast and NBCU said. Time Warner, CBS, News Corp., Sony Pictures, Viacom and Disney…
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together asked the FCC to review the bureau’s decision, which said Comcast’s outside counsel and experts are entitled to see copies of distribution agreements certain OVDs have with “peer” programmers. The rules cover how OVDs can use the Benchmark Condition the FCC order approving of Comcast’s purchase of control of NBCU. “Although NBCUniversal respects the Content Companies’ concerns about the confidentiality of their OVD contracts, the Bureau fully considered and addressed these legitimate interests by adopting stringent, well established confidentiality restrictions,” Comcast/NBCU said (http://xrl.us/bobv5g). The objections raised in their application for review ultimately go to the “wisdom of the Benchmark Condition itself,” Comcast/NBCU said. “This attempt to second guess the Commission’s and DOJ’s policy decisions is untimely and, in all events, provides no justification for reversing the mere procedural guidance” in the Bureau’s clarification order, it said. In a related matter, Comcast and Project Concord continued to respond to each other’s filings in the first Benchmark Condition dispute to reach the commission. In a redacted filing, Comcast opposed Project Concord’s application to review a Media Bureau decision reversing aspects of an arbitrator’s decision in the dispute (CD Jan 14 p10). Comcast/NBCU has said it can’t license certain programs to Project Concord without breaching other contracts it has. Furthermore, the commission should deny Project Concord’s request that Comcast/NBCUniversal share those contracts with Project Concord so the OVD can verify they would be breached, it said (http://xrl.us/bobv59). Comcast also said Project Concord’s outside counsel has disclosed highly-confidential information from NBCUniversal’s third-party contracts unauthorized individuals. “Even taking at face value that these disclosures were inadvertent, they further underscore the unreasonableness of turning scores of additional Highly Confidential contracts over to PCI’s outside counsel,” it said. Separately, Project Concord responded to Comcast’s application for review of aspects of the Bureau’s decision.