The proposed Comcast/TWC deal would result in a...
The proposed Comcast/TWC deal would result in a “media mega-corporation” with “far too much power and control in the marketplace and in the workplace,” said the Writers Guild of America-East (WGAE) in comments filed in docket 14-57 (http://bit.ly/1kF8iba). “It would…
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not be in the public interest and should not be approved,” said the WGAE. Because the company that results from the merger will be “vertically and horizontally integrated” it will “tilt the playing field” against content producers, the filing said. Although Comcast has presented the deal as a way to allow it to compete with challengers such as Apple and Google, the deal would mean that Comcast “would own and control the pipelines into 30 percent of American households,” said the WGAE. The “mega-tech companies” Comcast cites as competitors all rely on Comcast to deliver their products, WGAE said. After the deal, the competing companies will all be “fighting for a share of a vast market which they can only access via the pipeline controlled by one of the combatants, Comcast/NBCU/TWC,” said the filing. The deal will also make it difficult for the Comcast employees WGAE represents, the filing said. NBCUniversal has been able to use its size and power to block ballots in a June 2013 National Labor Relations Board election from being counted, WGAE said. “If this is how Comcast/NBCU treats its own employees now, imagine what it can put its customers through, and imagine how much worse this will be when it expands to gargantuan size through merger and consolidation,” the filing said.