Here is the statement released late Wednesday by Greg Babyak, head of government affairs at Bloomberg LP, in response to Comcast’s filing with the Federal Communications Commission on Wednesday regarding complaints from Bloomberg that the cable system operator needs to move Bloomberg Television closer to CNBC:
After a comprehensive review lasting nearly one year, this past January, the Department of Justice and the Federal Communications Commission approved arguably the most significant media merger in history. They did so, however, in reliance on Comcast’s compliance with critical merger conditions. These conditions, which Comcast expressly accepted, were deemed necessary to protect the public interest.
The FCC expressed in particular its concerns about the importance of independent sources of news. Despite these strongly worded concerns, Comcast is not obeying clearly defined conditions, as Comcast continues to assert that “now” does not mean “now” and that their programming neighborhoods are not neighborhoods.
We are confident that Chairman Genachowski and his colleagues will enforce this condition, not only because of the critical role of independent programming and especially independent sources of news, but also because the integrity of the merger review process demands it.
