Russell Adams of The Wall Street Journal reports that Bloomberg LP is expected to Monday make good on its threat to complain to the Federal Communications Commission that Comcast is violating a condition of its takeover of NBCUniversal.
Adams writes, “That condition says that if the cable operator carries news or business channels relatively close to each other in the TV guide, all independent channels in that category have to be at nearby channels, namely in the same ‘neighborhood.’ The FCC crafted the order to prevent Comcast from giving preferential placement to newly controlled news networks like MSNBC and CNBC. The order didn’t specify in what proximity such channels would have to appear.
“It’s an issue Bloomberg has been harping on for a while. The media company raised it during federal regulators’ review of the deal, pushing them to impose rules that would prevent Comcast from relegating its business cable networks Bloomberg TV to cable’s hinterlands.
“An example of what Bloomberg dislikes: In Washington, D.C., CNN Headline News, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and CNBC occupy channels 35-39. Bloomberg TV is channel 103.”
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