Bloomberg threatens FCC complaint about Comcast

Bloomberg said Friday it plans to file a complaint at the FCC asking it to enforce the “news neighborhooding” condition in the Comcast/NBCU order, which it alleges Comcast is ignoring, reports John Eggerton of Broadcasting & Cable.

Eggerton writes, “Comcast says Bloomberg has misinterpreted the condition. Comcast reads the condition as preventing it from repositioning CNBC to favor it post merger. It says it has not changed its lineup from pre-merger, when it did not own CNBC.

“The order prevents Comcast from discriminating on the basis of affiliation or nonaffiliation, which it is not supposed to do anyway under existing program carriage rules. But it also says that ;if Comcast ‘neighborhoods’ its news (including business news) channels, it must include all unaffiliated news (or business news) channels in that neighborhood.’

“Bloomberg was concerned that Comcast could favor, say, its newly acquired CNBC over Bloomberg’s business news service. ‘The FCC’s Order requires Comcast to include independent news channels such as Bloomberg Television in any news or business news neighborhoods in the channel lineups on Comcast’s cable systems because of the “special importance of news programming to the public interest,’ said Bloomberg. ‘Underscoring its importance, the FCC highlighted this condition in its own press release announcing the decision. Since the FCC’s Order [was approved] on January 18, 2011, Comcast has taken no steps to comply with the independent news provision of the Order.'”

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