Categories: OLD Media Moves

Comcast calls Bloomberg TV "naive"

Alex Weprin of TVNewser.com reports that Comcast, which is attempting to purchase CNBC parent NBCU, has hit back at Bloomberg Television for its complaint against the deal with the Federal Communications Commission.

Weprin writes, “Last month, Comcast seemed to respond to Bloomberg indirectly in an FCC filing, but in a new filing, the cable operator takes direct aim at the channel, calling it ‘naïve’ and saying that ‘taking Bloomberg’s numbers at face value would produce absurd results.’

“Bloomberg has argued that the FCC should make ‘neighborhooding’ a condition of the proposed deal. Such a condition would require Bloomberg and FBN to be placed next to CNBC on channel lineups.

Comcast has shown that Bloomberg’s proposed neighborhood condition is both unnecessary and unrelated to the transaction. Bloomberg’s naïve view is that channel positioning on a grand scale can easily be accomplished by flipping a few switches. Not so.

“Will the FCC buy Comcast’s argument? We won’t find out until it renders its decision on the Comcast/NBCU deal.”

Read more here.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.