Mass Media Notes
Public hearings requested by an Asian American organization on Comcast’s plan to buy control of NBC Universal would bring FCC review “to a halt just days after it has formally begun,” the companies said. “Applicants are aware of no Commission…
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precedent in the past ten years” for “granting such an extraordinary request to stay the transaction review process prior to the initial pleading cycle to allow for public hearings,” NBC Universal, parent General Electric and Comcast said in an undated filing posted Friday by the FCC in docket 10-56. The Mabuhay Alliance, which sought the hearings (CD March 26 p7), cited no precedent, the companies said: “The dilatory and obstructionist tactics proposed here should be rejected.” Alliance President Faith Bautista said Commissioner Michael Copps, who was among those at the FCC that the group recently met with, expressed some support for holding informational hearings. “We're actually trying to do here what we did in California” in getting that state’s Public Utility Commission to hold public hearings in 2005 on the AT&T-SBC deal, Bautista said in an interview Monday. “We're trying to find the leverage in this merger” to promote programming for minorities and others, she said. “There’s going to be a lot more community groups that are going to do a filing against the merger” at the FCC, she said. The alliance, Black Economic Council and Latino Business Chamber of Greater Los Angeles will discuss their concerns on Comcast-NBC Universal on a conference call with Justice Department lawyers, she said. Democrat Tyrone Ellis, the majority leader of Mississippi’s House, Friday wrote FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski that he’s “impressed” with Comcast’s “dedication to promoting diversity in its programming.” That makes “the Comcast-NBCU joint venture a great opportunity for the African-American community in Mississippi and across the country.”