Those "imposed conditions" ought to last about 10 minutes......
Both the FCC and DOJ imposed conditions designed to ensure that the new company would not unfairly limit other companies' access to its content, or limit consumers' access to other companies' content. The FCC approved the public interest portion of mergers while DOJ approved the antitrust components.
The FCC passed the merger with votes from two the Democrats and two Republicans on the commission. The sole dissenter was Democratic Commissioner Michael J. Copps, who said in a statement that the transaction was "like no other that has come before this Commission—ever."
"It reaches into virtually every corner of our media and digital landscapes and will affect every citizen in the land," he said. "It is new media as well as old; it is news and information as well as sports and entertainment; it is distribution as well as content. And it confers too much power in one company’s hands."
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AFTERTHOUGHT: Can we now call the FCC "Copps and robbers"?
This is the stuff of science fiction. One source (with an agenda)for everything, news, information and entertainment. We are going down the dark hole.
ReplyDeletefallenmonk, based on what I've read and heard, Comcast is frequently incompetent to do even the limited job they do now. How can they possibly be trusted with the position of Media to the MOTU? I have often felt vaguely guilty for sticking with the undeniably evil AT&T as my internet provider, but I do believe Comcast is even worse.
ReplyDeleteBy approving this merger, the FCC (excepting Copps) has indeed robbed us of any hope of media diversity. This is precisely what the FCC was established (back in the 1930s I believe) to avoid. Dog help us, because today's FCC won't.