Comcast’s Roberts and NBC Universal’s Zucker hit the FCC
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Soon after making the case for their merger to Wall Street at the UBS media conference in New York Monday, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts and NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker headed down to Washington, D.C., and as we speak are on their way to the Federal Communications Commission to make the rounds there.
On their agenda today are sit-down meetings with FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski and three of the four commissioners including Michael Copps, the veteran Democratic FCC commissioner who has already said that Comcast’s deal to acquire majority control of NBC Universal from General Electric Co. will ‘face a very steep climb with me.’ Chairman Genachowski has kept his mouth shut on the deal. His office said, “The FCC will carefully examine the proposed merger and will be thorough, fair, and fact-based in its review.” Interestingly, Jen Howard, Genachowski’s press liaison, used to work at Free Press, one of the advocacy groups that has come out guns blazing against the Comcast-NBC deal. But hey, Washington is a small town.
The other commissioners that Roberts and Zucker must woo are veteran Robert McDowell, a Republican, and newbies Meredith Attwell Baker, also a Republican, and Democrat Mignon Clyburn. Baker is apparently out of town so she’ll miss this portion of the Comcast-NBC Universal D.C. tour, but don’t worry Meredith, they’ll be back in town real soon. We guarantee it.
Baker, by the way, is the daughter-in-law of former Secretary of State James Baker and Clyburn is daughter of Congressman James Clyburn (D-S.C.), who is the House Majority Whip. Lest anyone think that those two got their jobs through connections (in Washington? Who would think that?), Baker also served as an assistant secretary of commerce for communications and information at the National Telecommunications Information Administration during the Bush administration. For you non-Washington types (I served many years in D.C. covering this stuff), the NTIA advises the White house on telecommunications policy. Clyburn spent most of her career as a utilities regulator in South Carolina. She also was a publisher of the Coastal Times, a Charleston, S.C. paper aimed at African Americans.
After they’re done with the FCC, Comcast staffers will start hitting Capitol Hill, although Roberts himself may high-tail it back to Philadelphia. Already, the planned merger of the nation’s largest cable and broadband provider with a huge entertainment powerhouse has many lawmakers concerned about media consolidation and what this will all mean for consumers and diversity. While Comcast thinks it can get the deal through D.C. in less than a year, the agreement gives the parties as long as 18 months to close.
-- Joe Flint
