Comcast NBCUniversal has fulfilled the merger conditions imposed...
Comcast NBCUniversal has fulfilled the merger conditions imposed by the FCC as a condition of approving it’s merger deal, the company said in a news release (http://bit.ly/1dgzJF3) on its third annual report on the conditions to the FCC Tuesday (http://bit.ly/1dTHJJc).…
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Comcast said it exceeded conditions requiring preservation of local news by airing more than a thousand hours of local news programming than required on NBC- and Telemundo-owned stations, and surpassed conditions requiring expanded broadband deployment by 6,289 miles, 141 percent of the requirement, said the report. Comcast “extended its broadband plant to 718,511 additional homes, or 180% of the year-three milestone of 400,000 homes-passed,” said the report. Comcast exceeded requirements for the number of VOD offerings it provided, and the number of PSAs it aired. “Total children’s VOD programming choices during 2013 averaged 6,871 per month. This represents 4,093 more children’s VOD choices than the 2,778 average monthly choices available before the deal,” Comcast said. Comcast has also “repositioned Bloomberg Television in all relevant markets” into news neighborhoods as ordered by the commission in September, though its appeal of the matter is still pending. Comcast fulfilled conditions on online video deals by entering into “a variety of contract arrangements” with online video distributors without entering into arbitration, though an application for review remains pending filed by several content companies of a merger condition that would give Comcast access to third-party contract information, the report said. Comcast has not received any program carriage complaints from multichannel video programming distributors, the report said. “It is simply indisputable that we have honored -- in fact, over-delivered -- on our commitments,” said Comcast Executive Vice President David Cohen in the release. “And we'll continue to do so."