Federal Communications Commission chairman Julius Genachowski on Thursday circulated a draft proposal among his fellow commissioners that would approve the Comcast-NBC Universal deal, with certain conditions, according to senior FCC officials.
The commissioners must now review Genachowski's plan and inform him of any proposed changes. Given that it's the holiday season, a consensus is not expected to be reached until after the New Year.
The officials could not provide specific details about what the proposal included, except to say that Comcast and NBC would be required to take certain steps relating to broadband adoption and deployment, diversity, localism, and childrens' programming.
The FCC had a number of significant concerns as it related to the deal, so the chairman's proposal would impose a number of tough, narrowly tailored, transaction-specific conditions to address these concerns, the officials said.
Many of those concerns related to developments in new media, particularly online video. That includes program access, or how other video providers get access to programming, and program carriage, or the ability of third-party providers to get NBC content on their networks.
Ultimately, the FCC had to determine if the deal was in the public interest and if they could come up with a plan that addressed their concerns, the officials said.
According to FCC procedure, Genachowski's plan will now circulate internally among the four FCC commissioners. They will have the chance to propose amendments to the chairman's proposal, which must be approved by three votes in order to be added. FCC officials could not provide a specific timeline on when that process might conclude, except to say that the commissioners are well-versed in all things NBC-Comcast and will work as expeditiously as possible.
The deal also requires the approval of the Department of Justice. FCC officials have been working closely with the DOJ, and they said the DOJ appears comfortable with the commission's approach, but we will have to wait for final word from the agency.
In a statement, David L. Cohen, Comcast's executive vice president, said the company is gratified that the chairman has circulated an order to approve the deal.
"We made a number of significant commitments on day one designed to assure the government and the public that the public interest would be served and these benefits realized," Cohen said. "And we have continued to refine and enhance our commitments throughout the year-long review by the FCC and the DOJ. We believe the draft FCC order as circulated ensures these benefits will be realized and will enable us to operate the NBC Universal and legacy Comcast businesses in an appropriate way."
Comcast and NBC announced plans for a merger in December 2009. Comcast chief executive Brian Roberts and Jeff Zucker, then-president and CEO of NBCU, appeared on Capitol Hill earlier this year to defend the plan. When asked about possible rate hikes, Roberts said at the time that Comcast faces competition from a variety of companies and does not believe anything in the NBCU deal would "incentivize us or cause us to raise rates."
In May, the FCC extended the public comment period for the Comcast-NBC deal because it had not received additional economic data requested from the companies supporting their deal.
Last month, Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont Independent, told the FCC that a combined Comcast-NBC would result in less media diversity and increased cable rates.