Continuing its exhaustive struggle to turn public and political favor toward a Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC) acquisition deal it first proposed 13 months ago, Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA) has taken aim at a white paper filed by one of several anti-merger coalitions, Stop Mega Comcast.
On Thursday, Sena Fitzmaurice, VP of corporate communications, government and regulatory affairs, once again took to Comcast's corporate blog, calling the group's claims "warmed over" and full of "factual inaccuracies."
For starters, Fitzmaurice dismissed the group's claim that it litigated online-video company Project Concord out of business. "In fact," she wrote, "it launched as HitBliss using substantial amounts of content from NBCUniversal. The fact is that the [FCC's] Media Bureau ruled in NBCUniversal's favor on the core issue in this case, which had nothing to do with whether Project Concord had a right to content, but rather which content they could demand given third party contractual restrictions. And notably, while opponents try to paint this arbitration as evidence of wrongdoing, the Media Bureau resolved the case without any suggestion of non-compliance by NBCUniversal. In short, this coalition has the facts wrong here--both about the past and the present."
Among a number of other white-paper claims Comcast has problems with, Fitzmaurice also denied assertions that the conglomerate didn't live up to the diversity mandates associated with the regulatory approval of its NBCU purchase by supporting the distribution of indie channel Soul of the South.
"Again, the coalition failed to check facts," she wrote. "Soul of the South TV has distribution in five Comcast markets. It may--as many programmers do--want broader distribution."
For more:
- read this Comcast corporate blog post
- read this Stop Mega Comcast white paper
Related links:
Comcast promotes Rudnay, Block, Salva to exec VP level
Comcast's backup plan? Possibly buy Netflix, Cablevision, T-Mobile … the list goes on, analyst Greenfield says
Comcast wants better audience measurement after 5.6% revenue drop at NBCU