in someone's living room with children possibly present is always going to be profane or indecent. baringbearing the breast of a fe during the halftime of the super bowl is always going to be unexpected. things are not going to change in your lifetime to allow that sort of thing. networks know that. they push the envelope on some of the shows to see what they can get away with. there is a lot on prime-time television in the evening that parents are upset with. >> carter thinks that the second circuit court of appeals decision brings us back to the carlin case of 1978. >> the supreme court always had

the administrative issues and they said that it is proper for the fcc to regulate the issues. they were not going to look at the constitutional issue. they sent it back down to see if it was constitutional. >> how do you define community standards? are your community standards the same as everyone else on's? >> in my community, it is not mine, but the one in which i live. if you ask communities across america, is it ok to shout the f word on broadcast television? they would say it is not all right. there are some communities where deeply f word is fine. maybe in manhattan were this court room resides.

most would say, not in my living room. more is tolerated, but there are certain things that are not going to be tolerated throughout the country. when the broadcast networks broadcast in 50 states in every community, standards would dictate that f word is off- limits. >> the second circuit court of appeals said that we will have to weigh this and look at all of the different issues. >> i heard something to that effect. way?is thieeir he was supposed to defend the fcc policy. it is not unreasonable. to weigh it, it would be a pretty quick decision. you would have to appealit.

>> it empowers children and upholds the first amendment. you said that the fcc needs to appeal. in the decision, that the sec failed to adequately explain why it changed its 30-year policy on this, how can the fcc going forward be more specific on this? >> the fcc over the years has been up and down on the policy. the tenure of the chairman that michael did next to nothing. the networks were racing ahead to put whatever they could on television that might be indecent or profane. the chairman that followed him, and he was very clear about what the policy is. >> kevin martin. >> kevin martin. the networks complain that his new policy was an appropriately instituted.

at the supreme court heard that case. they said it was fine. they upheld it. the fcc has put out whatever they could put out on this. the sec does not go after every utterance of the f --cc does not go after every utterance of the f word. they allowed "saving private ryan at" during prime time. they could have said that it is ok to put it on after 10:00 at night when there is no profanity enforcement. when they let one go and not another, that causes some confusion. the second circuit dealt with bono and the golden globe awards. they do not expect children and parents to sit down and hear somebody shout the f word.

t >>rueman is the former chief of the u.s. department of justice under george h.w. bush. >> and ronald reagan. >> what do you think about the news broadcast that in many opinions are in the public interest that will air was ever a local candidate or public official may say. >> i agree with the fcc. it is hard to regulate a spontaneous news broadcast. there is a lot of profanity. when you are interviewing someone and it is alive and they say the f word, you will not be expected to anticipate that. >> patrick filed on behalf of the family research council with regard to the second circuit court of appeals in the indecency case.

thank you for being with us on the "of the communicators." a link to the site and the brief filed bymr. trueman and his groups. thank you for joining us on "the communicators." >> tonight at 8:00 eastern on c- span, the final debate between those three -- running a -- in the michigan republican primary. at 10:00 p.m., a debate among the four democratic candidates running in rhode island ' s

first house district to replace the retiring kennedy. that is all tonight on c-span. >> they are the towering figures. they are different. they have their different talents. they have their different dangers. >> this weekend, robert service on his trio of books on the lenin, stalin, and most recently, leon trotsky. learn about their relationship and their roles in developing their forms of communism. >> the federal communications commission held a public forum this week to hear comments on the proposed merger between the comcast cable co. and nbc universal. a panel of university academics focused on changes in on-line

video distribution as well as what what happened with internet content. consumer programming choices and prices. this portion of the form, held in chicago is about 55 minutes. >> good afternoon. thank you all for coming out today. thank you to our coast, the northwestern university law school for this venue. i have always left the hearings knowing a lot more about the subject than i did when i came in. i get to hear directly from the folks that are on the receiving

end of what media produces and what washington produces. usually, that does not combined into an emmy-winning show. the next decision we will be called upon to make in this transaction has to include input from citizens across the land who know better than anyone whether media is or is not serving their needs. our thanks to all of the citizens that will take their time to share their perspectives with us. i am grateful to several panelists coming in this afternoon and the work they put into fashioning the perspectives on this issue. i look forward to a candid exchange of thoughts and ideas as the day goes on. the proposed merger between comcast and nbc is huge. really huge. in some respects it is similar

to transactions we have seen before. in other ways, it is new and novel. it is about traditional media, broadcasting and cable. it is about new media, broadband and the internet, too. it is not only the media environment that we are familiar with, but it is going to be a scene-setter for the future. we will be living with this for years to come. it goes to how much control a few individual companies should have over the distribution of media. it compels us to answer whether to -- extending that control be on distribution to content itself does anything to advance diversity, localism, and the public good. it raises questions about whether the public policy is a blessing of media consolidation

or is it time to begin pushing back the tide. we ask whether we are so happy with our present day media that we want our new media future on the internet to travel down the very same road. the last few decades with all too brief interruptions have not been kind to the public interest. on top of the industry consolidation that developed from the hyper-speculation of the recent years, blessed by government, not just in communications, but across a wide swath of the economic activity. we witnessed a deterioration of public interest by the federal communications commission, the very commission charged with the protection of consumers. you add horrendous public policy choices and you end up with serious harms to the tenants of the public interest.

localism, diversity, and competition. i am not of the opinion that our media environment can take too many more bad choices. this has cost this country dearly. the history of the regulation is well-documented. the adverse impact on our society is everywhere you look. take the news and information. all of the industry consolidation we have endured, all of the newsroom cutbacks as companies fight for economies of scale to curry favor with the wall street marketeers. all of this driven by the fcc evisceration of the public interest. rather than reviving the public interest condemned us to less real news, less diversity of opinion, less minority and female ownership, less investigative journalism, and

unless jobs for journalists. we are close to denying ourselves the news and information and quality civic dialogue that democracy ultimately depends upon. will we learn from this history or are we doomed to repeat these mistakes again and again? broadbent and the internet holds such a vast promise for all of us. i call high-value broadband become america's enablers. be a jobs or education or energy or climate change or opening the doors of equal opportunity that does not have an important broadband component as part of its successful resolution. the rules of the game must be as open and dynamic as the technology itself. one thing is clear above all else. broadband and the internet must not become the place of

gatekeepers and toll collectors. if that happens, we not only hurt ourselves, but we killed the promise that the technology hold for us. not to mention the burden on those expected to pay the tolls. when it comes to protecting the genius and openness of the internet, i want to know what the rules are? i want the industries to note the rules are. i want the consumers to know the rules that protect them are. i want to know that when things go wrong, they can be made right. that is not burdensome bureaucracy. that is not a government meddling. that is not expecting the unattainable. that is consumer protection at 101. none of us should be asked to settle for less. that is what the fcc was designed to be. a consumer protection agency.

i cannot and will not accept half-hearted pledges of fairness from industry when the future of web is at stake. the assurances we have received do not pass the red-face test. the only times we have to experience the fallout only to those in industry without credible public policy oversight. do we need another round of pillaging from the financial houses to take our economy one more time? how many more oil-soakded beaches and lost lives in the gulf that we understand that our lives are yours and mine. how do we conduct our democratic dialogue that our future depends on? we realize how necessary vision and vigilance are. lose the media, and we set

ourselves up to lose everything else. one final thought. when i mentioned the word diversity, it can have several meanings. diversity of opinion, a diversity of content, diversity of formats. all of these are relevant to this transaction. so is diversity of ownership. this transaction has possibly huge implications for our country's minority populations. anybody who thinks that ownership of our media does not significantly affect our country is being informed is not paying attention. while minorities comprise 34% of the nation's population, they own only 3.15% of commercial television stations. women comprise 51% of our population only and own about

5.8% of full power commercial television stations. those numbers are appalling. they mean that not only are minorities not getting a fair share of the action, but their interests, challenges, and many contributions they make to the nation ' s daily life to not get anywhere close to the attention that they should. shortchanging ownership diversity is shortchanging our civic dialogue. if the central tennant is to promote diversity in the media, and it is, then let's consider this challenge as we consider this scene-setting deals like this particular transaction. let's hear from everyone with an interest today and this evening. let's answer the new and novel questions at this transaction thrusts upon us. let's get onto a decision. i believe that we are on track to do that.

i will tell you that i am encouraged by the depth and breadth of the process that the chairman has set up for the to -- for this proceeding. it is a level of investigation and analysis that has no equal in the nine years i have been in the sec. i am grateful for the hard work -- then in the fcc. i am grateful for the hard work being done. he gives as a professional analysis that will encourage and lightning -- enlightened decision making. there are far reaching transactions including a hearing in the city last week. my friend, the congressman had a hearing. there are significant new questions and pointed to areas requiring the spotlight of public attention. i also want to thank bill leake,

who is with us. jessica, and bill friedman for organizing this forum and inviting me to attend. thank you to the team for handling the logistics for this, which is no small feat, but it is appreciated. i have said before the approval of this proposed transaction would be a very steep climb. no one who knows where i have been would be at all surprised by that. i plan to spend the rest of the afternoon and evening listening. i do have one request and it is really all that i can ask. i ask that you stay involved in these kinds of debates because they are so central to the future of our country. not just this one proposed agreement, but the many questions regarding the future of media of both traditional and

new. the nurturing of our democratic dialogue. so much of what our country will be, so much of what it can be, rides on the kind of media that we have. that is up to all of oz. it is up to those who operate the media every day. it is up to the legislators who write the laws. it is up to those who implement the rules of the road. it is up to what the people want and expect and demand. that is the blessings of democracy. that is why i am so pleased to be here today. thank you so much for coming. [applause] >> thank you very much, commissioner. as we move to our first panel discussion, i would like to review the ground rules briefly.

panelists, each of you will have seven minutes to make your remarks. members of the audience, please listen respectfully to the panelists, even if you disagree with what he is expressing. i know that the views that they give rouse passions. we need to maintain basic decorum and avoid unnecessary interruptions. thank you. i would like to turn it over to our moderator for the first panel, the senior counsel to the chair member for transactions. >> this first panel will be on on panel distribution considerations. before i introduce the panelists that have joined us here today, i want to introduce you to the third member of our panel. joining us is this mess, the

legal adviser for media consumer and enforcement issues. participating on the panel today, we have jeffries blum of the general counsel of dish network, susan from the school's law and that the visiting collaborator of princeton university. we have a partner and executive director of a coalition. travis parsons, senior director, business development. silver, president and ceo of the free press. scott, a vice president and senior fellow, and technology policy institute. and susan, the vice chair of the nielsen company. thank you all for being here.

>> thank you for inviting me here today. i am the senior vice president and general deputy counsel of dish network. we want to applaud these statements. government oversight of the merger of this magnitude is absolutely essential. in a forum like this, it is important to hear all voices so the right decision is made. this is the third largest pay tv provider. we provide -- offer the most hd programming, cutting edge technology, and award-winning customer service. we will focus on how the combined comcast, nbc would impact the on-line video market. this is important to the entire video distribution industry. comcast and nbc say that this is benign in nature and will only improve the experience. perhaps you're wondering why a

satellite tv provider might be interested. let me outline dish's stake in the merger. dish must integrate on-line video with our traditional satellite service. dish is actively innovating to achieve this integration. with our partner, we have developed products such as dish on demand and a product that allows you to watch your tv on and pc or mobile device. it allows customers to watch what they want, when the i one tot. -- want it. in order to provide our customers with the neutral experience, and that must be neutral and non discriminatory. an internet service provider must not interfere with the additional data flowing through

their broadbent pie. comcast is one of the video -- pipe.band one of the most pernicious ways for them to do that except through their control over the broadbent pipe -- broadband pipe. according to an internet project, 69% of american adults have used the internet to watch or down on a video. 80% have broadbent at home. this has entered the mainstream and the market will grow. the proposed merger represents a serious threat to competition in the tv industry. it is essential that the commission implements strict conditions to allow competition

in this industry. comcast and nbc are deeply involved in the video market. comcast and nbc have demonstrated a propensity to push competitors are out of the market completely. if allowed to combine, there are unprecedented market share would enhance its ability to discriminate against competitors like dish in the on-line video market. comcast ted shown its cards when it comes to discrimination. comcast was covertly injecting packages making it virtually impossible to use the service. comcast has no problem blocking or degrading internet traffic of its choosing. there is even greater incentive and ability for comcast to discriminate against competing on-line video traffic. if the merger were to be approved, comcast subscribers

could get access to hulu with full hd. nargis -- non subscribers may not have access to this. universal studios could be blocked completely. the merger would present a unique ability for comcast to engage in economic, broadbent discrimination. you were eight-network tv subscriber and you have a subscription to comcast internet service that is capped at 250 gis a month. it has the mott and -- many broadbent offerings as part of your service. you watch tv shows on nbc.com usedish on demand to order movies. when you receive your bill, you

find that you have been charged for exceeding your monthly cap. they tell you that all the nbc programs and universal films that you watched count against your bandwidth because you are not a comcast video subscriber. your neighbors down the street and bundled their service. comcast does not count nbc universal content against their cap simply because they subscribe to the video service. tell me, what do you think about switching to comcast and video service? think about the implications this sort of discrimination would have for competition in the video distribution market. to prevent such practices, the commission should do three things. they should apply internet rules to comcast and have all forms of content on the network. comcast must make transparent

its network practices so that the commission and public are aware of any unsavory activities that comcast engages in. they must have a stand-alone service and allow third-party internet service providers to be given wholesale access to this. these conditions should be coupled with strong and the fall -- a decisive enforcement procedures. this would give consumers a choice in the on-line video market. if the proposed merger is implemented, they must protect them in the internet market. this merger represents competition in the video marketplace. neither the commission or the american public can afford to take this threat lightly. >> thank you. >> i am a professor at a law

school and i am also of the visiting research collaborator at princeton. i am the assistant to the president for science and innovation technology. i am worried about the future of the internet. comcast believes that increased participation and content will delay the day went pipe is just a pipe. the question is whether the nbc content to the comcast content is likely to close competition in such a way that an unconditional merger is not in the public interest. my concern is adding nbcu content to these operations and the addition of popular, must- have, continuous addictive content like a lot of sports and business news, which cable

channels that comcast will be able to shield for real competition will give comcast the incentive m. possibility to constrain the development of on- line pay-tv distributors. comcast were like two years nbcu content to build barriers to in -- barriers to entry. that is not unlawful. the very popular content may allow a building of a remote that no competing on-line distribution provider will be able to cross in the short term. that may not be good for consumers, online industries, where for society as a whole. the internet is not the friend of the incumbent media companies. it generally lowers the barriers of entry that they have relied on so far. most media companies would like to avoid the growth of over the

top video distribution. four elements will develop that will allow programmers to make sure that the alternative to distribution methods are slowed. they must haveu and the sea cable -- nbcu cable channels. comcast requires consumers to pay for a cable subscription in order to get access to its product on mine. it is standing as the nation ' s largest internet access provider. here is how this could work. comcast market power and distribution gives comcast substantial control over programmer behavior. it will allow it to protect nbcu content. it is so important for programmers to reached the 25%

share of the population. comcast has the power to exact substantial compensation ends with channel said do not make programs independently available online. comcast also has a virtually complete discretion in the way it decides to distribute programming through channel placement and pricing. subject only to program schedules that have been difficult to enforce. comcast can use this discretion to protect nbcu content from competition. particularly msnbc and the local regional sports networks. the requirement to not put the programming on mine

independently, heightened by its control over this must-have content, and the tv everywhere may allow it to stave off competition from online acker titters. -- agrigators. on-line distribution competitors will not be able to attract investment, advertising, sponsorship, and subscriptions that they will need at scale in order to restrain comcast's pricing power. the price between comcast everywhere service and its cable service is a crucial tool. it may allow comcast to become on economical to allow to streeters to be a merger. you add nbc content to this will make the network section even greater. no programmer will want to be left out.

comcast's ability to tie this to the comcast cable services affectively prices competing on- line video distribution services at zero. people who already pay for comcast or time warner cable will have no interest in paying more for a rival on-line distribution package. in general, comcast operates with an enormously high barriers to entry. the commission should work with the department of justice to see whether a merger conditions can be created that will render this consolidation in the public interest or whether the merger should be blocked. comcast will be one of very few ways that americans will be able to send large quantities of bits across the internet.

comcast should not be allowed to discriminate in favor of its own business plan. thank you for the opportunity to testify. >> good morning. thank you for having me here. i am a telecommunications internet lawyer. i am here on behalf of net coalition which includes amazon, bloomberg, google, wikipedia, and the auto --yahoo. we are in a new era where consumers will be able to view a limitless are right of -- our rate of content in new ways. our concern is that it will create a content production environment that will have the financial incentive to reduce competition, diminish joyce, a reduced broadband network

investment, and raise prices for consumers. the proposed merger raises significant questions about a major content provider. it also represents a horizontal combination of two leading providers. we urge the commission to scrutinize the proposed merger carefully. the commissioner should require it to develop certain assets and proposes certain to consumer protections. consumers are increasingly looking for alternatives to traditional competition. broadbent internet has enabled internet and technology companies to allow them to interact with the diversity -- the reverse content. many of these compete with the comcast cable system. documents have been filed with the fcc. this has on-line services that allow internet video streaming

and allow the distribution of movies, television shows, and other programming and suggest that it faces direct programming with other competition. why is comcast so concerned? over time, online video will dominate the video market. from 2007-2009, online viewing of tv and movies --. more than 800,000 households have dropped their cable television subscription entirely. that number is expected to double in the next year. what are the challenges to this growing market? comcast could inhibit consumer access to content over the internet. bloomberg television to spread -- and distributes all of its content without charge. bloomberg tv makes its content available over the tv and the internet. the comcast model could force

bloomberg to decide to be carried on comcast's systems and -- or to continue to give the highly valued content over the internet. especially those offering programming competing with nbc comcast. they could do so by offering independent channels on favorable terms. comcast could engineer says -- a spike to restrict bandwidth to users while increasing bandwidth to proprietary and theseu c. program -- nbcu programming. think about the last time you're at best buy. you do not see set top boxes for

sale. cable companies that opened the set top box to the internet. why would cable companies be necessary if users to navigate directly to sites featuring shows and movies they were looking for? this merger also raises concerns about diversity of programming. let's take an area that might coalition has been concerned about, the availability of financial problems. this is happening at a time where competition at wall street is at an all-time low. there are 50 million americans to access a financial website every month. at those numbers are only rising. they have a purge the broader availability of this information by the internet. we believe a broad availability

analyzing wall street today that is not only critical to anyone investing, but the guy bank -- the guy that is trimming hedges rather than running hedge funds. the largest distributor -- distributor of content in the country will come to own cnbc. they control 85% of the business news market. they would have the opportunity to impose serious barriers to entry of an entity that is already the dominating figure in an incredibly concentrated market. i do not see how that could be permitted with the public interest part. these interests would require the imposition of conditions on the merger to protect such independent sources of news and information. the commissions would require comcast to divest itself of

cnbc. they are incentivize to carry competitors on the cable platform. comcast says every incentive to limit tests. if the commissioner -- commission would approve the merger, there would have to be specific conditions. in addition, -- this should not the with competing networks including business news network's. comcast has a history of interfering with certain kinds of contents. it would be happy to degrade the terms or level of service or quality of single delivery for programmers in competition with comcast. comcast should be required to do open internet rules.

the commission should adopt a condition that has any disincentive on the ability of alternative or competing business news networks to offer their content on other platforms including, but not limited to the internet. i look forward to answering your questions. >> thank you. >> thank you. good afternoon, everyone. i am the senior director of business development. it is a pleasure to be here today. i appreciate the fcc inviting us to be on this panel. in order to truly understand what is going on in the environment that we set in, i do want to give you a little but of an overview of sezmi and their relationships with content owners, broadcasters, and individuals. the goal was to create an

alternative to cable and satellite at half the cost. we want to deliver a better consumer experience, but not deny anybody to the access to the content. i am pleased to say that we succeeded with our launch in los angeles. we need fair and equal access to content and the broader and distribution networks that are delivering the content into the home. if we do not have that come sezmi will not thrive and the real loser will be the american consumer. that is why i am up here today. we intend to stay involved and active in this process. allows consumers to watch what i want to watch and

when they want to watch it. this is at a fraction of cable or satellite costs. we take that internet content, movie content, and video content and we bring it into one service. we are able to do that because of the system and the network architecture that we have created. that is based off of three technologies in terms of how we deliver the content into the home. the first is the use of the broadcast spectrum that we have been hearing so much about with regards to the dtv transition. we designed an antenna that picks up all of those over the air signals and allows the consumers to watch that on their television. in los angeles, it can pick up 80 + over the air channels. that is a wide variety of

programming. whether it is local sports, religion, that is not well served by cable or satellite providers. sezmi is able to bring the content on to the system. we have our own broadcast networks that we create. we use the same spectrum and we license the spectrum from a handful of broadcasters in the market. it might be network, it might be public, it might be independent. that is how we deliver that most popular network programming. we combine that with the broad band connection that goes into the back of the home. that allows us to deliver all of that needs content that is so important to everybody. this approach allows us to use spectrum in the most efficient manner possible. we broadcast out the most popular content and we use the broadband collection to deliver

the more niche-oriented content. with this innovative architecture and approach that we have created, it is vital for us to survive and for the consumer to get the system that they would like to have. we continue to have the fair and equal access to the spectrum and the broad band networks that deliver the content. the topic of the panel is on mine video distribution considerations. having given you a little bit of a background, i now want to shift our focus to the relationships that we deliver on at how we are going to go up there and bring the system into the marketplace. the first issue is getting sezmi and thenumers' hands the content relationships. obtaining the content of the

consumers want to watch. environment, it is very difficult to deploy a television service. we partner west television and isp providers to do so. we have announced our partnership with best buy. we have launched in los angeles. consumers can go in and buy the system. it allows them to watch hd television within a matter of minutes rather the wedding days or weeks. there will be another step 10 cities that we will roll out with his nationwide. we can deliver this for as low as $4.99 per month. they are looking for an end-to- end television service that they

b canudle. -- can bundle. our efforts to get tens of millions of systems out there in to the households would be in vain we did not -- if within a partner with the broadcasters. we allow broadcasters to grow their viewership, and hanssen interactive advertising, and increase the overall brand recognition overtimes. these are all examples of how traditional broadcasters can build their prentiss end expand their core audiences. none of this would be complete without having the ability to provide access to have the range of content that they desire. over the last three years, this is what we have been doing. licensing content from cable networks, the small and

independent content owners, as well as the independent programming servers. the environment has changed. people do not watch television or consume content the way they did several years ago. we are designing a platform that allows all of those content owners to deliver that content in this new age. they are delivering a basket of goods, no longer just the cable linear channel, but also all of the on demand programming and a library of programming. in closing ,sezmi designed a service that gives consumers access to this. as it relates to the joint venture, which currently have great relationships with nbc'su -- inu d.c. -- nbcu and are working with our ventures on

comcast. this is a venture with respect to the access to spectrum and the delivery of content over the network. these incentives may have a negative impact on consumer choice and competition. i urge the commission to keep these points in mind for everyone. i think i speak for everyone when i say, in the end, we want to make sure that the united states public is the winner. thank you again for the opportunity to speak here today with regards to what sezmi is doing. >> thank you. >> i can see why mr. parsons is the head of business development. i just wrote down, i have got to getsezm -- get sezmi service.

we are a nonprofit organization working for policy in the public interest. free press has spent an outspoken critic of consolidated media ownership and the proposed merger. we oppose the merger for several reasons. beyond the technical factors, there is a broader historical context that we ignore at our peril. policy making is that the test of the largest companies across industries. it is threatening our economies, our oceans, our security, and the very viability of democracy. you look at the ongoing recession and the disaster in the gulf of mexico. allowing the merger would be another giveaway to industry tightened at the public expense. insufficient government oversight has allowed companies

like comcast to overcharged customers who have no alternate providers. when bills are too high and service quality is too low. failure to ensure competition at resole prices has left our nation with broadband service that is far slower and costlier than other nations. we have slipped from a forestto -- fourth to 22nd in the last 10 years in broadbent adoption. nbc universal is huge. it owns one of only four national major broadcast networks. and one of two spanish-language networks. it is an important producer of local and national news and has a motion picture studio. this represents the first time

that such a vast range of large media properties would the house under one corporate roof. it would allow a single company to own a huge our rate of popular content and exert excessive control about how it is distributed over the airwaves and the internet. such dominance over any one of these allows sufficient reason for the fcc to oppose any transaction. this requires that regulators stop the deal. by combining vast programming assets with distribution dominance, the merger would dramatically reduce the incentive, block competitive entry, force bundles on other cable systems, and discourage competing programming. for consumers, this would be higher prices, few were programming choices up in a market that is already uncompetitive. it would diminish the media diversity, especially in on-line

video. this would be the first major media merger since the deployment of internet technology capable of distributing it technology content while it will be felt across multiple sectors of content distribution. it is the threat to on-line video markets that distinguishes this merger. comcast's ownership of nbc universal films and content as well as an -- a stake in hulu provides them with a powerful weapon to kill off internet based weapons before they get off the ground. it would block consumer access to competing on-line video providers. furthermore, if contact -- comcast wants to act increase content, the sec does not currently have -- fcc does not

currently have net neutrality rules in place. a court recently ruled that the fcc and lacks authority to enforce net neutrality and other key consumer protections. any website could have the reach of a television or radio network, breaking open the access of media content and allowing anyone with a internet connection to have a public voice. this merger is a direct threat to that historic opportunity. locally, the implications of the deal are alarming. in chicago, they would all indeed, a cable system, broadband system, and not one, but two broadcast stations. as well as nbc ' s cable networks.

they would control cable access, internet access and a quarter of all of the channels offered in the most popular expanded basic package. the agency is required by law to ensure that mergers will affirmatively promote the public interest, convenience, and necessity. comcast and nbc bear the burden of proving to the commission that the transaction will not only not harm consumers and competition, but it will actually advance public interest goals. comcast and nbc have not made and cannot make a showing. anyone who thinks that they can are likely those who cheered the gutting of regulatory oversight of big banks and big oil. some have suggested that if we place regulations on the deal, everything will be ok. this is not the same as ensuring

at it -- that the merger of four minutes of lee produces a real public interest outcomes. such conditions would expire in a few years. the anti-competitive incentives would be part of the dna of the merged company. conditions with the shelf life would be as helpful as putting a band-aid on a broken leg. the realities do not support the blessing of the merger. neither do the american people. once people understand the size and the scope of this deal, the overwhelmingly opposed it. there is the perception that the comcast, nbc deal is a done deal that to be patched up. it is the result of tens of millions of dollars spent by comcast on think tanks,

lawyers, l. lobbyists. they manipulate public opinion to embrace their rhetoric requires that we ignore the real threat, as was done in the financial and oil industries. if the fcc follow suit and puts -- int's interests at front of the public interest, it would cause bereave vocable damage. a thank-you to the commissioner for being here again. i cannot even count anymore how many of these you have been true. i do want to say that i am disappointed that the chairman decided to stay in washington instead of coming here to chicago. washington is a bubble and policymakers need to get out of that bubble. that bubble.