art editor-at-large cory johnson and i spoke with visiting professor susan crawford very choosy authorf captive audience. she wrote a piece in bloomberg pretendstled comcast its merger plan is a gift to us. we asked her what she meant by that. >> they say there are semipublic interest benefits ins merger that it has to go through. their job is to create an air of inevitability about this deal. the politics are now drifting against comcast's plan. it is not at all clear that the public interest concessions are claiming to be making are actually in the public interest in the long run. there's a lot of interesting news today about the merger. >> senator franken pointed out the comcast savings are not going to be passed on to consumers. is that kind of thing typically made in a merger? >> they have this obligation to prove to the fcc that this merger is affirmatively in the public interest. what they're saying is, whatever were going to do is not going to add an -- just add up into lower consumer prices. is more efficient for them to drive down the pricing of programming and get everything

. >> all right, a harvard visiting professor susan crawford, bloomberg interviewed her.nk you for sharing your views with us on "bloomberg west." the senatewill have judiciary's chuck grassley, ranking member there, his insight on today's testimony. you can watch us streaming on your phone, your tablet, and bloomberg.com. ♪ >> it is 26 minutes after the hour. that means bloomberg tv is on the markets. i am julie hyman. let's look at where stocks are trading today. we do have some gains here. i'll tell as better than estimated earnings. we are looking for the fed minutes in a little more than a half-hour. in terms of individual stocks, take a look at alcoa, just mentioned. earningofficially a top season. remember, it is not on the doubting the -- it is not on the dow anymore. addicting they will exceed production this year for the first time in nearly a -- predicting they will exceed production this year for the first time in nearly a decade. more on the markets in a half-hour. and you will get "bloomberg west ." ♪ >> you are watching "bloomberg in a" where we cover visio

our editor-at-large cory johnson and i spoke with visiting professor susan crawford author of "captiveudience." she wrote a piece in bloomberg view entitled "comcast pretends its merger plan is a gift to us." we asked her what she meant by that. >> they say there are so many interest benefits in this merger that it has to go through. their job is to create an air of inevitability about this deal. the politics are now drifting against comcast's plan. it is not at all clear that the public interest concessions are claiming to be making are actually in the public interest in the long run. there's a lot of interesting news today about the merger. >> senator franken pointed out that the comcast savings are not going to be passed on to consumers. is that kind of thing typically made in a merger? concession to consumers that prices will come down? >> welcome back, i'm emily chang. this is "the best of bloomberg west." biz stone is the founder of twitter and also a cofounder of jelly. he is the author of a new book. the book chronicles his move to silicon valley and offers advice to budding en

policy expert susan crawford it would also create a network that would past nearly two thirds of americanhouseholds and would have just one direct competitor rise in service which would overlap with only fifteen percent of the new company's territory very appearance on c.n.n.'s reliable sources on sunday minnesota senator al franken called the proposed merger a disaster. this is the number one cable t.v. company buying the number two. and this is the number one internet broadband company buying the number three and by the way they also have this vertical integration where they have twelve percent of all tell bitches that's produce the this is just a this is a disaster this is more than about so i mean you know with the dead or death of net neutrality comcast can pretty much do whatever they want they've already cut you know they've already forced netflix to pay them and. i forever by the way i find it particularly ironic that that comcast is running ads on m.s.n. b.c. i don't know if they're showing up elsewhere it's the only place i've seen in which they all i'm saying that by buying tim