Americans are divided in many ways, but there are some points of convergence—one of which seems to be hatred of the cable company Comcast. Notoriously terrible customer service, a pricing system described as “absurd” and a stranglehold on internet speeds garner the cable behemoth a remarkable amount of dislike and distrust, which played a role in the quashing of its recent effort to merge with perennial runner-up for worst company in America, Time Warner Cable.
You’d think it would be bigger news, therefore, that Americans who hate Comcast largely for reasons related to its very bigness are now facing the possibility of, essentially, another Comcast. The harms from a possible merger between Time Warner, Charter Communications and Bright House Networks were detailed in a piece for BillMoyers.com (2/4/16) by Michael Copps.
Former FCC chair calls the proposed TWC/Charter merger an “affront to the public interest.”
Not a stranger to the issue but the former chair of the FCC, Copps notes that this new mega-company would control about a third of the nation’s cable and cable-broadband markets; would also own programming, including regional sports networks; and would dominate some of the biggest media markets, like New York and Los Angeles.
Worse, since the new company wouldn’t share any markets with Comcast, they’d have no incentive to compete, but every incentive to coordinate against joint competitors, including those offering independent and diverse voices.
Least surprising, the deal would start the new company off with some $27 billion in debt, a time-honored incentive to raise prices and cut services—and why not? Where else will people go?
ACTION:
There’s still time to speak out against the TWC/Charter merger. One place to file comments with the FCC is NoMoreMergers.com.
Janine Jackson is the program director of FAIR and the host of CounterSpin.
This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News with permission from FAIR.