NAB's Smith Expects Lots Of Conditions On Comcast/NBCU Deal
John Eggerton -- Multichannel News, 1/23/2010 9:39:20 AM
National Association of Broadcasters president Gordon Smith said Friday he expects the Obama administration will but "lots of caveats and conditions" on the Comcast/NBCU deal, but adds his own caveat that that is only supposition.
The NAB has taken no position on the Comcast/NBCU merger, but Smith said that he supposed the Obama administration will put "lots of caveats and conditions" on the deal. Smith, during an interview on C-SPAN's Communicators series Friday, added they "will not make a discernable
difference in terms of how it translates from NBC to its affiliates in relationship to cable."
Some of the NAB's members have expressed concern about the deal. Asked what that concern was, Smith responded: "If you own a station in Medford, Ore., and the potential exists that NBC could just program around your local station, you can be concerned about that."
But he said that networks and affiliates need each other. "My assumption is that NBC does continue to care about its local affiliates...I think that is in the interests of the Peacock to continue to work out an arrangement, even if it is owned by a cable company that will preserve those essential features of what we think of as localism and broadcasting."
Congress can be expected to make its feelings on conditions and concerns known at two upcoming House and Senate hearings on the deal, both scheduled for Feb. 4.
Comcast is planning to make its own public-interest pitch to the FCC by the end of next week.
C-SPAN's The Communicators with Smith bows Saturday Jan. 23 at 6:30pm (ET) with encores slated for C-SPAN 2 on Jan. 25 at 8 a.m. and 8 p.m..
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