FCC Re-starts Comcast-TWC Shot Clock

As promised, the FCC's informal 180-day "shot clock," timing the review of the Comcast/Time Warner Cable merger, is running again -- it is now on day 105.

Earlier in the day, the clock was still stopped at day 104, which dated from Dec. 22, when the FCC stopped the clock for the second time, this time so FCC staffers could review 31,000 pages of documents that the FCC said TWC did not produce in a timely fashion due to what TWC said was "vendor error."

FCC Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake had said the clock would not start again until Jan. 12.

Time Warner Cable has called the document production a procedural issue, "not a substantive one," and pointed out that it had "already provided the FCC more than 5 million pages of documents" and would "continue to provide the FCC everything that they need to review this transaction.”

The FCC also stopped the clock on the merger review in October over the issue of third-party access to documents.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.