NBC stations backing Comcast deal

— Television station owners affiliated with NBC have agreed to support Comcast’s purchase of NBC Universal after the company pledged it won’t shift events such as the Olympics and football to cable, an executive said Monday.

The agreement keeps NBC’s Sunday night National Football League games and summer and winter Olympics on free, over-the-air television, said Michael Fiorile, past chairman of the NBC Television Affiliates Board, which represents more than 200 NBC stations not owned by the network.

“We support the merger with these conditions, which they tell us they won’t oppose,” said Fiorile, president of closely held Dispatch Printing Co., which owns NBC affiliate WTHR-TV in Indianapolis. Comcast endorses the affiliates’ position, said Washington-based spokesman Sena Fitzmaurice.

Competing cable operators on Monday criticized the proposed $28 billion deal, which would give the largest U.S. cable company control of the NBC network, NBC TV stations, cable channels and a movie studio.

Comments on the takeover of NBC Universal were due Monday at the Federal Communications Commission, which is reviewing the transaction along with the Justice Department.

The merger may cause “significant anti-competitive and consumer harms,” Matthew Polka, chief executive officer of the American Cable Association representing small cable companies, said Monday on a conference call.

Comcast-NBC would be able to increase programming fees by 20 percent “and possibly much more” in 60 large and midsize markets, the Pittsburgh-based cable association said Monday in an e-mailed statement. The association wants conditions before regulators approve the merger, Polka said.

The regulators have no deadline for a decision. The FCC can impose conditions on Comcast relating to the combined companies in return for approving a deal.

Comcast also agreed to keep separate the negotiations when stations renew affiliation agreements with the network from the talks over the price Comcast pays to carry an affiliate’s signal on its cable systems, Fiorile said.

“We’re really kind of pleased with them coming into NBC,” said Fiorile, “They’re in the sports business, they’re in the entertainment business, and with these safeguards they’re not going to contest, we feel pretty good about the deal.”

Comcast pledged to protect broadcast television when the deal was announced Dec. 3, and “keeping certain marquee events on over-theair is part of that commitment,” said Fitzmaurice, the Comcast spokesman.

Business, Pages 22 on 06/22/2010

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