Senators Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Elizabeth Warren
(D-MA), Al Franken (D-MN), Ed Markey (D-MA), Ron Wyden (D-OR) and
Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) have come together on a letter to both the FCC
and the Department of Justice urging them to block the Comcast/Time
Warner deal.
In their letter, the Democrats wrote:
Comcast and Time Warner Cable (TWC) are reported
to be meeting this week with the Department of Justice (DOJ) to respond
to regulators’ concerns about the proposed acquisition of TWC by
Comcast. In advance of this meeting and as the Department of Justice and
the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) finalize their respective
evaluations, we write to urge the FCC and DOJ to reject Comcast’s
proposed acquisition of TWC. Today’s world demands affordable access to
high-quality Internet and TV services. Should the transaction survive
the FCC’s and DOJ’s reviews, we believe that Comcast-TWC’s unmatched
power in the telecommunications industry would lead to higher prices,
fewer choices, and poorer quality services for Americans – inhibiting
U.S. consumers’ ability to fully benefit from modern technologies and
American businesses’ capacity to innovate and compete on a global scale.
Since the proposal was announced last year, we have
heard from consumers across the nation, as well as from advocacy groups,
trade associations, and companies of all sizes, all of whom fear that
the deal would harm competition across several different markets and
would not serve the public interest. The concerns about the transaction
center on the undeniable reality that the combined Comcast-TWC would be
the overwhelmingly dominant cable and broadband Internet provider in the
nation and control much of the programming that Americans watch. With
57 percent of the broadband Internet market and 30 percent of the cable
market, Comcast-TWC would have an ability to defeat competing TV and
Internet companies and stifle American innovation across the industry.
And with Comcast’s ownership of NBCUniversal and the numerous popular TV
networks it controls, the combined company would have incentives and
means by which to extract higher prices from other multichannel video
programming distributors and prioritize its own programming over that of
competitors. Comcast-TWC’s monopsony power to dictate the terms of
transactions with programmers will also force companies from across the
country to reevaluate their business models, including the content they
produce and the prices they charge.
We’ve also heard from constituents in our
home states who are rightfully frustrated about their increasingly high
cable and Internet bills and are concerned that the proposed acquisition
will only drive those prices higher. Unfortunately, with only a handful
of cable and Internet providers dominating the market, consumers are
often left with little choice but to pay the price a given provider
demands and have little say over what content is made available to them.
Comcast-TWC’s combined ability to drive out competitors will only make
things worse for consumers. Technological advances in the industry will
be slowed, independent programmers and content will be foreclosed, and
consumers will be left with even larger bills to pay. This is an
industry that requires more competition, not less.
The Comcast-Time Warner deal is an attempt to create
a virtual monopoly in an industry that already suffers from a lack of
competition and options for consumers. Republicans claim that they are
the party of the free market, but it is a group of liberals in the
Senate who are actually defending the principles of competitive
capitalism.
Consumers
should be very concerned about the Comcast-Time Warner deal because it
will result in fewer choices, higher prices, and create a dominant
national Television and Internet Service Provider. It is a bad deal for
consumers, and Democrats are showing who the real party of free market
capitalism is by opposing this deal.
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