Obama, Congress should take dim view of Comcast/NBC Universal merger

Since President Obama took office last year, Democrats in Washington, D.C., have made noise about taking on special interests, lobbyists and big corporations. So far, it has been mostly talk.

Democrats have a chance to act on their tough talk. By squashing Comcast's bid to buy a controlling interest in NBC Universal from General Electric Co., the Obama administration and Democrats have an opportunity to show Americans that big corporations don't always get what they want from Washington, D.C.

Much of the behind-the-scenes chatter is that the review process will take a year and result in the Department of Justice and the Federal Communications Commission granting the deal with conditions.

Not good enough. Consumers should be worried, as should politicians, about a corporation that is the nation's largest Internet provider and the third-largest phone-service provider controlling one of the nation's giants in content production.

Congress and Obama can empower federal regulators to reject the Comcast/NBC Universal marriage.

The deal's review process commenced Thursday with subcommittee hearings in the House and Senate. The back-to-back hearings, which included testimony mostly from the same players, was sadly predictable. Brian Roberts, chief executive of Comcast, buzzed about vertical integration and innovation. Roberts, in an attempt to perk congressional ears, not so subtly linked the business deal to the health of the economy.

Jeffery Zucker, president of NBC Universal, talked of the expense of news gathering, efficiencies and innovation. (I guess in the world of NBC Universal, innovation means ushering in a new era only to panic and bring the old back seven months later.)

The subcommittee members did as expected. Republicans talked about the free market and the beauties of vertical integration and heaped praise on Roberts and Zucker. Democrats were cool to the proposal but noncommittal on whether the deal should be blocked. The most forceful politician at either hearing was Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn.

Franken is an interesting voice in this debate. He brings an insider's perspective of how broadcast television works because of his time on NBC's "Saturday Night Live" and later with his own show. Franken said he is skeptical of the merger and doesn't trust Roberts and Zucker when they say a Comcast/NBC Universal won't abuse its enormous power.

"It matters who runs our media companies," Franken said. "The media are our source of entertainment and they're also the way we get our information about the world. So when the same company that produces programming owns the pipes that bring us those programs we have reason to be concerned."

Franken is absolutely right to be worried. A combined Comcast and NBC Universal concentrates too much of what the public watches and downloads into the control of a single corporation.

If the deal is blessed by regulators it is likely that Comcast's and NBC Universal's competitors will try and find ways to grow, which means more media consolidation. A worrisome proposition considering that a handful of corporations already control most of what Americans read, watch and listen to.

Franken's congressional colleagues should pay attention to the comedian-turned-politician. He understands the not-so-funny ways this corporate coupling will play out in real life.

Ryan Blethen's column appears Sunday on editorial pages of The Times. His e-mail address is: rblethen@seattletimes.com