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COMPETITION IN THE MEDIA AND 

ENTERTAINMENT DISTRIBUTION MARKET 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

FEBRUARY 25, 2010 

Serial No. 111–121 

Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://judiciary.house.gov 

(II) 

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

JOHN CONYERS, JR., Michigan, Chairman 

HOWARD L. BERMAN, California 

RICK BOUCHER, Virginia 

JERROLD NADLER, New York 

ROBERT C. ‘‘BOBBY’’ SCOTT, Virginia 

MELVIN L. WATT, North Carolina 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas 

MAXINE WATERS, California 

WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts 

STEVE COHEN, Tennessee 

HENRY C. ‘‘HANK’’ JOHNSON, JR., 

Georgia 

PEDRO PIERLUISI, Puerto Rico 

MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois 

JUDY CHU, California 

LUIS V. GUTIERREZ, Illinois 

TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin 

CHARLES A. GONZALEZ, Texas 

ANTHONY D. WEINER, New York 

ADAM B. SCHIFF, California 

LINDA T. SA ́ NCHEZ, California 

DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida 

DANIEL MAFFEI, New York 

[Vacant] 

LAMAR SMITH, Texas 

F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., 

Wisconsin 

HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina 

ELTON GALLEGLY, California 

BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia 

DANIEL E. LUNGREN, California 

DARRELL E. ISSA, California 

J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia 

STEVE KING, Iowa 

TRENT FRANKS, Arizona 

LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas 

JIM JORDAN, Ohio 

TED POE, Texas 

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah 

TOM ROONEY, Florida 

GREGG HARPER, Mississippi 

PERRY APELBAUM, Majority Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

SEAN MCLAUGHLIN, Minority Chief of Staff and General Counsel 

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

FEBRUARY 25, 2010 

Page 

OPENING STATEMENTS 

The Honorable John Conyers, Jr., a Representative in Congress from the 

State of Michigan, and Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary ..................... 1 

The Honorable Lamar Smith, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Texas, and Ranking Member, Committee on the Judiciary ......................... 5 

The Honorable Zoe Lofgren, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of California, and Member, Committee on the Judiciary ................................. 7 

The Honorable Gregg Harper, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Mississippi, and Member, Committee on the Judiciary ............................... 7 

The Honorable Henry C. ‘‘Hank’’ Johnson, Jr., a Representative in Congress 

from the State of Georgia, and Member, Committee on the Judiciary ............ 7 

The Honorable Adam B. Schiff, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of California, and Member, Committee on the Judiciary ................................. 8 

WITNESSES 

Mr. Brian L. Roberts, Chairman and CEO, Comcast Corporation, Philadelphia, PA 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 9 

Joint Prepared Statement ................................................................................... 13 

Mr. Jeff Zucker, President and CEO, NBC Universal, New York, NY 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 10 

Joint Prepared Statement ................................................................................... 13 

Ms. Jean Prewitt, President and CEO, Independent Film and Television 

Alliance, Los Angeles, CA 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 29 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 31 

Mr. Thomas W. Hazlett, Professor of Law and Economics, George Mason 

University School of Law, Arlington, VA 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 38 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 40 

Dr. Mark Cooper, Ph.D., Director of Research, Consumer Federation of America, Washington, DC 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 43 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 45 

Mr. Larry Cohen, President, Communications Workers of America, Washington, DC 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 58 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 59 

Mr. Andrew Jay Schwartzman, President and CEO, Media Access Project, 

Washington, DC 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 72 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 74 

Mr. Marc H. Morial, President and CEO, National Urban League, New York, 

NY 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 82 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 84 

Page

IV 

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

Prepared Statement of the Honorable John Conyers, Jr., a Representative 

in Congress from the State of Michigan, and Chairman, Committee on 

the Judiciary ......................................................................................................... 3 

APPENDIX 

Material Submitted for the Hearing Record .......................................................... 151 

(1) 

COMPETITION IN THE MEDIA AND 

ENTERTAINMENT DISTRIBUTION MARKET 

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2010 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY, Washington, DC. 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:04 a.m., in room 

2141, Rayburn House Office Building, the Honorable John Conyers, 

Jr. (Chairman of the Committee) presiding. 

Present: Representatives Conyers, Berman, Nadler, Lofgren, 

Jackson Lee, Waters, Cohen, Johnson, Pierluisi, Quigley, Chu, 

Gutierrez, Gonzalez, Wiener, Schiff, Sa ́nchez, Maffei, Smith, Sensenbrenner, Coble, Goodlatte, Lungren, Issa, Forbes, Franks, 

Gohmert, Poe, Chaffetz, Rooney, and Harper. 

Staff present: (Majority) Perry Apelbaum, Staff Director and 

Chief Counsel; Christel Sheppard, Counsel; (Minority) Sean 

McLaughlin, Chief of Staff and General Counsel; and Stewart 

Jeffries, Counsel. 

Mr. CONYERS. The Committee will come to order. 

We are in a difficult situation in terms of our economy. We are 

coming out of a financial crisis that was triggered by the prime 

mortgage—subprime mortgage meltdown. We have invested over 

$1.5 trillion in the economy, finally turning toward creation of jobs. 

I remember that since the Clinton administration, there has been 

consolidation, takeover and mergers unparalleled in American economic history, only slightly down-turned in number and scope over 

the last several years. And I must say that I have always been 

alarmed about these combinations that have developed in our economy. I have never thought that the antitrust division had operated 

with any real effectiveness. 

And I start off this discussion this morning with the suspicion 

that there are cases in which vertical mergers can be more dangerous than horizontal mergers and that the role of the Internet 

and—versus the role of cable is something we have got to begin to 

look at on a far larger basis than the one proposed merger before 

this Committee this morning. 

And, of course, I have never yet entertained a merger discussion 

in which there was complete assurance that there would be no diminution of jobs, never. And never has that ever happened. There 

was always job loss. 

There are now places in Michigan in which 30 percent of its population is unemployed. There are places that would meet the definition of a depression before the crisis that caused so much angst. 

2 

And now we have a proposal before us that I am approaching very 

carefully. 

And I will put my statement in the record, make it available, and 

I would like our Ranking Member, who has worked with me more 

closely and in a way without compromising his own point of view, 

but where he and I and this Committee could reach agreement as 

we did with the considerations that were on the floor just last 

night. 

I wanted to thank him and the Committee for the close scrutiny 

that we gave each other’s approach to these very important problems. And I recognize Mr. Smith of Texas, the Ranking Member. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Conyers follows:] 

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Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I appreciate those 

very generous words. 

I think you were surprised that I supported you last night on the 

House floor, but as you just mentioned, there are times and often 

times when we do work together, and that is a source of real satisVerDate Aug 31 2005 12:53 Nov 10, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00009 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\WORK\FULL\022510\55068.000 HJUD1 PsN: DOUGA

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faction to me, and I think it is good for the Committee, as well. 

And I thank you for all the courtesies you have extended us on this 

side. 

Mr. Chairman, vigorous unimpeded competition sustains our 

economy and keeps it strong. It leads to innovative products that 

keep prices low and better our lives. Today’s hearing gives us the 

opportunity to examine the proposed merger of Comcast and NBC 

Universal, a combination that would create one of the world’s largest entertainment companies. 

The combined company would own significant assets in video distribution, video production, movie production, and the emerging 

world of Internet video programming. However, this proposed 

merger is not completely typical of the mergers that this Committee and the Department of Justice usually review. 

Normally, we look at mergers between head-to-head competitors, 

such as Delta-Northwest Airlines and XM and Sirius. This hearing 

is more akin to the Live Nation and Ticketmaster deal that this 

Committee reviewed almost exactly a year ago. 

Both Comcast and NBC Universal own some video production assets. However, the more compelling question is whether a vertically 

integrated company that has a significant hand in video production 

and distribution can use its leverage in one area to raise prices in 

another. In other words, can a combined company use Comcast’s 

significant presence in cable distribution to limit its rival’s access 

to NBC’s programming? 

Comcast argues—and argues forcefully—that the Federal Communications Commission’s carriage rules does prevent it from discriminating against its rivals in such a way. And that, I might add, 

Mr. Chairman, is a persuasive argument. 

Finally, the combined company will still control one of the preeminent news reporting industries in the world, NBC News. I 

raised this concern in other circumstances, and I continue to worry 

that media consolidation contributes to the persistent problem of 

media bias. 

All that said, though, Comcast and NBC Universal have made 

significant commitments in their public interest filing with the 

SEC and in earlier hearings on Capitol Hill. Those commitments 

lead me to believe that this merger could, in fact, help consumers. 

In addition, past experience, such as the ownership of Time Warner Cable by Time Warner has not led to the dire consequences 

that some opponents suggested. The fact that Time Warner has 

now separated itself from Time Warner Cable might cause one to 

consider whether this is a wise business venture. However, that is 

less an issue of antitrust law and public policy than it is a question 

for Comcast shareholders. 

Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank our witnesses for being here 

today. And of course, I look forward to hearing their testimony momentarily. Yield back. 

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you very much. 

Did any Members on this side of the dais wish to make any opening comments? 

Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Chairman? Mr. Chairman? 

Mr. CONYERS. Zoe Lofgren? 

7 

Ms. LOFGREN. I will be very quick. First, I want to thank you for 

holding this hearing. I think it is very important. And there are a 

multitude of issues presented in the merger. I think we will learn 

a lot by the discussion today, but a very particular interest to me 

is the potential or questions or issue, perhaps, is a better, more 

neutral way to pose it of whether this merger will affect the growth 

of TV delivery over the Internet and whatever impact this merger 

could have on the whole net neutrality challenge that faces the 

country. 

And I am hoping that the witnesses will address these issues. 

And in the interest of hearing from them soon, I will stop now and 

yield back with great thanks. 

Mr. CONYERS. Gregg Harper? 

Mr. HARPER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move to strike the last 

word. 

Mr. CONYERS. Gentleman is recognized. 

Mr. HARPER. Mr. Ralph Roberts, who is with us today, started 

the Comcast family in my home state of Mississippi. Mr. Roberts 

founded American Cable Systems, now Comcast, in 1963 in Tupelo, 

Mississippi, in an effort to provide content to consumers in a small 

valley town that could not receive a decent signal from antennas 

in Memphis, Tennessee. 

Mr. Roberts and others involved in launching American Cable 

Systems took a risk to provide consumers with a much wanted 

source of entertainment. Comcast is now taking another risk to 

provide their customers with an even better product. 

Over the years, the Roberts family has built their company into 

a very successful business. Now Comcast is making an effort to expand on the American dream of building a successful company 

from the ground up by merging with NBC Universal. 

My hope is that the merger will receive a thorough and speedy 

examination and that the Comcast family is successful in their future endeavors to provide quality service to their customers. 

With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Mr. CONYERS. Subcommittee Chairman Hank Johnson? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this very 

important hearing today. 

The media and entertainment distribution market is continually 

evolving to meet consumer demand and new technology. Neither 

Congress nor the Department of Justice should stop progress, but 

as Chair of the Subcommittee on Courts and Competition Policy, I 

believe we must ensure that mergers and consolidation in this market do not harm competition. 

The specific merger between Comcast and NBC raises important 

questions about what kind of control the combined entity would 

have over distribution and programming and whether the new entity could leverage the acquisition to restrict access to NBC programming on the Internet. 

I am also concerned about the possibilities that jobs will be lost 

in the transaction. I understand that Comcast has stated that no 

jobs will be lost in the merger, but I find it hard to believe that 

any merger can occur without some job loss. 

In addition, with any media consolidation—excuse me—there is 

also a risk that local voices will be lost. I understand that Comcast 

8 

has made a commitment in its public interest filing that it intends 

to preserve and enrich the output of local news, local public affairs, 

and other public programming on NBC owned by owned and operated stations. 

I hope to hear the witnesses today specifically discuss what steps 

they plan to take to ensure that there will be no impact on journalistic independence of the information that consumers receive. Very 

important that our airwaves—our public airwaves be filled with 

factual data for people to make their own conclusions about situations that are occurring, as opposed to just simply a lot of editorial 

entertainers posing as news people. 

I also want to hear the parties to the merger discuss how consumers will have increased access to diverse and independent programming, including sports programming, a matter that is close to 

the heart of my compatriot, Mr. Cohen. 

In particular, I am concerned that Comcast will be able to bundle 

its regional sports network in Atlanta with NBCU’s popular programming to drive up costs for other pay television providers. Such 

an action would limit access to local sports teams and hurt consumers who will ultimately bear the increased costs. 

And with that, Mr. Chairman, I will yield back. 

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you. 

Adam Schiff? 

Mr. SCHIFF. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I very much appreciate your scheduling this hearing. I have a great interest in the 

subject matter, not the least of which between NBC and Universal 

have been either headquartered in or adjacent to my district ever 

since I have been to Congress and long before I got there. 

So it will greatly affect my constituents. I will be very interested 

to hear the panel’s thoughts in terms of the impact on jobs, and 

I appreciate the time I have had to discuss the issue with Mr. 

Zucker, and I understand the vertical nature of the proposed merger and was very pleased to hear that there are no intended job cuts 

as a result of the merger. 

I think that one of the issues I will be interested in exploring— 

and I don’t know that it has been as much on the table as some 

of the others—is the impact on intellectual property and the protection of intellectual property, another issue of key concern to my 

constituents and people all around the country. 

I think there may be a synergy here that could be very constructive in the sense that NBC has always been concerned about intellectual property, being content creators. The pipeline companies 

have often had different perspectives, and at times, the content 

makers and the content deliverers have not always seen the issue 

eye to eye. 

One potential benefit from the merger may be that it brings the 

pipeline much more into the business of protecting intellectual 

property because it will have an interest in making sure it protects 

the content of NBC to a greater degree than perhaps it did as a 

separate entity. So I will be interested to hear the panel’s thoughts 

of whether that conjecture is right or whether I am completely off 

the mark. 

9 

And so I greatly look forward to the testimony today and appreciate, Mr. Chairman, your putting this distinguished panel together, and yield back the balance of my time. 

Mr. CONYERS. We welcome witnesses Andrew Jay Schwartzman, 

president of Media Access Project, Larry Cohen, president of Communications Workers of America, Dr. Mark Cooper, director of research, Consumer Federation of America, Ms. Jean Prewitt, Independent Film and Television Alliance, Mr. Jeff Zucker, president, 

CEO, NBC Universal, and our first witness, Mr. Brian Roberts, 

chairman and CEO of Comcast. 

He brings his father with him today. And from the time his father started the company that was referred to by our colleague 

from Mississippi, it is now a Fortune 100 company, 23 million customers, 100,000 employees, and in addition, our first witness 

serves as a member of the board of directors of the National Cable 

and Telecommunications Association. 

All statements will be entered into the record. 

And, Mr. Roberts, we welcome you this morning. 

TESTIMONY OF BRIAN L. ROBERTS, CHAIRMAN AND CEO, 

COMCAST CORPORATION, PHILADELPHIA, PA 

Mr. ROBERTS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Members of the 

Committee. It really is a privilege to come here today to talk about 

Comcast’s planned joint venture with GE regarding NBC Universal. 

As Congressman Harper nicely stated, my father, Ralph, indeed 

started Comcast almost a half of a century ago with a single small 

cable system. Together we have been able to build Comcast into a 

national cable, broadband, and communications company employing over 100,000 people today. 

In proposing to combine with NBC Universal, we are taking the 

next step in our improbable journey. This is indeed an important 

moment in Comcast’s history. 

So let me first briefly summarize the transaction. Under our 

agreement, Comcast will become the majority owner of NBC Universal; and will create a new venture that combines NBCU’s broadcast TV, cable programming, movie studio, and theme park businesses with Comcast’s limited video programming channels. 

Comcast will hold 51 percent of the venture and manage it, while 

49 percent will remain with GE. 

The transaction puts two great American media and entertainment companies under one roof. It will help to deliver more diverse 

programming to millions of households, and it will also help to accelerate a truly amazing digital future for consumers. 

Together, Comcast and NBCU can help deliver the anytime, anywhere, multiplatform video experience Americans want. In combination, we will be a more creative and innovative company. And 

our success will stimulate our competitors to be more innovative, 

too. So this joint venture will be good for consumers, innovation 

and competition. 

To leave no doubt about the benefits of the new NBCU, we have 

made a series of public interest commitments in writing detailing 

how we will bring more local programming, more children’s programming, and more diverse programming on more platforms. 

10 

We have also made commitments to reassure our competitors 

that we will compete fairly in the marketplace. Let me offer two 

examples. 

First, we volunteer to have the key components of the program 

access rules apply to our retransmission negotiations for NBC stations, even though those rules have never applied to retransmission 

consent negotiations. 

Second, we want independent programmers with quality and diverse content to know we are committed to help them reach an audience, so we have committed to add at least two new independently owned cable channels to our systems every year, beginning 

in 2011. 

Bringing NBCU and Comcast together is a primarily vertical 

combination. There is no significant overlap between the two companies. A vertical combination generally poses fewer competitive 

concerns. This means no massive layoffs, no closure of facilities, 

nothing to produce hundreds of millions of dollars of synergies. 

That is why, as has been noted, some on Wall Street did not initially fall in love with this deal right away. But it is also why we 

believe Washington can—because we will grow these great American businesses over the long term and make them more successful, 

not cut them. 

Congress has recognized the benefits of vertical integration before and adopted rules in 1992 to address the potential risks. At 

that time, there was almost no competition to cable, and more than 

half of all the channels were owned by cable companies, so Congress created program access and program carriage rules to ensure 

that a company which owns both cable content and distribution 

cannot treat competitors unfairly. 

Those rules have worked in the past and will continue to work. 

And we are willing to discuss with the FCC having the program 

access rules bind us even if they were to be overturned by the 

courts. 

In the past decade, Comcast has come to Washington twice to 

seek merger approvals, when we acquired cable systems from 

AT&T and Adelphia. Each time, we explained how consumers 

would benefit, and in each case, I believe we have delivered. 

We have spent billions of dollars upgrading cable systems to 

make them state-of-the-art. We created Video On Demand, which 

our customers have used 14 billion times. And from a standing 

start 4 years ago, we now give millions of Americans their first real 

competitive choice of phone provider. 

We have also created thousands of jobs and promoted diversity 

in our workforce. 

Once again, we have described how consumers will benefit, and 

I want to assure you that we plan to deliver. 

Mr. Chairman, we are asking for the opportunity to make one of 

the great icons of American broadcast and communications part of 

the Comcast family. We promise to be reliable stewards for the national treasures of NBC and NBC News. It is a breathtaking and 

humbling moment in our history, and we hope to have your support. 

Thank you. 

11 

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you. 

I want to make sure that everyone knows that Professor Thomas 

Hazlett is here from George Mason University. He was the chief 

economist at the FCC in 1991. 

Welcome, sir. 

We now call on Jeffrey Zucker, president, chief executive officer 

of NBC, at one time the youngest executive producer of ‘‘The Today 

Show’’ and ultimately became president of NBC Entertainment and 

was promoted to his current position in 2007. 

Welcome to the hearing, sir. 

TESTIMONY OF JEFF ZUCKER, PRESIDENT AND CEO, 

NBC UNIVERSAL, NEW YORK, NY 

Mr. ZUCKER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today. As the president and CEO of NBC Universal, I am proud to lead an iconic media company shaped by two 

great American brands, NBC and Universal, and I am grateful for 

the opportunity to tell you how the proposed venture between 

Comcast and General Electric will help NBC Universal thrive and 

also benefit our employees, the creative community, the goals of diversity, and our ability to meet the demands of 21st century American consumers. 

In today’s intensely competitive and dynamic media markets, 

this deal is critical to realizing these benefits. That is what makes 

me so excited about this deal with Comcast. At a time of tremendous change and fierce competition in the media marketplace, 

Comcast is committed to invest at NBC Universal and to share its 

delivery expertise and innovative vision. We need to take advantage of new digital distribution capabilities, On Demand, online, 

mobile, and beyond, to be a leader in delivering content to consumers where they want it, when they want it, and how they want 

it. 

Comcast’s investment in NBCU, married with its history of delivery innovation and technological vision, will help us meet the demands of the 21st-century consumer. In short, two words—investment and innovation—capture the benefits that Comcast will bring 

to NBCU. 

Let me also say a few words about key issues that I know are 

important to Members of this Committee, first, competition. This is 

not your father’s media market. Less than 40 years ago, three companies enjoyed 90 percent of all television viewing. Today, the 

world could not be more different. 

Each of the five largest media companies in America now only 

account for between 5 percent and 10 percent of all viewing. And 

a multitude of smaller competitors actually account for approximately half of all television viewing. 

The new NBCU’s cable channel business, where we will add 

Comcast networks, will be ranked fourth by revenue among owners 

of national cable networks. But that is only part of the picture. 

People today choose not only between broadcast and cable television, but also increasing look to the Internet, Xbox, iPhone, 

PlayStation, and so many other new platforms and technologies for 

12 

their media choices. There will be more change in our space in the 

next 5 years than there has been in the last 50. 

This deal will not change this fundamental competitive dynamic 

or the extraordinary rate of technological change, but it will help 

NBC Universal compete in the new media world. 

Second, diversity. I have made diversity one of my top five strategic priorities as CEO, and I am proud of our record at NBC Universal. We have an extraordinarily diverse employee population 

and a diverse executive team, and I see the benefits of this diversity every day. 

Third, jobs. Comcast’s investment in NBCU means that our 

workforce will not face the layoffs typical of so many mergers. 

Moreover, Comcast is committed to our existing labor-management 

relationships and will honor all of our collective bargaining agreements. I see a brighter future not just for the talented employees 

at NBCU who produce our high-quality content such as the Olympics we have been so proud to air over the last 2 weeks, but also 

for other creators, as NBCU invests in more and better programming and spurs our competition to do the same. 

Fourth, intellectual property protection. This deal provides an 

important opportunity to address critical concerns about piracy and 

digital theft, an issue that this Committee knows all too well. 

Fifth, over-the-air broadcasting. Comcast’s investment also 

means that we can reinvigorate the broadcast side of the business. 

Comcast’s commitment to over-the-air broadcasting has been widely underappreciated, but is great news for the American public that 

we serve. Comcast’s commitment to over-the-air broadcasts leads to 

a more vibrant NBC and Telemundo, for the benefit of our viewers 

nationwide. 

Let me close by saying how grateful I am for GE’s excellent stewardship of NBC Universal. GE has invested more than $22 billion 

since 2000 and built NBCU into the diversified and vibrant broadcast, film, cable programming, and media company that we are 

today. With this deal, GE will now have billions of dollars to invest 

in new technologies and jobs in its core businesses. 

I could not be more excited about the future of this company for 

the NBCU family, including our employees, as well as our audience. The investments in innovation this deal will bring are essential if we are to remain a vigorous competitor in the 21st-century 

media market and a growing source of high-wage jobs in an economy starved for employment. 

Thank you for the opportunity to testify, and I look forward to 

any questions that this Committee may have. 

[The joint prepared statement of Mr. Roberts and Mr. Zucker follows:] 

13 

JOINT PREPARED STATEMENT OF BRIAN L. ROBERTS

AND JEFF ZUCKER


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Mr. CONYERS. Our next witness is Jean Prewitt, who has been 

a lawyer, senior vice president, general counsel, United International Pictures, foreign distribution affiliate of Paramount, Universal and MGM Studios, and since 2000 has been president and 

CEO of Independent Film and Television Alliance. 

Welcome. 

TESTIMONY OF JEAN PREWITT, PRESIDENT AND CEO, INDEPENDENT FILM AND TELEVISION ALLIANCE, LOS ANGELES, 

CA 

Ms. PREWITT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Members of the 

Committee. 

In an era of media giants, I am here to speak for the independents. The independents are the workhorses of this industry. They 

produce 70 percent of the feature films. They account for the vast 

majority of jobs in that sector. They introduce new talent to the industry, and they are distinguished by the fact that they finance 

their product from outside the five major studios. 

Since 1982, IFTA and its members have produced, distributed 

and financed more than 63 percent of the Academy Award best pictures. This season’s—this year’s award season has already honored 

‘‘The Hurt Locker,’’ ‘‘Precious,’’ and ‘‘The Last Station,’’ and we expect those honors to continue over the next week. 

The issue before us today is whether America will continue to be 

informed, entertained, and challenged by varied voices. The answer 

matters. Independent TV series and films have changed how Americans think, how we live, and how we structure our society. 

‘‘The Cosby Show’’ was produced by an independent, and it 

changed racial attitudes. ‘‘Gandhi,’’ ‘‘Crash,’’ and ‘‘Million Dollar 

Baby’’ prompted public discussion of important issues, and they 

were produced by independents. 

This merger must not deny the public access to new messengers 

and new messages. We know why Comcast and NBC want this 

merger. Comcast is buying NBC so that it can own more TV shows 

and more feature films. They look forward to cost savings. They 

look forward to synergies as they fuel new platforms. 

But this will come from the capacity to leverage their own programming across many platforms, from free TV to cable to Video 

On Demand to the Internet. They avoid the transaction costs, they 

say, of having to deal with third parties or independents in acquiring that programming. 

For the past 15 years, investment decisions and regulatory rulings have thwarted independents’ diversity and creativity. Vertical 

integration has combined studios, broadcast and cable networks 

into a few conglomerates. A handful of executives now decide how, 

when and whether programs will reach the public. They are closing 

the door on diversity, and we must do whatever we can to pry that 

door open today. 

Make no mistake: What is good for Comcast and NBC in this 

merger isn’t good for the American public. The proposed merger 

will simply create more consolidation. It must not go forward without clear commitments and conditions to protect the public interest 

in diverse programming and varied voices. 

30 

Five major conglomerates now own the national broadcast networks and 24 out of 29 of the top cable channels that feature entertainment programming. These five companies produce over 80 percent of all entertainment programming on primetime and, importantly, on the three major children’s networks. 

Meanwhile, the percentage of independently produced series on 

the networks has declined from 50 percent in 1989 to 5 percent in 

2008. What has happened? Since 2002, the major outlets for independent programming have been confined to a handful of basic 

cable channels which buy limited numbers of movies of the week, 

feature films, and scattered other programming. Many of those 

channels, from G4 to Syfy to USA, will become part of this new 

combined company, and that is just today’s media. 

This merger can also exclude independent programming from 

Comcast’s valuable Video On Demand space and its new proposed 

Internet offerings. History will repeat itself, and the independents 

will be shut out of the new emerging platforms in exactly the same 

way they have now been shut out of broadcast television and cable 

television. 

At this crucial moment, the Committee has the power to raise 

the questions that will advance American values of diversity, creativity, and freedom of expression. Will Americans enjoy greater diversity of choices and voices? Will the public have access to the 

next ‘‘Cosby’’ or the next ‘‘Mad Men’’? Or will our choices be narrowed at a time when new technology should be liberating, not limiting, our sources of information and entertainment? 

The answer must be strong conditions placed on this merger to 

preserve the diversity of voices that we would expect in the American entertainment sector. 

Thank you for allowing me to speak for the independents today. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Prewitt follows:] 

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PREPARED STATEMENT OF JEAN PREWITT


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Mr. CONYERS. Professor Thomas Hazlett, professor of law and economics, George Mason University, chief economist of the Federal 

Communications Commission, author of the book ‘‘Public Policy Toward Cable Television,’’ director of Information Economy Project, 


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an expert on government regulation of the media, and a person of 

a vast combination of experiences and law and education. 

I am pleased that you are here today. 

TESTIMONY OF THOMAS W. HAZLETT, PROFESSOR OF LAW 

AND ECONOMICS, GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF 

LAW, ARLINGTON, VA 

Mr. HAZLETT. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, also, somebody who was late to the hearing. And for that, I apologize. 

Quickly on the competitive analysis, the merger before the Committee today is primarily a vertical combination where Comcast, a 

cable operator distributing video programming to millions of household subscribers, is acquiring ownership of additional programming 

assets. This does not lessen competition in any market, but allows 

the content distributor to achieve efficiencies by producing complementary products. 

There are special cases in which vertical integration can lead to 

anti-competitive foreclosure, but the evidence indicates that these 

special circumstances do not apply. Studies of vertical integration 

in cable generally confirm the baseline analysis. Efficiencies typically result when firms elect to combine programming and distribution. 

As an empirical matter, the trend in the sector is away from 

vertical integration, meaning that operators do not believe they can 

increase profits via vertical foreclosure. The ownership of cable program networks has sharply declined over the past 2 decades by operators. The spin-off of cable TV systems by Viacom in 1996 and 

Time Warner in 2008 are key components of this trend. 

In video programming, there is a horizontal aspect to the combination. Comcast currently owns some cable network assets, and 

these will merge with direct rivals owned by General Electric. But 

the Comcast share is meek combined with NBC Universal program 

assets that will account for only about 12 percent of total U.S. cable 

program network revenues. 

The good news for consumers and programmers in recent years 

is that local market competition has, at long last, taken off. Twenty 

years ago, one local cable TV system dominated multi-channel 

video program distribution in each franchise area. Today, there are 

over three competitors per market on average: the local cable operator, two satellite TV rivals, each with a national footprint, and 

coming up on almost half the country now, a telco TV provider. 

Nothing in the Comcast-GE deal threatens to disturb this trend. 

Finally, a word on just the business strategy. In acquiring additional programming assets, Comcast is actually swimming against 

the tide. The company is wagering that it can make more productive use of GE’s cable and broadcast networks. It does so knowing 

that its markets are in tumult. 

Video products are jumping from platform to platform, not just 

from cable to satellite, but from television to broadband, from linear channels to On Demand networks, from pay to premium, from 

TV screens to mobile devices. Some financial analysts appraise 

Comcast for its bold new enterprise. Many have condemned it. 

‘‘Didn’t they learn anything from the failed AOL-Time Warner 

merger?’’ is a fairly popular reaction. 

39 

The simple fact is that no one fully understands where today’s 

tide is headed. Cable operators do not know if they need fear 

Verizon or EchoStar, Google or Apple. Time Warner believes that 

splitting its cable operations from its program ownership is the 

best way to prepare for the coming storm. Comcast has come to a 

much different conclusion. Marks allow these rival strategies to be 

tested and winning strategies rewarded. I wish Comcast and General Electric shareholders well in their educated guesses. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Hazlett follows:] 

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PREPARED STATEMENT OF THOMAS W. HAZLETT


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Mr. CONYERS. Dr. Mark Cooper, director of research at the Consumer Federation of America. He has testified before numerous 

Committees, has written about this, is a fellow at Stanford Law 

School Center for Internet Society. 

We welcome you here. 

TESTIMONY OF MARK COOPER, Ph.D., DIRECTOR OF RESEARCH, CONSUMER FEDERATION OF AMERICA, WASHINGTON, DC 

Mr. COOPER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

In today’s written testimony and previous testimony before the 

House and the Senate, we have demonstrated that this merger is 

not in the public interest, because it eliminates the competitive rivalry and head-to-head competition between two of the most important participants in a distinct market, the multi-channel video programming market. 

Comcast and NBC compete head to head in local distribution of 

video content in a dozen of the Nation’s largest and most important 

local markets. They compete head to head in the production of 

video content for multi-channel distribution, with Comcast doing 

sports and regional news, lined up against NBC Sports and regional news. 

They compete head to head in the distribution of video content 

online. Indeed, NBC is a major partner in Hulu, an Internet-based 

multi-channel video distribution platform. 

In addition to the elimination of this head to head competition, 

NBC and Comcast, by marrying their content and distribution, 

pose a threat while vertical leverage that is used to gain advantage 

in horizontal competition, favoring its own content with access to 

cable systems that reach one quarter of the market and denying 

competitive programming access to those cable systems places a 

very heavy thumb on the scale of competition in the video content 

market. 

Withholding must-have programming from competing distributors undermines competition for eyeballs in local distribution. 

The merged entity has an incentive to increase prices and increase the size of the bundle that NBC sells to cable operators, 

raising consumers’ costs. And above all, the marriage of the Nation’s largest broadband service provider with one of the Nation’s 

premier video content producers also poses a direct threat to the 

Internet as a platform for disruptive competition in multi-channel 

video, a distinct market. 

The threat is real, and the danger is imminent. Comcast has already signaled its intention to extend the ugly cable model to the 

Internet by proposing a market division scheme with the secondlargest cable operator, Time Warner. Comcast is seeking to prevent 

local sports teams from making their content available online. NBC 

has moved its Olympic coverage behind an Internet pay wall tied 

to cable subscription. 

Geography does not matter on the Internet. There are no franchises, no rights of way, or regulatory impediments, and few, if 

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tive market division scheme that must be stopped. In the cable 

lexicon, TV everywhere means competition nowhere. 

This merger is a competitive nightmare, and the promises made 

by Comcast that it will behave are useless for two reasons. They 

do not begin to address the competitive problems across the industry, and they are promises that cannot be trusted. 

Any serious discussion of conditions must address all of the 

major areas of competitive concern, in addition to the localism and 

diversity areas that Comcast has admitted are a problem, local 

markets, affiliate relations, cable program access, cable carriage, 

Internet distribution, and independent programming, and broadcasts in primetime. 

To ensure that conditions are enforceable, the Federal authorities 

with the oversight over these areas should complete industry-wide 

proceedings that address the underlying problems before this merger is approved. Many of these proceedings have been pending before the FCC for years. Once the industry-wide mechanisms are in 

place, the agencies should then consider whether additional conditions are necessary to meet the unique threat to competition and 

the public interest that is embodied in this merger. 

Comcast should also agree not to challenge the legality of conditions or render aid and comfort to those who do. The irony is that 

when they say they will obey the law, they are seeking to overturn 

those at the FCC and the courts. 

Federal authorities must do more than just preserve the current 

industry structure, which is riddled with anti-competitive and anticonsumer institutions and practices. They should seize this moment to implement the long-overdue reform that will improve the 

plight of the American video consumer. 

If policymakers allow this merger to go forward without fundamental reform of the underlying industry structure, the prospects 

for a more competition-friendly, consumer-friendly, multi-channel 

video market will be dealt a severe setback. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Cooper follows:] 

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PREPARED STATEMENT OF MARK COOPER


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Mr. CONYERS. Larry Cohen, president of the Communication 

Workers of America, has been working in the collective bargaining 

movement most of his life, started out in Pennsylvania, rose 


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through the ranks of the communication workers, and has been 

president since 2005. 

TESTIMONY OF LARRY COHEN, PRESIDENT, 

COMMUNICATIONS WORKERS OF AMERICA, WASHINGTON, DC 

Mr. COHEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

CWA represents more than 700,000 members, most of whom are 

network and content providers, including members at Comcast and 

NBC Universal. So I believe we have a unique perspective on the 

impact of this transaction on workers and the industry. 

My remarks will focus in three areas: first, the impact on jobs; 

second, how the merger will aggravate, not encourage, current anticompetitive behavior in the television industry; and third, the problems that will result in the emerging Internet video marketplace. 

The bottom line? The public must be protected from the significant harms created by a combination of such unprecedented scale. 

A Comcast-NBC combination will, in fact, lead to the loss of good 

jobs. In any of these restructurings, there is never a warranty on 

employment, only promises. 

With official unemployment, as the Chairman said, at more than 

10 percent nationally, we must evaluate all corporate transactions 

by assessing the impact on jobs. Comcast-NBC debt will increase 

by approximately $8 billion after this transaction. And to pay for 

the debt, the company has two choices: cut jobs or raise cable 

prices. Either way, consumers and workers lose. 

In addition to job loss, the combination will depress labor standards. Unfortunately, Comcast has a terrible track record of aggressive action to eliminate collective bargaining at the companies that 

it acquires. In 2002, Comcast acquired AT&T Broadband. At the 

time, CWA represented 5,000 cable employees there. After the 

transaction was announced, I met with Comcast executives. They 

told me they would respect the employees’ rights to a union voice. 

And then let’s see what a Comcast commitment means. 

Soon after they took control of AT&T Broadband, a senior vice 

president in Oregon announced, ‘‘We will wage war to decertify the 

CWA,’’ and that is what Comcast did. Comcast delayed bargaining 

for years, denied workers wage and benefit improvements provided 

to non-union employees, and supported decertification elections. 

Comcast refused to reach agreement on a first contract in 16 bargaining units that it acquired from AT&T. 

In Pittsburgh, Comcast workers were forced to go through four 

union decertification elections, all supported by management, in 5 

years before they finally negotiated a union contract. CWA also 

represents Comcast employees in Oakland, California, and Detroit. 

In both locations, Comcast has shifted half the work to non-union, 

lower-wage, so-called self-employed contractors, reducing secure 

jobs and benefits in areas hard-hit by unemployment. And where 

workers try to form a union, Comcast has fired and retaliated 

against union members. 

In contrast, collective bargaining at NBC Universal dates back to 

the 1930’s. Our NABET affiliate represents broadcast technicians 

at NBC. Although we are currently in difficult negotiations with 

NBC, the bottom line is NBC workers have a collective voice 

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through their union, a right that Comcast has consistently every 

time opposed. 

Let me now turn to the anti-competitive issues associated with 

this transaction. There is already too little competition in the video 

marketplace. As the chart on the screen shows, cable rates have 

grown at three times the rate of inflation. This merger would provide Comcast-NBC with added incentive and ability to engage in 

anti-competitive practices that would increase cable rates. 

Comcast after the merger would have the ability to bundle its 

less-desirable channels with must-have NBC programming. Forced 

bundling will raise other video providers’ costs, which translates 

into higher rates for consumers. 

Today, some companies are trying to compete with incumbent 

cable operators. They are investing significant resources to build 

their networks. This merger would provide Comcast-NBC with the 

incentive and ability to raise the prices it charges new entrants for 

must-have NBC and sports programming, effectively blocking or 

limiting competition, cutting investment and jobs that accompany 

those efforts. 

In summary, the Comcast-NBC merger’s potential to limit 

growth, investment and jobs is not in the public interest. Federal 

regulators cannot pass this merger without carefully considering 

the significant impact the merging companies will have on video 

competition, choice, and jobs. 

Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I look forward to 

answering any questions. I ask that my written comments be entered into the record, along with this chart, and we welcome, finally, some dialogue. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Cohen follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF LARRY COHEN


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Mr. CONYERS. Andrew Schwartzman, president of Media Access 

Project, since 1978, he has become a national expert on media 

issues, is a faculty member at Johns Hopkins University School of 

Arts and Science, and he has taught courses dealing with media 

and communications issues for a number of years. 


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TESTIMONY OF ANDREW JAY SCHWARTZMAN, PRESIDENT 

AND CEO, MEDIA ACCESS PROJECT, WASHINGTON, DC 

Mr. SCHWARTZMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

This is the most important media merger since Lucy met Desi. 

Comcast seeks to combine its huge cable and Internet footprint 

with NBC’s content assets. 

Even though I have problems with Mr. Roberts’ labor management practices and his corporate governance structure, I recognize 

that he is motivated by business considerations and not some sort 

of design to undermine American democracy. But the consequences 

of this deal, nonetheless, could have precisely that effect. 

Concentration and control of the mass media poses unique questions for policymakers and regulators. As Judge Green said when 

he considered the AT&T consent decree, the values underlying the 

First Amendment coincide with the policy of antitrust laws. 

Approval of this merger would increase Comcast’s power to 

squeeze out independent programmers with diverse editorial perspectives. There are scores of cable networks which have been unable to obtain carriage on Comcast and other cable systems. 

I am here and they are not because some of these companies 

have told me that they are afraid of retaliation. And acquisition of 

NBC’s stable of cable networks will greatly exacerbate the existing 

imbalance of power. 

If Comcast is permitted to purchase the NBC TV stations and its 

highly viewed cable networks, Comcast will be able to bundle unwanted programming when it seeks carriage deals with other 

MVPDs. The problem is even greater with respect to carriage on 

Comcast-owner cable systems. After the acquisition, Comcast would 

have many more cable networks to favor. This means higher prices 

for all Americans, not just Comcast customers. 

There ought to be a law against such abuse. And, in fact, there 

is. Section 616 of the Communications Act is supposed to prohibit 

cable companies from discriminating in favor of their own programming. While Comcast argues that existing law is sufficient to protect independent programmers, Comcast has suggested, but not 

quite promised, that it will not renew its efforts to challenge the 

constitutionality of Section 616 in the future. 

However, this does not change a more fundamental fact, which 

is that the existing statute does not work. Program carriage litigation is prohibitively expensive, and the FCC has adopted almost insuperable legal hurdles for complainants. 

Combining NBC Universal content with Comcast cable and Internet distribution systems will also give the merged company vastly 

increased power over content distribution markets. Depending on 

the circumstance, Comcast could choose to withhold its programming or force it on competitors at inflated prices. This, in turn, will 

increase cable bills and deprive customers of access to programming from diverse sources. The FCC has program access rules 

which are supposed to stop such practices. 

Although Mr. Roberts has said that Comcast may agree to be 

bound by program access rules voluntarily, so far he has refused 

to withdraw Comcast’s legal challenge to continuing the rules in effect. That aside, there are many reasons why even the existing 

rules are insufficient. 

73 

First, they expire in 2 years, and there is no assurance they will 

be extended. In any event, the program access regime does not preclude bundling. Although the law prohibits discrimination against 

competitors, in this instance, it simply means that as long as 

Comcast overcharges itself, it can overcharge everyone else. 

Re-transmission consent rules are even less reliable as a tool to 

protect video competitors. Among other things, the statutory mandate for good-faith negotiation does not prohibit price or packaging 

discrimination. It simply requires a commercially feasible offer. 

I note that Mr. Roberts has indicated that Comcast may increase 

retransmission consent payments for Comcast affiliates. Now, this 

may or may not be a good thing for the future of broadcast TV, but 

no one should doubt that the impact of this would be to raise cable 

rates for everyone. 

Representative Lungren, the good news is that Internet technology offers the prospect of creating vibrant and highly competitive distribution channels for video programming. Members of the 

public can or soon will be able to receive high-definition video on 

the Internet, but Comcast has already taken steps to kill off such 

competition, and acquisition of NBC’s content will greatly enhance 

that campaign. 

The prospect of consumers canceling their cable subscriptions 

and relying on the Internet poses an existential threat to the cable 

industry. Comcast’s answer is Xfinity, which allows Comcast customers to view video over the Internet without extra charge. The 

catch, which is a very big catch, indeed, is that you must keep your 

cable TV subscription. 

Xfinity permits Comcast to cut off the flow of programming to potential new competitors while preserving the cable TV revenue 

stream indefinitely. Stripped of slick marketing, Xfinity consists of 

agreements among competitors to divide markets, raise prices, exclude new competitors, and tie products. 

Comcast’s ownership interest in Hulu is especially important 

here. Comcast can cripple Hulu by withdrawing NBC content or it 

may choose to make the NBC content exclusive to Hulu and withhold it from new Internet-delivered video competitors. Either way, 

it is bad for the public. 

There is more, but no more time. I urge you to oppose approval 

of this merger. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Schwartzman follows:] 

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PREPARED STATEMENT OF ANDREW JAY SCHWARTZMAN


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Mr. CONYERS. Marc Morial was a state senator in Louisiana. He 

then became mayor of the city of New Orleans. He has taught constitutional law as a professor at Xavier University. He is now the 


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president and CEO of the National Urban League. And we welcome 

him to this hearing. 

TESTIMONY OF MARC H. MORIAL, PRESIDENT AND CEO, 

NATIONAL URBAN LEAGUE, NEW YORK, NY 

Mr. MORIAL. Thank you. Thank you very much, Chairman Conyers and Members of the Committee. It is indeed an honor, Chairman Conyers, to be before your Committee. Thank you for your 

leadership. 

I represent the National Urban League. We are this year celebrating 100 years of continuous existence. We serve 2 million people a year through 100 affiliate chapters from coast to coast. That 

includes operations in 36 states and the District of Columbia, from 

Anchorage, Alaska, all the way to Miami, Florida, and I am proud 

to be here today, and thank you very much. 

A couple of points that I would like to make at the outset. First, 

GE is selling its interest in NBC Universal so that it can devote 

its investments and energies to its core business, period. That 

being the case, I would like to see NBC Universal in a joint venture with, one, an American company, two, a company with a proven track record in an understanding of the television business, and, 

three, a company that has demonstrated a track record on diversity 

issues and in working with diversity organizations, like the one I 

lead. 

That being the case, the National Urban League has not taken 

a formal position on this transaction. And we are withholding any 

formal position pending discussions with senior management relating to diversity programming, employment issues, and other very 

important things related to our mission. 

But I do believe that Comcast should be entitled to great respect 

in this process based on its past actions with respect to the diversity community. They have a demonstrated commitment to measures relating to diversity. That includes in the areas of employment 

and programming, and I would cite its proactive investment in TV 

One. 

Also, Comcast has made commitments about new and independent programming opportunities for its new joint venture. We 

will urge that this new joint venture include new opportunities in 

the area of diversity programming. 

For the record, Comcast has been an important corporate partner 

to the Urban League. They have forged local partnerships with 

many of our chapters. They work with us in Philadelphia on a jobtraining program for cable installers. They have a national partnership with us designed to raise the awareness of us, including supporting our State of Black America report, which is our annual report to the President, this Congress, and the people of this Nation. 

NBC Universal has also made important strides in its commitment to diversity and inclusion. We have worked with the senior 

leaders to increase the voices of color in commentary roles on NBC, 

MSNBC, CNBC—now, in all of these areas, a foundation has been 

laid, but there is much, much more in the area of diversity that 

needs to be done. 

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sity. And when we talk about diversity today, Mr. Chairman, we 

are talking about diversity in the areas of employment, including 

the most senior levels of the new joint venture. Diversity in procurement, the opportunity for businesses of color to do business 

with the new venture. Diversity in governance, which are those 

boards, those management committees that oversee the operation 

of the joint venture. Diversity in philanthropy, which involves the 

community engagement that the joint venture would have with all 

communities that represent the great tapestry of the United States 

of America. And diversity in programming, because diversity in 

programming is enhanced not simply by access, but also access to 

capital, and a commitment to finance the kind of programming that 

we need to give communities that have been left out an opportunity 

for their great contributions to this Nation to be seen, to be heard, 

and to be artistically expressed. 

We also believe that in the event that any local broadcast licenses are spun off as a result of this merger—this transaction, I 

should say, that minority businesses should have a fair and equal 

opportunity to acquire these assets. 

We believe—and it is our goal in the discussions that we will 

have with NBC Universal and Comcast—to set a standard for this 

new venture to be a first-class company when it comes to diversity. 

That is our aim. That is our goal. That is what our conversations 

will be all about. And we will be engaging in discussions with their 

senior leadership on these areas of concern. 

So I want to thank the Committee, certainly, for its consideration. I appreciate the opportunity to testify today. Thank you so 

much. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Morial follows:] 

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PREPARED STATEMENT OF MARC H. MORIAL


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Mr. CONYERS. Howard Berman, senior Member of Judiciary Committee, Chairman of Foreign Affairs? 

Mr. BERMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I apologize to you and to the witnesses because we are chairing a hearing 


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now with the Secretary of State, and I did not get a chance to hear 

your testimony, but I have copies of it, and I intend to read it, 

other than Mr. Morial, who I did get to hear now. 

This proposed—this possible joint venture has two appeals to me. 

One, a more general proposition that things which get the distribution side of content to understand the needs of content providers 

to protect their creativity would be a welcomed outcome. So as a 

general proposition, I am—that intrigues me, and I think it is an 

important consideration. 

Secondly, Universal Studios, a key part of this process, is located 

in my district. It is on the board with Adam’s district, but it is— 

at least for another year-and-a-half—still in my district. And it is 

a major source of—it is a major employer. 

And not only Universal Studios, there are all kinds of other companies whose existence and well-being is related to the strength of 

Universal Studios as a—in other words, for this, this is a jobs issue 

for me in a very real sense. 

So my first question is, there are labor agreements and jobs at 

Universal Studios. I am curious if Mr. Roberts or Mr. Zucker could 

address that issue. 

I would also—let me ask my question now, as well. Commitment 

number 12 in this proposal, which promises that once the NBC 

Universal completes its company-wide digital migration, it will add 

two independently owned and operated channels to its digital lineup each year for the next 3 years on customary terms and conditions. 

I have seen what has happened since the repeal of the financial 

interest syndication rules. While I want a thriving Universal Studios, I want it based on the investment and the creativity of their 

work. I don’t want situations which further add limitations to the 

ability of independent productions to have access to distributors. 

And I am wondering, with the addition of these new channels, 

how is this going to affect the opportunity independent producers 

may not have had? How do they—how do independent film and television fit into this joint venture beyond commitment number 12? 

Mr. ROBERTS. Okay, thank you. Let me start and attempt to address both those issues and then pass to Mr. Zucker, if I may. 

It goes to the main motive of, why do we want to do this transaction as Comcast? It is to build and to reinvest into Universal, 

NBC, and the great entertainment properties they have, in some 

cases what they have been in the past and what we hope they can 

be in the future. 

And I think General Electric will take the proceeds, as we mentioned, and more likely than not, invest in their core business, 

which is, as they have said publicly, infrastructure and things all 

over the world. 

For Comcast, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, I believe, to 

help transform our company. So the motive is not to come in and 

have significant—or any— job reductions, but rather to really try 

to figure out where the consumer’s going; and how to restore some 

of the greatness to NBC and Universal, to continue to invest in the 

cable channels and the creativity that has been there and is there 

today with networks like USA, CNBC, Syfy, and Bravo. 

87 

And I think our channels are not of the same stature. The Entertainment and Style networks are terrific channels not ranked currently, as of 2009, in the top 30. And a number of NBC-Universal’s 

are ranked. So we really think this is an opportunity to become one 

of the better content producers all over the world and to really take 

from your district the great creativity and extend it to new platforms and new innovation. 

So our commitment absolutely is to invest in local television, 

broadcast television, cable television, filmed entertainment, the 

theme parks. None of those businesses is Comcast really a major 

provider today. There is not the overlap that a number of—in the 

statements that some mergers would have, if GE was selling to another one of the major media companies, they would have a movie 

studio, they would have a broadcast network, they might have a 

theme park or another entertainment channel like USA or a news 

channel. Comcast does not have any of those types of assets on a 

national basis. 

So I would feel very comfortable saying that the goal here and 

the motivations are to build and to innovate. 

Jeff? 

Mr. ZUCKER. Congressman, I would add that the last couple of 

years have been difficult, especially on the broadcasting side, for 

everybody. I look at what is going on at some of our peers, unfortunately, just this week announcing significant job reductions in their 

news divisions. And we take no glee in any of that. 

The fact is, with this commitment to broadcasting, with this commitment to investment, I actually feel better about the future of 

NBC and NBC Universal than I have in a long time and am gratified by the fact that this is not about synergies and anything of 

that sort. And so I—I take comfort in that and hope you see that, 

as well. 

Broadcasting has been under tremendous duress in recent years, 

as other forms of media, like newspapers and radio have, and our 

peers are going through it right now. This commitment to—this 

commitment to broadcasting and the jobs that come with that is 

something that gives me good comfort. 

Mr. BERMAN. Talk for a moment about the access of independent 

productions to the programming networks. 

Mr. ROBERTS. So there are two sides, I believe, of that question. 

First is, as a cable company, six out of every seven channels that 

Comcast carries in our cable systems after the merger or the joint 

venture will be non-owned by Comcast. We have made a commitment that we would add two independent channels each year for 

the next 3 years starting next year. 

And as to how we relate to the independent production community, today we don’t make movies, so we have no preference between a movie we would make or a movie that is independently 

made that we might want to distribute. We do carry the Sundance 

Channel and the Independent Film Channel. 

The philosophy of Comcast, just since my dad’s founding of the 

company, to go back to 1963 in Tupelo, Mississippi, Comcast 

couldn’t get the television signal from Memphis, which was CBS. 

And the philosophy has been to give consumers more choice. Choice 

sells. 

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And ever since we rebuilt our systems from 10 channels to 30 

channels, the question was, how are you going to fill the 30 channels? When you go to 100 channels? To 500 channels. Now we have 

in some markets 15,000 choices On Demand any time you want 

them, and last year, we laid out a vision for where I would like to 

see the company go. We call it Project Infinity. 

Any piece of content that a consumer wants to get, they should 

be able to access and leave it to the content company to figure out 

what the business model is, whether that is advertising-supported, 

subscription, or Pay-Per-View, and what device it is on. 

And so our technological vision is to continue to give more and 

more choices, which absolutely will include as many—whoever and 

wherever that content wants to be made by. 

Jeff? 

Mr. ZUCKER. I would add, on the independent programming side, 

on—as far as our cable networks go already, I think we have demonstrated our willingness to show that third parties own 67 percent 

of the programming on the USA cable network in primetime and 

83 percent of the programming on the Syfy primetime line-up. 

With regard to NBC and the NBC television network, the fact is, 

we need the best programming wherever it comes from, certainly 

today more than ever, and the fact is, we have dramatically increased our commitment to try to find new programs from nonNBC affiliated sources. This year, we are developing somewhere 

close to 20 new programs for NBC, and we have doubled the number this year that have come from non-NBC-related sources. 

So the fact is, with regard to NBC, I don’t think this has any impact on our willingness to find programs from—the best programs 

from wherever they come from. 

Mr. BERMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. CONYERS. Chairman Prewitt, your comments? 

Ms. PREWITT. The fact that this will have no impact on the current business dealings with the independents actually fills me with 

fear. With all due respect, the statistics we have just heard about 

unaffiliated programming does not distinguish between programming provided by independents and provided by other conglomerates. 

And I would draw your attention and happy to provide you with 

a copy of an L.A. Times article from May citing the decline in truly 

independent series that were picked up this year. I believe the 

NBC statistics were of five new series. Four were from NBC, and 

one was from Sony. That is not, from our perspective, independent 

programming, although Sony is in a funny posture here, since they 

don’t own a network. 

You know, our experience in general is that the broadcast networks are now wholly unavailable to truly independent programming, unless you are producing reality series, some of which will 

make their way through. 

These high statistics, even stripped of the other conglomerates on 

cable, are because cable has become where you push the independents. And that has had two results. In addition to limiting access 

overall, it also shifts what people produce. 

And in 2002 and 2003, when our member companies were told 

by every major children’s outlet, both on broadcast and cable, that 

89 

they would no longer buy independent, they ceased to produce that 

programming. Common sense says you don’t invest if there is no 

marketplace. 

And so what you do is programming not only being limited in 

terms of access, it shifts in terms of subject matter, it shifts away 

from the type of programming, in many cases, that we would all 

like to encourage. 

Two new channels on a cable system out of 500 sounds to me like 

slim pickings. And it is particularly slim pickings in a marketplace 

where, as we have heard, it is very difficult for anyone to support 

those channels. It is very difficult to acquire the acquisition budget 

to bring onboard quality product. 

Ultimately, what happens with many of those channels is they 

just recycle, and what we are now seeing across the board is consistent recycling from the five major conglomerates. And I think 

what the true independents are looking for is a chance to compete 

in the same arena as the conglomerate programming, not to be told 

over and over again—and this has happened consistently since 

2000—that channel after channel will no longer look at programming that comes from outside the system. 

And this merger can only aggravate that situation. There is a 

history here which sets the stage and a merger which then threatens to carry it to the next level. And I would certainly call people’s 

attention specifically to the plans for how TV Everywhere will be 

built, which are—you know, at least in the FCC filing, are very 

clear that that will be NBC Universal content, that dealing with 

third parties is very pesky and creates a lot of overhead. 

And what you can see over and over again is the same economic 

pressures driving toward a preference for content, which you control across multiple platforms, and that does not create opportunity. And I think this Committee should speak out very strongly 

both to the regulatory agencies and to the merging parties that, out 

of all these commitments, interestingly enough, not one addresses 

this problem. 

Thank you. 

Mr. CONYERS. Dr. Cooper? 

Mr. COOPER. Mr. Berman, yes, let me address the historical 

point. And you have raised it. Jean has referred to it. 

You simply cannot replace the dynamic of an independent sector 

to produce diverse programming—we have heard a great deal 

about it—with a commitment to a couple channels buried someplace in 500. And Jean mentioned ‘‘The Cosby Show,’’ but that is 

only the tip of the iceberg. ‘‘All in the Family,’’ ‘‘Chico and the 

Man,’’ ‘‘Sanford and Son,’’ ‘‘Cagney and Lacey,’’ ‘‘Roseanne,’’ ‘‘The 

Golden Girls,’’ all of those were independent shows during a period 

when the networks were required to buy independent shows. 

It was those shows that ended the ‘‘Ozzie and Harriet’’ view of 

America. It showed if it is black and brown, old and young, rich 

and poor. That is the kind of dynamic diversity you get when you 

have independent programmers who can gain access. 

And it was clearly—and I did a study of this several years ago. 

It was the loss of that diversity, the decline in quality that came 

with vertical integration, that undermined broadcast TV. The decline in quality came first. 

90 

And so the notion that a couple of commitments to do some programming, a little bit, a teeny bit, will solve the problem of the production that meets the diverse needs of America is simply contrary 

to historical fact. Vertical integration undermines diversity and 

quality. 

Mr. BERMAN. But that was a totally foreseeable consequence of 

repeal of the regulations in place. 

Mr. COOPER. If you look back at the history, there were promises 

made to Congress that, oh, we won’t eliminate the independents. 

They were gone instantaneously, because you make more money 

buying internally, rerunning lower quality shows, because you have 

already incurred the production cost, than buying higher quality 

shows. 

But what happens when you rerun that stuff and repurpose it is 

you lose your audience. You miss the notion that you have to 

produce high-quality content and buy it from the best independent 

you can. For 15 years, that hasn’t worked. 

Now, you hear some suggestions that the industry is discovering 

the error of its ways. It is convenient at the moment of a massive 

vertical merger that they suddenly discover that the integration 

model is wrong. It failed, and you should not allow it to rear its 

ugly head again. 

Mr. CONYERS. Andrew Schwartzman? 

Mr. SCHWARTZMAN. I don’t have a lot to add to that, Mr. Chairman. I would just point out that the question before the Committee 

is the acquisition of NBC Universal by Comcast. And whatever 

kinds of commitments that Mr. Zucker is making with respect to 

increasing his use of independent programming will be unchanged 

by that acquisition. 

And, second, as Dr. Cooper said, the commitment to add a few 

independent channels is of no significant consequence. First of all, 

it is very specifically limited to digital systems, and not all Comcast 

systems are yet digital. But, second, two channels in a year without 

any commitments with respect to tiering make that a very questionable—simply of questionable utility. 

Mr. CONYERS. Larry Cohen? 

Mr. COHEN. I would just comment on the jobs question two ways. 

We look at jobs internally, and I actually talk quite a bit about that 

within the combined company. We often get—always get in these 

mergers and restructurings commitments that there is no warranty 

and then jobs are cut. How do you pay for the $8 billion in debt? 

They cut jobs, and they continue to raise rates. We already have 

rates raising three times the rate of inflation. 

But externally is even more important. As a participant in a jobs 

summit, I was cheered to see management, labor, academics, governments saying we are going to put a jobs filter on every key governmental decision, and there is no question that this merger goes 

through. There is a disadvantage to the other types of companies, 

and it will shrink investment, and that will cut jobs. 

Because of what they call bulk pricing, any new entrants and 

communities have to pay much more for content than they do. And 

that bulk pricing shrinks up investment, because the pipe companies—it is incredibly expensive to bring fiber to the home, although 

it is happening in all the rest of the world, and so what happens 

91 

is—TV product to sell at a decent price, they don’t invest, it is already shrinking. 

It is absolutely not true that we are going to have robust competition. It is shrinking now. They are cutting down on that investment in this country. And so it has a disastrous effect on jobs, particularly externally. And internally, to be honest, we are going to 

say again: Where’s the warranty? Where’s the warranty against 

using freelancers instead of employees and contractors instead of 

employees? 

And, you know, there isn’t any warranty. We get one story before 

the merger and a different one after. 

Mr. CONYERS. Ranking Member Larry Smith? 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. CONYERS. Lamar Smith. 

Mr. SMITH. First of all, Mr. Roberts and Mr. Zucker, if I were 

you, I would take Mr. Schwartzman’s concession that at least you 

are not trying to undermine America’s democracy and run with it. 

That may be the most you are going to get. 

Mr. Roberts, let me direct my first question to you. NBC Universal, of course, is primarily a programming and content company. 

Your Comcast is primarily cable. Would you speak a little further 

on where you see the overlap of the two companies and how this 

proposed merger would impact that overlap? 

Mr. ROBERTS. Thank you. In Ms. Prewitt’s testimony, she mentioned that there are five companies that have 24 of the top 29— 

I am not sure if those stats are right or not—of the channels, 80 

percent of the entertainment content. I don’t believe Comcast owns 

a broadcast network. I don’t believe Comcast owns any of those assets. 

So the conversation that we were just listening to about independent voice or whatever, the fact is, that is broadcasters talking 

with the folks who make the programming for the NBC network, 

which Mr. Zucker is obviously expert on. Comcast does not have a 

relationship with some of her members, like Lions Gate or the 

Weinstein company. We have had other partnerships and distributed their content outside of that on our cable system, on our On 

Demand platform. 

So I believe what this merger is about is a big risk on our part. 

Broadcast television has changed tremendously in the last 20 

years. And so has the technology by which consumers consume entertainment, information, and news, not just television. 

And so are we. As we heard, other companies have chosen to not 

want to be in one company, because there aren’t significant obvious 

synergies. We are making a bet that we can accelerate this transformation for the consumer, so we touch together places like On 

Demand. 

When I talk to my customers, their number-one complaint with 

our On Demand service, which has been wildly popular—13 billion 

orders of On Demand shows just in Comcast in the last few years, 

more than all of iTunes in the United States put together, half-anhour average—their main complaint is, why can’t I get more movie 

choices on that On Demand? 

Well, Universal has 4,000 movies in its library. And they have 

3,000 shows from television in their library. Now, I can’t promise 

92 

sitting here today—how to bring that together to get it to On Demand faster, but we are certainly going to try real hard. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Roberts. Mr. Roberts, you mentioned 

that television has been changing dramatically. 

And, Mr. Zucker, I wanted to ask you what you thought about 

the future of television. Do you see it being the more traditional 

television? Do you see television being more online? And where do 

you see the proposed new entity fitting into that vision of the future of television? 

Mr. ZUCKER. Well, as I mentioned before, I think there is going 

to continue to be more change in our space in the next 5 years than 

we have had in the last 50. I think that the digital revolution, the 

technological revolution that Mr. Roberts was just talking about is 

going to continue to change the way we all consume television, the 

way we all consume information, the way we learn about things, 

the way we watch everything that we have been used to. 

So I think that, over the next 5 years, we will all continue to 

watch TV. We will gather around a television and, you know, learn 

news, watch sporting events, watch entertainment programs, but 

we will also have the ability to do that in many other ways. 

So I think television will still be there, but I think that—I think 

the innovation that we have all come to see will also allow us to 

enjoy all of those things in other ways. 

I think that what is great about this merger is that there will 

be investment from Comcast that will produce even more content. 

And at the end of the day, that television that we are talking about 

or however we consume it, it all comes back to great content and 

great news-gathering and great sporting events. And without investment, none of that is possible. 

I also would add that this commitment to broadcasting and to 

the NBC television network and to Telemundo on the Hispanic side 

cannot be underappreciated. We don’t live in a world that was 15 

years ago, when three networks had 90 percent of all viewing. We 

live in a very different world where there were very different rules 

back then. 

The choices and the explosion of outlets is so different. And so 

the commitment to actually keep NBC and Telemundo strong is incredibly important today. 

Mr. SMITH. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Zucker. 

Mr. Roberts, let me address my last question to you again, and 

that is that, as you know better than I, the protection of intellectual property is essential not only to a lot of American companies, 

but, quite frankly, to a prosperous economy in our country, as well. 

We have a real problem today with the theft of copyrighted programming. And we oftentimes look at ISPs and others to educate 

their consumers and to try to crack down on that kind of theft and 

that kind of piracy. What has Comcast done and what do you propose to do to try to reduce that type of intellectual property threat? 

Mr. ROBERTS. I think this—the entire ecosystem—that is the creative community in this country—depends on that question. And 

while we have seen an explosion in the connectivity side, which has 

principally been our business—originally television, now 

broadband—having license-secured, not pirated content is the essence of that ecosystem for both sides of the business. 

93 

By now making—on our way toward a $30 billion investment in 

content, which is what has been reported the potential value of this 

transaction is—that kind of order of magnitude. It is only 51 percent in the first stage, but over time, we intend to try to buy GE 

out 100 percent. 

We have redoubled our commitment to figuring out how to work 

between the two parts, the delivery, and what consumers want 

with their broadband connections. So we will be—through NBC 

Universal—involved with MPAA, and we will be involved with all 

the other organizations, not just the NCTA. 

So I sit here today—I don’t have the answer, but I think we have 

a huge motivation and one of the benefits, as was stated, in this 

transaction is that we have that motivation by Mr. Berman to help 

figure this out. And I pledge to you to personally engage and try 

to not just educate our consumers, but use whatever technology 

gets developed to help make sure it remains not pirated. 

Mr. SMITH. I appreciate that commitment. Now, Mr. Chairman, 

I know you like to treat both sides equally, so I would like to yield 

my remaining 10 minutes to—2 minutes, if I may, to Mr. Harper, 

the gentleman from Mississippi, who I know has to leave for another commitment and is already late in doing so, but I would like 

to give him at least a couple of minutes if we could. 

Mr. HARPER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Smith. 

Mr. Roberts, I would like to ask you a couple of questions, if I 

could. I have heard some concerns, worries from an organization 

representing some local, you know, small cable companies that are 

in my district in Mississippi. And, of course, they are concerned 

that this proposed merger will give Comcast significantly more 

market power in negotiations, particularly with regard to the regional sports networks. 

And I would like to know what your thoughts are on how that 

merger will affect those small cable companies that have those concerns. 

Mr. ROBERTS. I think there are—on a number of issues that we 

have heard previously discussed and on that specific issue—I don’t 

believe this transaction affects that issue. We are not doing this 

transaction to go and somehow change the dynamic between a regional sports network or anyone else—any of the other properties 

that NBC may have and small, rural operators, whether they are 

broadcasters or cablers. 

There are teams that we carry on our regional sports channels 

that don’t get affected by—I don’t believe by any—NBC is not in 

the regional sports business. So if there is a property in the South, 

Comcast Sports South, that property will remain the same as it is 

before the deal. 

Mr. HARPER. Okay. And if we look at the role—and I know 

Comcast is taking it serious—on protecting parental concerns on 

content as it might affect children, this new entity that is proposed, 

will there be any changes there? Or how should we look for that 

to be dealt with? 

Mr. ROBERTS. Well, we have made a number of commitments. 

One is for children—more children’s programming, both on television and On Demand. An issue that I feel good about where cable 

has taken the technology and where we will take it in the future 

94 

is to make it easier for parental controls in your living room to 

work and to have more sophistication in those parental controls so 

parents are able to filter those shows, those channels, and with 

more granularity and more choices of ways to do that. 

And, you know, a huge opportunity and one that we take very 

responsibly, as well as the news area, is independence and trying 

to take the wonderful brand credibility that NBC has, both with 

children and with news, and extend that throughout the company. 

Mr. HARPER. Thank you, Mr. Roberts. 

And with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back my time. 

Mr. SMITH. I will yield back. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. CONYERS. Jerry Nadler? 

Mr. NADLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Dr. Cooper, first, I must correct the record. You quote the eminent Professor Epstein, who is, of course, one of the great professors in the Chicago School of Economics, but you say he is at the 

University of Chicago. He is no longer there. He is now at NYU in 

my district, so I just wanted to mention that. This is a great—— 

Mr. COOPER. And he hasn’t changed his beliefs, as far as I know. 

Mr. NADLER. He has not changed his beliefs. And, in fact, my son 

is one of his research assistants now. But I am not of the Chicago 

School of Economics, nor is my son. 

In any event, let me ask you the following. You say that Professor Epstein ignores the mountains of evidence that there are numerous clearly defined markets in which Comcast and NBC compete head to head. Now, we have been told that this is essentially 

a vertical integration and the problem is whatever problems there 

may be associated with that. This is not essentially a horizontal 

combination. And you are saying that this is completely not true. 

Could you elaborate on that for a moment? What is the extent, 

if at all—what is the extent of horizontal competition that would 

be eliminated by this merger? 

Mr. COOPER. Well, as I identify in my testimony, there are a 

dozen local markets in which they compete. Comcast is a distributor, and NBC owns a TV station. They see themselves as competitors. NBC has filed testimony at the FCC which outlined the 

head-to-head competition in local advertising, for instance. Absolutely. 

They gave me two examples where if you do the math of the concentration ratios that the antitrust people do, it is a horrible merger. There are a dozen markets where they compete head to head. 

They clearly compete for sports eyeballs. Comcast is the regional 

sports giant; NBC is an icon of sports programming. They compete 

in news. Comcast is a regional news giant; NBC is an icon of news. 

That is in the content space. 

They now compete vigorously on the Internet. They both have 

portals. NBC invested in a multi-channel video programming alternative. So they clearly compete there. That is undeniable. 

The vertical element that affects the horizontal market is also 

important, because now you give NBC programming guaranteed 

access to a quarter of the eyeballs in the country. That is the distribution married to content. NBC no longer has to negotiate for 

carriage across 100 percent of the cable eyeballs. They only have 

95 

to negotiate for 25 percent. They are in a much stronger bargaining 

position. 

Mr. NADLER. Twenty-five or for seventy-five? 

Mr. COOPER. Seventy-five, that is right. They have guaranteed 25 

percent, so they only have to negotiate for 75 percent. That improves their bargaining position. 

They have a bigger bundle. Now NBC content is married to 

Comcast content, so the bundle gets bigger. So all those—that is 

vertical leverage that can be used to beat the other guys. 

Mr. NADLER. Thank you. Does Mr. Zucker or Mr. Roberts want 

to comment on this? 

Mr. ZUCKER. I would just point out a few things, which is that, 

even if there is competition in certain local markets between the 

NBC stations and the Comcast cable affiliates, there are still seven 

non-NBCU-related broadcast stations in each one of those markets. 

The fact is that—— 

Mr. NADLER. Seven each or seven combined? 

Mr. ZUCKER. Seven, in each of those markets. So the competitive 

nature that exists in each one of those markets remains incredibly 

vibrant and healthy. And given—you know, given the competitive 

nature of each one of those stations, it will continue to be very 

strong. 

Mr. NADLER. Dr. Cooper? 

Mr. COOPER. If you do the math on the local advertising revenues 

that NBC put in the record at the FCC, the merger violates the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission guidelines by 

a mile. 

Mr. NADLER. On that horizontal competition? 

Mr. COOPER. On that horizontal competition. The standard is 

that, if the post-merger market is above 1,800—again, these are 

numbers—— 

Mr. NADLER. Eighteen hundred what? 

Mr. COOPER. Eighteen hundred in the HHI. This is an index that 

they use. If the merger raises by 50 points in a highly concentrated 

market, it is supposed to be considered a severe threat to competition. This merger raises it by 800 points, 16 times the threshold. 

Mr. NADLER. Thank you. 

Ms. Prewitt—did I get that right? Yes. Ms. Prewitt, you testified 

that industry trends have promoted consolidation in uniformity and 

that it is going to become impossible for independents to get their 

programming placed. And you also testified that, in fact, many of 

the major distributors have already said they don’t want to use 

independent programming at all. 

Can you tell us how this merger specifically will worsen that situation? 

Ms. PREWITT. Well, we are looking at two aspects, one of which 

are the traditional platforms and then the new platforms that will 

either be developed or at a nascent level today. With respect to the 

traditional platforms, quite frankly, there simply is no commitment 

to even maintain the marginal level of independent acquisitions 

that exist today. 

Most independent product is on this handful of basic cable channels. We see nothing in the 16 or 17 commitments that say that 

96 

that will remain untampered once the acquisition goes forward. 

And there is new revenue to fuel more production. 

Mr. NADLER. But you are saying that it doesn’t if that does not 

change, since they have already ruled it out? 

Ms. PREWITT. We don’t know if it changes or not. 

Mr. NADLER. No, no, but if it doesn’t change, it doesn’t matter, 

because they have already taken you, is what you are saying. 

Ms. PREWITT. Yes, that—— 

Mr. NADLER. So what you are really saying is that this merger 

might make it worse at the margins, but the major damage has already been done? 

Ms. PREWITT. Exactly. There are some limited outlets today. We 

would like those preserved. There is no promise here to preserve 

them. 

But the other issue, I think, is the new and emerging outlets. 

Video On Demand is a vibrant marketplace or developing into a vibrant marketplace that begins to take up some of the slack of the 

former DVD revenue stream. When you can’t get on television, you 

go to DVD. 

You would like to be able to go to video On Demand. Again, no 

real commitments here to open the doors to that system to a wide 

range of independent programming. TV Everywhere, Hulu, things 

of that nature, as our members go to those platforms, what they 

are increasingly told is, until the revenue model is at least clear, 

we are not interested in taking programming that hasn’t been previously seen on nationwide TV, that has not been supported by a 

worldwide marketing campaign. We can’t support anything with 

marketing. We really only want programming that comes with its 

own audience. 

And so that, combined with the statements at least in the FCC 

filing that TV Everywhere—one of the big advantages now is going 

to be that you can use only Universal content. 

Mr. NADLER. One of the advantages now or one of the advantages to be of TV Everywhere? 

Ms. PREWITT. With the merger. One of the advantages of the 

merger is touted as not having to go outside and fight with third 

parties to get content commitments because we can build—they can 

build TV Everywhere up to a substantial level, really relying only 

on the NBC Universal vault, and that becomes a red flag as to 

where does that go and how does this impact all of the new platforms? 

Mr. NADLER. So, in other words—and I am going to ask Mr. Roberts to comment on all this in a moment—so in other words, just 

to distill or summarize what you are saying, is that already the 

major distribution networks simply won’t look at independent products, and there are some marginal that will. This merger won’t 

make that worse in that respect, because it is already done, but it 

is not going to improve it in any way. 

And, second, the ability to go to DVD and other new things will 

be worsened by this merger, because one of the points of the merger is that NBC will be—not NBC—Comcast will be able to use the 

existing internal archives and, therefore, won’t need independent 

programming. Is that what you are saying? 

97 

Ms. PREWITT. I am saying that we hope the existing situation 

won’t get worse, have no promise it won’t be. 

Mr. NADLER. Right. 

Ms. PREWITT. And—— 

Mr. NADLER. But I have got the second half right? 

Ms. PREWITT [continuing]. The new platforms will be. Yes. 

Mr. NADLER. Okay. Mr. Roberts? 

Mr. ROBERTS. Okay, thank you. As I think you have been pointing out, some of this doesn’t relate to the merger. Some are industry issues. And I think to the extent that folks think the industry 

doesn’t have lots of diversity of voices, you know, then it is an industry conversation not related to the merger. 

Mr. NADLER. Well, let me ask you this. I mean, do you think it 

is accurate what we have heard this morning, that the major distribution companies such as Comcast and others essentially have 

shut their doors to independents? 

Mr. ROBERTS. No, definitely not the case. In fact, in one of the 

examples of On Demand, you know, that is where so many people 

have been watching movies. We have had an easier time with some 

of the independents getting the movies, because they are smaller 

movies, they don’t have as many box office issues, and issues with 

DVD sales, and so they are quicker to put it On Demand and have 

a direct relationship with the consumer. So some of the—— 

Mr. NADLER. Is that true just of movies or of documentaries 

and—— 

Mr. ROBERTS. Documentary channels. Quite to the contrary of 

that least for Comcast cable. We are looking, and part of Project 

Infinity is to have as many relationships as we can. When we first 

launched On Demand, we weren’t able to get broadcast television 

or really near-first-run movies. I think the Wall Street Journal 

wrote a piece about why On Demand isn’t worth all the billions of 

dollars that are being invested in it because it is interactive television and it does not necessarily have the best content. 

And, in fact, it was Discovery Channel’s content and many others 

that really got it going, and then eventually HBO and smaller studios, larger studios, MGM—now we have 15,000 shows On Demand. We hope to go to 50,000, 100,000—— 

Mr. NADLER. And the second statement, the second contention, 

which is that—I am trying to remember what the second one was 

now—— 

Mr. ROBERTS. About shows on the actual network itself, what 

is—well, TV Everywhere, we are trying to say if—to make a relationship for the consumer that they can get—we know consumers 

want to get many products—many shows on the Internet or on 

their computer and on the wireless devices and everywhere else— 

and we are trying to create a licensed, secured, you know, not pirated model with the content companies. And we would be happy 

to sit down and figure out how to get more content on our On Demand and on our online platform, and that is by no means not in 

our business interest. 

And I think that is the overarching question where I strongly 

disagree with what Dr. Cooper said. And just for the record, if you 

want us to submit the economic theory, and perhaps the other 

98 

economists on the panel may have a differing opinion, we would be 

glad to do so. We don’t agree with some of the statements he made. 

We are driven because it is such a competitive business. We need 

the best shows or people switch to DirecTV or Dish Network or 

Verizon FiOS or AT&T U-verse or RCN. This business is so different than it has ever been before, and each one of these negotiations involve lots of money. They are not simple. But at the end 

of the day, we are trying to give the consumer access to as much 

content on as many different tiers as possible. 

We now have 15 different levels of service here in the Washington market, so different consumers can pick what products they 

do and don’t want. And I think that policy will continue as we operate this new company. 

Mr. ISSA. Mr. Chairman, point of parliamentary inquiry? Mr. 

Chairman, so for planning purposes for the Members, will we continue to have a 15-minute per side or longer? I would just like to 

know how long it is going to be. It has been far beyond 10 minutes 

so far. 

Mr. CONYERS. Yes, but this is of such significance that I have extended the 5-minute rule. 

Mr. ISSA. I have no problem, Mr. Chairman. For planning purposes, I just wanted to know if there would be a predictable time 

per side so that I could plan my day and all of us could. 

Mr. CONYERS. I only wish I could give you assurances that would 

meet your demanding requirements. 

Mr. ISSA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. All of ours. Thank you, 

Chairman. 

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, in the interest of brevity, then, let 

me ask Mr. Roberts two questions at once and that will be it. One, 

which you got into sort of by mentioning the competitiveness, if the 

business is so competitive, why are cable prices increasing at three 

times the rate of inflation? 

And, secondly, how would you respond to someone who said, 

‘‘Well, given what we have heard from others, we should not approve the merger because we don’t want to subject the workers at 

NBC to the less than tender mercies of the labor relations pattern 

that we have seen at Comcast.’’ 

Mr. ROBERTS. Well, the first question is, I think the value and 

the quality of the delivery of what is cable TV has changed over 

the last 20 years. We have many more channels, better quality 

channels, high-definition channels. We are—— 

Mr. NADLER. So you are saying that the value—that it is not a 

fair—it is not fair to look at—you are getting more for the price, 

and therefore, you have to do a different calculation? 

Mr. ROBERTS. And we do have more competitors. In fact, DirecTV 

has a higher charge than Comcast cable. 

Mr. NADLER. So you have to do a different calculation. That is 

too simplistic. 

Mr. ROBERTS. That is correct. 

Mr. NADLER. Has anybody been able to come up with a proper 

calculation that would show us? 

Mr. ROBERTS. You know, you can do it per channel. You can do 

it different levels of service. I will be happy to submit some responses to that, if you would like. 

99 

Mr. NADLER. Okay. 

Mr. ROBERTS. The second question on labor, you know, again, I 

am very proud of Comcast’s record, disappointed with the testimony, but I would, you know, understand that at times there may 

be different points of views from different constituencies. But we 

have built a company from scratch with over 100,000 employees. 

We have one of the highest employee satisfaction rates. We are proemployee—— 

Mr. NADLER. Let me just ask you this. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to hear a labor leader come in and say, ‘‘Oh, the employer’s 

terrible.’’ But to hear an employee come in and say, ‘‘You have got 

two employers, one is great and the other’s terrible.’’ Why? 

Mr. ROBERTS. Well, cable distribution, cable operations, the industry has traditionally not had very many union employees, less 

than, I think, 2 percent industry-wide, and Comcast is not an 

outlier one way or the other. We are kind of in the norm. 

The programmed television production part of the company’s 

cable channel, Comcast has 13 percent to 14 percent unions in our 

cable programming business and, I think, enjoys good relations 

there. And so one of our commitments upfront is we hope to continue the good relations with the guilds and with the unions that 

NBC Universal has. We reached out to a number of those organizations. 

I think that deep at its essence there is a view that Comcast is 

genuine in investing and improving NBC Universal’s quality and 

quantity of content and that that is going to be good for those 

guilds and those unions, better than the predecessor/owner which 

has many other alternatives to put the capital to use all over the 

world. We are only in the entertainment, distribution, and telecommunications businesses, and I think our intention is not to buy 

it to slow it down, but to try to expand it and grow it. 

Mr. NADLER. Thank you. I yield back. 

Mr. CONYERS. Just before I recognize Bob Goodlatte, Dr. Cooper? 

Mr. COOPER. Well, I just want to point out that, until Comcast 

sells programming on a per-channel basis, the per-channel number 

is baloney. He sells bundles, and that is what the bundle has been 

doing. The per-channel stuff is meaningless because he won’t sell 

it to the public on a per-channel basis. 

Mr. CONYERS. Bob Goodlatte? 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I want to 

follow up on some of the comments of Mr. Berman and Mr. Smith 

regarding copyright protection. I have long said that the ISP and 

distribution community and the content community need each 

other to work to resolve their differences in the private sector. And 

so, as Mr. Berman said, this is going to be a good test of that. 

This proposed merger would be an interesting combination of 

these two interests and would add rich content to Comcast’s portfolio. If this merger is approved, I expect that Comcast will begin 

to appreciate even more the benefits of copyright protection. 

In 1998, I was charged by your predecessor, Chairman Hyde, 

with conducting the negotiations that ultimately drafted the—and 

ultimately drafted the ISP provisions of the Digital Millennium 

Copyright Act. One important provision requires that, in order to 

receive the immunity of the law, Internet service providers must 

100 

adopt and reasonably implement a policy that provides for termination in appropriate circumstances of subscribers who are repeat 

infringers. 

This has been in the news in some countries and some locales 

of late, and I am wondering, Mr. Roberts, does Comcast have such 

a plan in place? And what other specific steps can we expect 

Comcast to do to combat copyright infringement post this merger? 

Mr. ROBERTS. I would like to get it exactly right on the specifics. 

And if I may, I would like to say that I would like to submit something on what our policy is on repeat infringers. I know that we 

absolutely contact repeat infringers and notify them. 

On your general point, as I said earlier, before this deal, but this 

deal absolutely accelerates, because the technology is enabling 

more piracy. So even when that act was passed, you couldn’t 

download a movie or a television show in less than 10 hours. And 

now technology has sped that up, or whatever the specific would 

have been. 

So the issue is becoming more urgent, and it is becoming more 

real and more threatening. And we have seen in other industries 

on how disruptive piracy can be, like music and others, and so we 

have engaged all over the country locally and nationally with different organizations to be addressing that. And I, again, say that 

I think you are right that one of the benefits of this union is it puts 

us squarely in an opportunity role to get to those specifics and improve where we are today to make them more binding on the party 

that is trying to pirate that content. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Well, this is a fast-moving area of technology, 

as you know even better than I do, both in terms of the efforts that 

you and Mr. Zucker and others take to protect content, but also the 

technology to pirate that content. And so when the Digital Millennium Copyright Act was adopted by the Congress, I think there 

was the expectation on a lot of people, including myself, that there 

would be the use of technology, the use of business arrangements 

and so on to promote the protection and expansion of content. 

And it is worked out somewhat, but those industries that have 

not stayed ahead of the curve have suffered more than others who 

have attempted to do so, so it is a—your answer is a very important one to me and to many others. 

Mr. ROBERTS. If I might, I think you are totally right that it is 

critical, and so many parts of the supply chain depend on staying 

ahead with that technology. I think we are on the—— 

Mr. GOODLATTE. And offering business plans that consumers will 

respect. I mean, now, who would have thought when we wrote the 

DMCA that Apple would be the world’s largest purveyor of music? 

But, indeed, they are, because they came up with a business model 

that worked very well for consumers. 

Mr. ROBERTS. They made it consumer friendly and many other 

great things. And one of—that brings up a critical point. And some 

of the conversations we have been having is to make this—whatever the next technological solution is, to have it apply to as many 

platforms as possible so that it doesn’t become a competitive 

differentiator between providers so that you can pirate more easily 

over here and you can’t over there. And that is why it is so critical, 

101 

your involvement and others, to keep these industry-wide organizations there. 

I think we, again, look forward now to being able to be a significant member of the content community’s voice in those matters, not 

just the ISP’s voice. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Do you think that the future of television is online or will traditional television continue to be the primary way 

that viewers receive content? 

Mr. ROBERTS. I wish I had a perfect crystal ball. So what I—my 

answer and how I believe we should operate Comcast is to not try 

to guess and guess wrong to that question. So I have been saying 

for years, well before this merger, that I think video over the Internet is more friend than anything else. There is an opportunity if 

you start with the consumer and work backwards, I think you run 

a good company. 

And if there is change that has to happen, so be it. Try to do the 

best you can to make it legal change, and come up with business 

models that can work to make that change work for consumers, as 

well as your stakeholders. 

I think that history would suggest—radio is a vibrant business 

in this country all these years later, but it has had many changes. 

What has made the cable industry such an exciting industry and 

why we have been able to add as many jobs as we have had and 

make the tens of billions of dollars of capital spending—we spent 

$5 billion in capital in 2009 alone is making these big, large bets. 

So we are betting right now on a technology called wideband. We 

are already beyond broadband, in a 50 to 100 megabits per second 

service, so that if that is where the consumer wants to consume, 

we will be the best provider, just as we believe we have been the 

best provider of the last 40 years in changing television. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you. Let me ask Mr. Zucker, representing a rural and small city district that relies more on overthe-air broadcast television than most districts, I am very concerned about fostering local broadcast programming, especially 

local news and information. 

And I have heard that network affiliates have some concerns 

about the merger, including the fear that NBC will move its most 

popular programming from broadcast television to cable, which 

would decrease viewers and revenues and thus could severely impact the ability of these local stations to deliver local news and information. Fully a third of my constituents—probably more than 

that—are not able to connect to a cable system. 

So what assurances can you give me that local programming, including that of NBC affiliates, will remain robust if this merger’s 

approved? 

Mr. ZUCKER. Well, the fact is that what—the best thing for our 

programs on the NBC television network is to reach the widest audience. That is how we can recoup the greatest advertising revenue 

that is required for investments in programs like ‘‘Nightly News’’ 

and ‘‘The Today Show’’ and ‘‘Saturday Night Live’’ and those kinds 

of programs. So it is in our interest to make sure that they remain 

strong and vibrant on the NBC television network. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. And I have heard some of Mr. Roberts’ comments in response to Ms. Prewitt’s concerns, which I think are very 

102 

interesting and they are important, with regard to independent 

production of television content. What is your view of that? Where 

do you think that is going? How do you respond to her? And what 

kind of assurances can you give us that that kind of independent 

production, which provides a competitive environment in the industry, is going to continue? 

Mr. ZUCKER. I think you have to take a step back and realize 

that, as I think about NBC, we are looking for the best programming wherever it comes from. We need the best programming. We 

need to do better at NBC. 

What much of this is about is the financial investment that is required in bringing that programming to air. And when you consider 

that 80 percent of all programs fail, there is a tremendous financial 

burden that we take on by investing in those programs. So we 

want the best programs wherever they come from, whoever they 

come from. 

With regard to the financial investment, you know, we have 

shouldered much of that responsibility. And to the degree that others are able to shoulder some of that responsibility, we continue to 

be open to that, as well. 

As I pointed out, at NBC, we are now producing 20 new programs for next year. More than a third of those come from programmers who are not affiliated with NBC or NBC Universal. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. CONYERS. You are welcome. 

Feeling better, Ms. Prewitt? 

Ms. PREWITT. Well, not exactly, but I am fascinated. I mean, I 

think that it is important to understand in some of these conversations that independent programs may well find their way on some 

of these outlets. 

They do not find their way because independents are able to go 

through the door and negotiate to get them placed. They find their 

way because they have separately been picked up by a studio and 

they come into a studio output deal. In the case of TV Everywhere 

and some of the online offerings, in general, our members have 

been told that their libraries are simply not big enough for it to be 

worth the transaction cost to negotiate with them. 

But if they will go sell their programming to someone else, thereby losing a big percentage of the transaction value, that programming can then migrate and come in with a larger package. 

So I think that it is—you know, no one is saying that some program doesn’t—some programming doesn’t make it, like the salmon 

swimming downstream. But the terms on which they are able to 

do that are disadvantageous. They are disadvantageous to further 

investment in production. 

And it is not an open environment in which you negotiate what 

is best. You negotiate essentially what is best four or five levels 

downstream and then take your chances as programming moves 

forward in a package. 

But actually, I am very gratified by Mr. Roberts’ comments that 

they are more than happy to talk to us about TV Everywhere. But 

overall, to quote Ronald Reagan, trust, but verify. We would like 

103 

to see something coming out of this that is actually, if not bankable, at least independently verifiable. Thank you. 

Mr. CONYERS. Zoe Lofgren? Oh, she is not here. 

Sheila Jackson Lee? 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Let me, first of all, acknowledge, some friends from Houston 

wanted me to ensure that their constituent, Comcast, was aware 

of their interests in their, if you will, viewing of this proceeding. 

And so I wanted to put their names on the record, Representative 

Sylvester Turner, chairman of the Texas Black Legislators, who engages with Comcast locally, and the Greater Houston Partnership’s 

Jeff Moseley. 

So I just want you to know that individuals that you work with 

in Houston are well aware of your good civic works, and we thank 

you. 

I believe the quote that I think will go down in history of Mr. 

Schwartzman should probably be noted as one of the good ones. 

This is the greatest media merger since Lucy and Desi, certainly 

speaks volumes to how much of a magnitude this is. 

And I am going to try and pose questions with the idea that I 

think it is crucially important that all of the oversight entities, including this Committee, stay intimately involved. I, frankly, believe 

this should not be the last hearing. I think Ms. Prewitt has made 

a point about trust and verify, and the opportunity for discussion 

here, Mr. Zuckerman and Mr. Roberts, I think has been very good. 

It has been good for you, and it has certainly been good for us, to 

be educated about this process. 

But I would like to be able to see, as the negotiations go forward, 

as the Department of Justice has its review, that this Committee, 

Mr. Chairman, have the opportunity to have maybe one or two 

more hearings, because I think the oversight is going to be key. 

I would like to start with Mr. Cohen. And as I do that, I would 

like all of you to be thinking about the opportunities that we have 

and the elements that have been mentioned, I think, in Mr. 

Morial’s comments. Where is the diversity in programming, contracts, and jobs? Where’s the diversity? 

Clearly, in my office, I made it very clear that we have a phrase 

in our community that one of the more segregated places in America on Sunday are sometimes the places of faith. But the next is 

the Sunday morning talk shows. It is almost like there is a dearth 

of expertise and relevance to Members of Congress who have a perspective, who happen to be Hispanic or African-American or other, 

and certainly in the anchoring, it is the same perspective. And we 

certainly welcome that, but there is an absence of diversity broadly 

speaking. 

Let me pointedly go to Mr. Cohen, if he can capture the passion—and thank you for all the work that your workers and members do—but tell us what you would need for a fix. What do you 

believe you will be seeing across the board? And what would be the 

necessary fix for trust and verify on this proposed merger? 

Mr. COHEN. Thank you for that opportunity and for all you do. 

Well, I mean, we really have three concerns. On the jobs front 

internally and the rights of employees internally, the problem is 

104 

that one thing can be said before, and then the realities are different after. And there are no warranties in this system. 

And I don’t want to take up minutes here on the list of these 

restructurings, but particularly the one that we talked about in 

2002—and in my testimony, I mentioned the difference between before and after and the horrible results from employees’ point of 

view—the difference between the tolerance at AT&T broadband 

and the realities at Comcast that continue to this day. 

And I don’t think it is true at all that the labor relations practices are the same or similar to others in this industry. I beg to differ. I would welcome dialogue. We have had no dialogue to this 

point on this merger, none. 

But the norm in this industry is far different. Seventy-five percent of workers actually have bargaining rights in this industry. 

And if we are going to define the industry by the old standard, the 

sort of cowboy period of cable, that is fine. But this merger is supposed to be about the new world. 

And in the new world, the labor relations here are dragging, 

dragging, dragging standards down, turning people into contractors 

and freelancers, eliminating benefits, health care and pension benefits, and they have an effect on all the millions of workers in the 

industry. And, again, we would welcome dialogue. There has been 

none. 

I think that the other is the external. And as I try to point out, 

so what happens is that the bigger consequences of this merger, 

the bundling vertically of content and pipes or network, disadvantage investment. So whether it is Houston or anywhere else, it 

lessens the likelihood that the so-called competitors, be they 

telecom or satellite, continue to invest, because they must pay more 

based on the pricing system for the content. And without the content, they can’t recoup their investment. 

And so this is known in the industry as bulk pricing. They have 

fewer eyeballs. Therefore, they got a higher price per eyeball. That 

can be true of a small operator in a rural place. It is particularly 

true of even large operators who have been investing billions of dollars, and we now see it drying up, whether that is FiOS or whether 

that is Verizon FiOS or U-verse. 

And part of that is the way in which they have to purchase video 

and then, secondly, the wall that is up on the Internet, try to watch 

the Olympics, if you are not a cable subscriber. You are getting a 

preview of what the new world is. We don’t think that is a good 

world. 

We think the Internet world and the cable world or the television 

world should be separate. And the wall that is built shouldn’t be 

a wall between. Here is the deal if you are a cable subscriber, and 

here is the wall if you are not. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you very much. 

Let me just go directly to Mr. Roberts and to Mr. Zuckerman. 

And if they would—Mr. Zucker, excuse me—if they would ask questions, sort of respond. Mr. Cohen has made a point. He happens to 

be representing a large constituent and has the responsibility of 

protection of those individuals. 

I think that, when we talk about growing America, the idea that 

there would be some quality and value to this merger is not one 

105 

that we should ignore. I would extend an invitation to both Mr. 

Roberts and Mr. Zucker to meet with all of us. We need to engage 

over a period of time on the details of this. 

So let me ask both of you, would you engage with Mr. Cohen— 

Mr. Roberts, can you meet with Mr. Cohen? 

Mr. ROBERTS. Well, I am happy to myself, if you think that is 

best, or our company, whose experts—— 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Yes, I think it is best if you would meet with 

Mr. Cohen. Would you do that? 

Mr. ROBERTS. Yes. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Can you do that in the very near future? 

Mr. ROBERTS. Absolutely. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you. 

Mr. Zucker, can you meet with Mr. Cohen? 

Mr. ZUCKER. Yes. Yes. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. All right. Mr. Cohen, you can establish outreach, and hopefully we will create that opportunity. 

Mr. COHEN. Thank you. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Let me go straight to this idea that Ms. 

Prewitt has made a point about, that if you come together right 

now, for example, Comcast is a gate-keeper of sorts, and we enjoy 

listening and looking at cable, the excitement that it provides, but 

it is a gatekeeper on programs that will be carried on its cable systems. 

It appears that virtually no program service was added to any 

cable system in recent years unless a cable system operator had a 

financial interest in the service. For example, you have some minority cable stations that you own a large interest in. 

So the question happens to be, is that the only way that you can 

access now this new entity that will have Comcast operating and 

NBC Universal merged in? Will the only way that you access is 

that you own it? Will there be no opportunity—which goes back to 

my broad point—diversity in programming, diversity in contracts, 

and diversity in employment? 

Would you both answer that question? Because, Mr. Zucker, you 

will be merged in. Your programming content will come in, but 

what happens to access for others? 

Mr. ROBERTS. If I might begin—and then Mr. Zucker—that 

would be against the law if we made our decisions based on ownership, and we do not do that. We have had many independent channels that we have added to our carriage line-up, and I will be 

happy to get you a list of those in Houston and elsewhere over the 

last several years. 

Six out of every seven channels that we carry—and I think the 

vast majority of the new ones that we have launched we do not 

have any economic interest in, so hopefully that answers the question. 

Jeff? 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Zucker? 

Mr. ZUCKER. I would tell you that I believe this actually—this 

deal will enhance the commitment to diversity in programming, 

specifically Comcast is committed to expanding over-the-air programming to the Hispanic community in particular, using 

Telemundo’s digital spectrum, and committed to launching a new 

106 

channel to expanding programming on Telemundo’s cable network, 

mun2, On Demand programming with regard to that. So I actually 

think this will enhance diverse programming. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. I am glad you brought that up. And, again, 

this is trust and verify. We can’t have all this confirmed just by 

this testimony that you are giving. 

But you will be holding—Mr. Roberts, Comcast will be holding 

Telemundo and NBC. It is to your advantage that if others wanted 

to carry portions of NBC Universal and Telemundo that you could 

block them by charging exorbitant fees. Do you intend to do that? 

Mr. ROBERTS. No, we do not. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. And how is that going to be characterized, by 

contract, by policy, by affirmation, or—— 

Mr. ROBERTS. There are a number of ways. Start with the fact 

that we have an existing business, so whether it is one of their 

cable channels or Telemundo or NBC, there is, in my opinion, the 

second-largest customer is satellite company, the third-largest customer is a satellite company. It is in our interest to have their support. 

If they choose not to carry these channels, the channels radically 

are less valuable to the advertiser, to the content producer. The entire system depends on that and with so many channels, I don’t 

think it changes that incentive. 

As has been pointed out, we are about 24 percent of distribution. 

We have gone backwards the last 2 years, continued—lost 200,000 

customers because of all this heightened competition. We need to 

carry the best programming, and we think, as a content company, 

we need to get that programming carried. 

Now, the FCC has a next level. Any company can go and bring 

a carriage dispute or an access dispute to the FCC, as has been 

mentioned previously in the hearing. So there are 20 years of experience, and there is also the existing business that we would be 

buying, and they already have contracts. And then in addition to 

that, any new dealings, there is this overall FCC, where folks have 

been able to bring a complaint. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Let me put these two questions to you and 

close up. I would like to know whether you would commit to adding 

two independent mergers per year. 

I want Ms. Prewitt to tell this Committee what she wants us to 

do with respect to our vital—most vital role with respect to the 

independents. 

And Mr. Zucker and Mr. Roberts, you have yet not commented 

on my diversity question in programming, in contracts, and employment. And so I need you to answer that. And you might pointedly look to your most famous Sunday morning talk show on its, 

if you will, guest list for the past decade, and you might reflect on 

that. 

Mr. Roberts? 

Mr. ROBERTS. I will begin by saying, diversity of—— 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Employment. 

Mr. ROBERTS [continuing]. Of employment and in programming—— 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Contracts and programming, sir. 

Mr. ROBERTS. And as well as our minority supplier diversity—— 

107 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Yes, and if we can get that coming back to us 

in the Committee in writing—you are going to say it now, but if 

you can give us that in writing, that would be helpful. 

Mr. ROBERTS. I will do so. I will just say that they have been externally recognized repeatedly, our diversity efforts, top 50 organizations for multicultural business opportunities by 

diversitybusiness.com for 5 consecutive years, 50 out front of diversity leadership by Diversity MBA magazine 4 years in a row, Diversity Elite 60, and top 60 companies for Hispanics. 

So I think we have a good record. I appreciate the opportunity 

to submit that to you. 

Secondly, we have committed, will commit that for—starting in 

2011, for 3 years, we would add two independent channels per 

year. 

Mr. Zucker? 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. We appreciate that. And we will talk further 

about that. I know you can’t go into more details. Thank you. 

Mr. Zucker? 

Mr. ZUCKER. Yes, with regard to diversity, I would just like to 

let you know that I have been in my role for 3 years. I made diversity one of my key five strategic goals. One of the first things that 

I did was appoint a chief diversity officer reporting directly to me. 

Paula Madison is here with us today. 

The numbers which we will send to you, I have them today, but 

we will put them in writing, have increased in almost every way 

that you can judge them, and I am proud of that. 

With regard to your specific—I know that you are specifically interested in the guest list on ‘‘Meet the Press’’ over the last decade, 

and I would suggest to you that you are correct and that we need 

to do a better job there. 

One of the moves that we have made in the last year is that the 

person who now has responsibility for ‘‘Meet the Press’’ in an executive oversight is Mark Whitaker, who is an African-American who 

I would like to make sure that—— 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. I would be delighted. 

Mr. ZUCKER [continuing]. Make sure that you see soon. His responsibility as the Washington bureau chief of NBC News includes 

‘‘Meet the Press,’’ so it is obviously an area of focus for him and 

for us, and I would tell you that I agree with your premise. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Ms. Prewitt, quickly? 

Ms. PREWITT. Thank you. First of all, I would like to comment 

on the two-channel commitment, that I see diversity as a two-sided 

issue. There is the issue of bringing diverse programming that appeals to different cultures and different constituencies to the air, 

but there is also the question of—which can be done through an 

isolated channel, and that lets people cut their teeth. It gets that 

programming forward. 

But there is also the question of bringing those messages to the 

wider community. And my argument has always been that you 

want people to see programming made by individuals not like 

themselves. That is where debate happens, and that is what we are 

trying to accomplish. 

And so we would look at a commitment that was not just to two 

channels, but to a minimum number of slots across all the platVerDate Aug 31 2005 12:53 Nov 10, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00111 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\WORK\FULL\022510\55068.000 HJUD1 PsN: DOUGA
108 

forms, or a percentage of overall acquisition budgets, which I gather will grow as a result of this merger, to fuel programming which 

can compete and find a place across network television, the more 

prestigious cable channels, as well as to help bring new talent into 

any new channels that are created. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. And have you met with Mr. Roberts and Mr. 

Zucker? 

Ms. PREWITT. No, we had previously written to studio heads to 

request meetings but received no answer from their offices. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Well, they are sitting right next to you, and 

I know they have been very gracious—— 

Ms. PREWITT. And we will follow up. Thank you. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. And, Mr. Roberts and Mr. Zucker, can we 

have that meeting go forward, as well? 

Mr. ROBERTS. I am not aware of any communication to us. Did 

you write to Comcast? 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. I am sorry. Would you be willing to have a 

meeting go forward? 

Mr. ROBERTS. I offered that before the panel started and am 

happy to do so. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Zucker? 

Mr. ZUCKER. Yes, ma’am. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. I think, Mr. Chairman, you have been very 

kind. I do restate that I think that we need to—there are gentleman that I was not able to inquire, but I heard their testimony, 

will be reading it closely, but I believe this is so important and so 

massive that we should have the opportunity to address this question again as it moves forward to the various executive agencies. 

I thank the Chairman, and I yield back. 

Mr. CONYERS. Howard Coble? 

Mr. COBLE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I apologize to you and the panel. I have been bouncing between 

two different hearings today. And, folks, I promised the Chairman 

I would be 5 minutes, so you all help me along with that. 

Today’s testimony, when I have been here, has questioned current laws and regulations regarding program carriage and access. 

Let me address that with a question. Mr. Roberts and to Mr. 

Zucker, what is Comcast and NBC’s experience been with these 

regulations at FCC? 

Mr. ROBERTS. It has, I think, been an environment that has allowed us as a distributor to also invest in content. It has allowed 

other third-parties, when they are concerned about their own business dealings, to go to a third party. And I think generally the 

rules have fostered an environment where we have seen an explosion of channels, explosion of choices, and allowed us to make investments at the same time. 

Mr. COBLE. Mr. Zucker, do you concur? 

Mr. ZUCKER. Yes, sir. 

Mr. COBLE. Thank you. Gentlemen, how has this merger—strike 

that. How would this merger affect third parties, such as small 

rural providers that seek to carry this content? And how do you envision negotiating with these providers? 

109 

Now, I am told that the gentleman from Mississippi asked that 

question. Do you or Mr. Zucker want to extend on your answer? If 

not, I will examine your questions. 

Mr. ROBERTS. I would stay with the answers given. Basically, I 

don’t think the merger has any direct implications to that, because 

the relationships that existed will continue to exist. Part of why it 

is a vertical deal is our two companies are in different parts of this 

business. And I think it doesn’t change anything. 

Mr. COBLE. I thank you, sir. 

Now, Dr. Cooper, I would be interested in your thoughts to that 

same question, because you seem to contend that this transaction 

would probably reduce choice and competition in local markets. 

Now, specifically, Dr. Cooper, do you believe this will be a problem 

in all areas or only in those areas where NBC owns and controls 

a station? 

Mr. COOPER. In my testimony, I make it clear that joining a dominant distributor to a major content producer provides vertical leverage that will affect all markets, both the content market and 

the distribution markets in which one or the other of the entities 

owns properties. 

Mr. COBLE. Thank you, sir. And in conclusion, Professor Hazlett, 

let me put this question to you, if I may. Do you have a position 

on whether this deal may present antitrust concerns, in particular 

geographic markets, A? 

And, B, in particular, I am thinking of circumstances where 

Comcast owns a regional sports network and NBC owns and operates a broadcast station. Does this present, in your opinion, any 

competition problems from your perspective? 

Mr. HAZLETT. No, I don’t think it does. There are issues about 

access to programming that predate the merger and are ongoing, 

will be of interest after the merger, but the merger itself does not 

increase market power in any given market where that is an issue. 

Mr. COBLE. Thank you all again for being here. Mr. Chairman, 

thank you. And do I get credit for 5 minutes? 

Mr. CONYERS. As always. 

Mr. COBLE. With your cooperation. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. CONYERS. Maxine Waters? 

Ms. WATERS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. This hearing 

has certainly been informational and educational, and I have 

learned a lot just listening to the questions and the answers over 

the last half-hour so that I have been sitting here. And I think I 

understand very well what has been stated about the desire to go 

forward with this merger and what does it mean to each of the 

companies. 

But I also understand from those who are opposed to this merger, who have questions about this merger why they have those 

questions. 

There are several areas of interest. The first for me has to do 

with diversity. And I have been listening to the commitments to diversity, but when I look at the boards of directors of both Comcast 

and NBC, I have questions. 

For example, is it possible, Mr. Roberts, that there are no women 

on the board of directors of Comcast? 

110 

Mr. ROBERTS. No, that is not true. Dr. Judith Rodin of the Rockefeller Foundation is on the board. 

Ms. WATERS. How many people do you—how many directors do 

you have? 

Mr. ROBERTS. Like 12, I believe. 

Ms. WATERS. I noted 11. That is on the Internet. 

Mr. ROBERTS. Let me—— 

Ms. WATERS. Did she just come on? 

Mr. ROBERTS. No. 

Ms. WATERS. Is it a recent—why would her name not appear on 

the Internet on your board of directors? 

Mr. ROBERTS. I believe it does. If it doesn’t, I will check that 

today. She has been on the board for more than 5 years and has 

been on the board ever since the AT&T broadband merger. 

Ms. WATERS. Okay. So you have 12 directors, you have one 

woman, and one African-American, Mr. Bacon? 

Mr. ROBERTS. We have Mr. Bacon on the board. That is correct. 

Ms. WATERS. And any Latinos or Latinas? 

Mr. ROBERTS. We do not, I think, at this time, but the governance committee of the board has stated that increasing the diversity on the board is one of its top priorities and that is an area that 

we would like to improve, as well as additional diversity on the 

board. 

Ms. WATERS. I think that is very important, because when you 

are judged about your sincerity about diversity, it really starts at 

the top. And when you look at the board of directors of any organization, it tells you a lot about who they are and what they are trying to do. 

Let’s take a look at NBC. We are very pleased about Paula Madison. She is kind of a twofer. She is a woman, and she is Black, and 

she is connected to the community, and we are very appreciative 

for being able to talk openly and candidly with her about our concerns. 

And I guess you have one other woman, Lynn Calpeter. Is that 

correct? Or do you have another woman? 

Mr. ZUCKER. Within our executive—within the top executive 

ranks at NBC Universal, other than Paula, our CFO, Lynn 

Calpeter, is female. 

Ms. WATERS. I just want to deal with the board first before we 

go to the other offices. 

Mr. ZUCKER. On the board of NBC Universal. 

Ms. WATERS. With the board. 

Mr. ZUCKER. Yes, ma’am. 

Ms. WATERS. So you have Paula Madison, one woman, one Black. 

Any other women? Any other Blacks? 

Mr. ZUCKER. Lynn Calpeter, Bonnie Hammer also—Bonnie Hammer, who is the president of USA and Syfy, is also on the board 

of NBC Universal. I believe there is—— 

Ms. WATERS. Bonnie Hammer? 

Mr. ZUCKER. Bonnie Hammer. 

Ms. WATERS. Not listed on the Internet. You have 19 members 

on the board or 20? 

Mr. ZUCKER. I don’t think that is the board of NBC Universal. 

Ms. WATERS. Oh, it is not? 

111 

Mr. ZUCKER. Yes, I think you may be looking—I am not sure 

what you are looking at. 

Ms. WATERS. I am looking at the board where Jay Ireland, Jeff 

Zucker, Michael Bass, Lynn Calpeter, Steve Capus, Marc Chini, 

Rick Cotton, Dick Ebersol, John Eck, Jeff Gaspin, Allison Gollust, 

Mark Hoffman, Paula Madison, Salil Mehta, Ron Meyer, Richard 

Pilot, Cory Shields, Peter Smith and John Wallace. Is that not the 

NBC Universal board? 

Mr. ZUCKER. Those are the executive—I think that would be the 

executives of NBC Universal, the top executives of NBC Universal. 

Ms. WATERS. Paula Madison is on the board though, right? 

Mr. ZUCKER. She is one of the top executives of NBC Universal. 

Ms. WATERS. But she is on the board? 

VOICE. They don’t have a board. 

Ms. WATERS. Is she on the board? 

Mr. ZUCKER. That is the directors’ board, yes, yes. 

Ms. WATERS. So is there something different than what I just 

read that is the board of directors? Or is it one and the same, your 

top executives make up the board, plus others? How does it work? 

Mr. ZUCKER. NBC Universal is not a public company, so we have 

a—so we have a legal entity that lists all the top executives, which 

I think is what you are reading from. 

Ms. WATERS. I see. Okay. 

Mr. ZUCKER. So we are not a public board, and I think that 

is—— 

Ms. WATERS. So this basically is the make-up of the top executives who kind of serve in a board capacity, but not legally constructed as a board? 

Mr. ZUCKER. That is an accurate way to look at it. Yes, ma’am. 

Ms. WATERS. So you have two women, is that right, or three 

women? How may in this 19 that I have counted? Or is it just 

Paula by herself? 

Mr. ZUCKER. Well, I think it is—Paula Madison is on there. I 

think Lynn Calpeter is on there. I think Bonnie Hammer is on 

there. I think Allison Gollust is on there. 

Ms. WATERS. I don’t see Bonnie—what is her title? 

Mr. ZUCKER. Bonnie Hammer is the president of USA and Syfy 

networks. 

Ms. WATERS. And are there any more African-Americans on the 

board, in this executive make-up? 

Mr. ZUCKER. In that executive make-up, no. 

Ms. WATERS. Okay. Any Latinos? 

Mr. ZUCKER. On that board, no. 

Ms. WATERS. Okay. So you have got some work to do, too, right? 

Mr. ZUCKER. As I said before, this has been one of my key strategic priorities that I put in place when I came into this role 3 

years ago. I feel we have made progress. There is no question that 

there is more progress to be made. 

Ms. WATERS. Let’s talk a little bit about programming. And I 

don’t know what I am referring to in terms of this season or next 

season, but I am told that there is no Black programming, you 

have no more Black programming. Is that correct? 

Mr. ZUCKER. Are you talking about NBC right now? 

Ms. WATERS. Yes. 

112 

Mr. ZUCKER. Yes, on NBC? There is not a program on NBC that 

has an African-American-central theme to it, that is correct. 

Ms. WATERS. Why not? 

Mr. ZUCKER. I think we are always looking to—you know, diversity is incredibly important in all of our casting and in all of our 

themes. We are looking for programming that covers that—you 

know, that covers both the diverse casting and diverse programming. 

With regard to African-Americans, we haven’t found that program at this time. As was referenced, obviously, we have been— 

we were at the forefront of that, when you go way back into the 

history of NBC, when you go into the more recent history of NBC. 

Ms. WATERS. That was then, and now is now. 

Mr. ZUCKER. Yes, today we don’t have that program on the air. 

Ms. WATERS. So, Ms. Prewitt, do you think that they could get 

some help from individual filmmakers to help them with a little diversity so that they would not be sitting here in 2010 with no 

Black programming? 

Ms. PREWITT. I think they could absolutely get some help. And 

the day they say, ‘‘Go,’’ I will have members who are prepared to 

start filling those slots. 

Ms. WATERS. But he just said, ‘‘Go.’’ He is looking. He really 

wants to. 

Ms. PREWITT. Indeed. Indeed. Well, I will pick up the phone and 

call my board meeting, which is convening now, to tell them to get 

started. 

Thank you. 

Ms. WATERS. And so, Ms. Prewitt, are we talking about them 

working with independent developers to—independent filmmakers 

to help develop new shows? How do they get this done? He has forgotten how to do it. 

Ms. PREWITT. There are two issues. 

Ms. WATERS. They used to do it a long time ago—— 

Ms. PREWITT. Well, they used to do it. And one looming issue 

here is, who at the end of the day owns that show? There are a 

number of people who may well be prepared to come in and work 

with the network and have been invited to work with the network 

and then turn the ownership of that show over to the network. 

The independents with whom we work wish to retain the rights 

to their shows. They want to be in control of where those shows 

are exploited after the initial network or cable run. 

So on that basis, people are perfectly happy to work with the network, but the network has to be prepared to sit on its hands as 

they try to grab all worldwide Internet rights or things of that nature. 

And if you look back in the—you know, the early days, what we 

think of as the great days, the Bill Cosby days, what you will find 

there is that that programming traveled worldwide because the 

back-end rights were left with the creator. And that is part of what 

we think the process is of forcing the creator to take risk, along 

with the network, to really define programming that matters. And 

on that basis, there certainly is a wide community that would be 

happy to work with them. 

Thank you. 

113 

Ms. WATERS. Let me ask what I guess is a business question. Is 

there some assumption that Black programming is not profitable? 

Is that why you don’t have it? 

Mr. ZUCKER. Not at all. 

Ms. WATERS. Well, if it is profitable, don’t you want to make 

money? 

Mr. ZUCKER. Yes, we do. 

Ms. WATERS. Well, how could you not pursue those efforts that 

would help to make you profitable, more profitable? Tyler Perry 

does very well with Black stage, Black screen, and we just love it. 

We love seeing ourselves on television and in the movies. 

And I think that it would be credible to argue that Black viewers 

deserve the kind of content that they feel good about and that they 

are watching television and should have access to this kind of programming. I don’t understand why you don’t pursue it and why you 

don’t do it. 

Mr. ZUCKER. When I mentioned before that diversity was one of 

my key strategic priorities for the company, we didn’t make diversity a strategic priority for the company just because—only because 

it was the right thing to do. We also made it a strategic priority 

because it is good business, as well. And so I agree with what you 

are saying. 

The fact is, we need the best programs we can find, no matter 

who is the lead characters in them. The fact is, we haven’t done 

a very good job of finding programs at NBC recently, and so that 

is on us. We need the best programs wherever they come from, 

whoever stars in them, whatever their themes are, and we need to 

continue to do that. 

Ms. WATERS. Well, I know that you are pretty, you know, important in this country—I mean, in this company, but do you know 

Bill Duke and others who are producers of good Black programming? 

Mr. ZUCKER. Well, I have—I am not involved in taking those 

pitches and, obviously, hearing those ideas, but I can assure you 

that we have increased our funding for diverse scripts and diverse 

ideas dramatically, especially with the help of Paula in recent 

years, the amount of attention that is paid to this. 

The amount of resources that are attendant to looking for diverse 

themes, diverse programs and diverse scripts has magnified dramatically in the last 2 years. 

Ms. WATERS. But it has not resulted in Black programming. You 

don’t have any. 

Mr. ZUCKER. It doesn’t necessarily happen immediately, and I 

think what we have done and what I am proud of is the fact that 

we are attuned to it, the fact that we are putting money where our 

mouths are, and we are looking for that. Whether we have had success yet or not, which we—as you have pointed out, we don’t have 

any of those programs on the air today. We are—— 

Ms. WATERS. How long do you think it will take? 

Mr. ZUCKER. I wouldn’t want to put a timeline on it. We are looking for the best programs no matter where they come from, and we 

have added dramatic resources to help us find those. 

Ms. WATERS. How do you determine whether or not it is a good 

program? Do you have a committee that reviews—— 

114 

Mr. ZUCKER. Well, there is a team, obviously, that picks the programs. And diversity, including diverse casting and themes, is a 

significant part of what they are looking—— 

Ms. WATERS. So you have a team of diverse people that includes 

African-Americans and Latinos and women that review these products that are submitted to you? Is that how it works? 

Mr. ZUCKER. Yes, ma’am. 

Ms. WATERS. And what are the Blacks on your team saying 

about the inability to find Black programming? What do they say, 

if you have some who actually look at this stuff? 

Mr. ZUCKER. Yes, we do. 

Ms. WATERS. What do they say, ‘‘not good enough’’? 

Mr. ZUCKER. I think we haven’t found that program yet. 

Ms. WATERS. Well, let me just say that it is very difficult to accept that you cannot find the kind of program that I am talking 

about. And it is unacceptable to say that you don’t know—you have 

no goals. You don’t know when it could happen. It may happen. It 

may not happen. I don’t think that Black viewers would like to 

hear that kind of an answer. 

And I think you can do better. And it is not all on Paula Madison. It is good to be able to, you know, deflect when you are getting 

this kind of question, and I am not doing it to be in a ‘‘gotcha’’ moment. I am doing it because I am trying to be as open and honest 

as I can be about your Black viewers. 

Many of us are searching, looking for Black programming and 

having to enjoy shows that are very old, that is repeated, because 

we can’t find any new programming that reflects us. And we think 

that is very important, if you are committed to diversity. 

And I think that all of the ethnic groups who are viewers and 

who are watching television—otherwise, we don’t have a dog in this 

kind of fight. I don’t know why we should care whether or not you 

are successful if we are not represented. I just don’t know why we 

should be concerned. 

First of all, you have got a diversity problem, you have got a 

labor problem, and you have got an ownership problem. There is 

no ownership in this merger by anybody of color, any minorities. 

Labor’s not happy with what you are doing. We think we are going 

to lose jobs. 

So I just don’t—I just don’t know why I should be supportive of 

your merger. I don’t know what it does for the people, some of the 

people that I represent, et cetera, et cetera. 

So I want to kind of just make that—put that on your radar 

screen so that you will actually realize some success in the area 

that you are working so hard in. And if you need additional help, 

I will just call all my friends that I know in the industry. And I 

will get Bill Duke and all the producers that I know, and I will set 

up a meeting with you to make sure you have reviewed their products, that they have been submitted, take a look at your review 

committee that is supposed to be diverse, and see if we can’t get 

this done. 

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I yield back the balance 

of my time. 

115 

Mr. CONYERS. We have a vote on. We will be in recess for this 

one vote which has been on. That was the second bell that rang. 

And we will resume shortly. Thank you. 

[Recess.] 

Mr. CONYERS. The Committee will come to order. Chair recognizes Dan Lungren. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

And I thank the witnesses for being here. As you can see, we 

split our duties in a day, and I have been on the floor and other 

things, so I haven’t heard all the testimony. I think I have the gist 

of it, but I would like to ask a few questions. 

I thought it was interesting, and I think it is a serious discussion 

on diversity. I am almost tempted to ask about diversity of opinion, 

but that would suggest that I think that networks are biased, and 

I wouldn’t suggest that at all. 

I do want to make sure that, no matter what you do, I can still 

watch Notre Dame football on NBC. That is my particular parochial interest here. 

Let me ask this. I come from the general Sacramento area. It has 

been highly competitive. And one of the reasons I know that is we 

have changed who we use. I have had AT&T. I have had cable. I 

have had satellite. I have tried all of them. 

And, frankly, my wife and I do it depending on what the best 

offer is at the time. And whether—I mean, we do it on service and 

we do it on content and we do it on price. I think we are like everybody else. 

We have AT&T. We have Frontier. We have SureWest. We have 

Comcast, et cetera. 

And I believe the competition has been healthy, as I have seen 

it and we utilized it. Frankly, I have seen services improved over 

time. And we try and figure out who has got the best service at 

the particular time, and we go with them, so we are not one of your 

loyal customers, I guess is what I would say. 

But I am undecided about the facts that are being presented 

here, so I would like to ask a couple of questions, and this would 

be both to Mr. Roberts and Mr. Zucker, and anybody else could 

comment after they do. And I would like to know how we would 

assure that the costs for programming that you now control and 

own would not increase arbitrarily for yourselves and contractually 

with your competitors. 

Because when you merge, as you would merge, there could be a 

human tendency to benefit yourself, your closest person. And how 

do I know that it would not in turn increase the prices for customers across the board? 

Mr. ROBERTS. Well, thank you. And first of all, I am sorry that 

we have lost your business and we will work to get it back. But 

I think it demonstrates the dynamic nature of the business and the 

ever-changing nature of the competitiveness. And I think that is a 

real live example of what the marketplace is all about. Every day, 

we have got to wake up and have a better product than we had 

yesterday. 

First of all, it is not crystal clear that in the past, as this Committee and others have looked at whether it was News Corp., Direct TV, or Time Warner and Time Warner Cable, that other busiVerDate Aug 31 2005 12:53 Nov 10, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00119 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\WORK\FULL\022510\55068.000 HJUD1 PsN: DOUGA
116 

nesses didn’t come to the conclusion that there is no benefit to even 

being in the same company. And what has been mentioned in previous testimony is that many investors are skeptical that there are 

benefits. 

So I don’t think one of those theoretical benefits is to go out and 

raise prices artificially for your own channels. The market is just 

too competitive. There are too many choices. And we need the distribution—since we are 24 percent of the country, 76 percent you 

need. And there is a robust market. 

There is also—NBC today is not under the program access rules. 

But because we are vertically integrating, their content would now 

fall under more rules than it has previously, so it is hard to see 

what you are describing as a theoretical happen. 

And other companies, whether it is News Corp. or Time Warner, 

we didn’t see that kind of behavior, either. In fact, so much of it 

they ultimately didn’t even think they wanted to stay in both businesses. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Let me follow up on that. Would Comcast-NBC tie 

various content packages to their own cable or Internet services, 

which could then thereby impact customer choice and create higher 

costs and unfair competition for customers and their competitors? 

Mr. ROBERTS. I am not sure I follow all the strains of that question. I just want to make sure I appropriately answer—— 

Mr. LUNGREN. Well, I am talking about, you know, kind of bundling the services. I mean, you are sort of one—you are two companies now. You are one company afterwards, essentially. Would that 

have you—NBC give a better benefit in this situation to others that 

might be viewing—seeking that content? 

Mr. ROBERTS. So there are two sides. There is Comcast the cable 

company, six out of every channels, as I stated earlier, we do not 

have any financial interest in after the merger. So there is plenty 

of opportunity. 

And, more importantly, as you pointed out, as a customer, to decide based on whether you choose to subscribe to us, whether or 

not we have the best channels available. So I think there is three, 

four, five competitors per market and increasing competition all the 

time from other forms of entertainment. 

As far as channels getting carriage, the other side of that question, again, there are opportunities for us to carry their content 

and content to get carried by NBC and others. We have been discussing that all day. There are program access rules, program carriage rules. There has been an explosion of choice to the consumer. 

And I don’t believe this deal changes that because we are really 

in different parts of the business—— 

Mr. LUNGREN. Okay, well, let me ask this. The customer, me, my 

wife, what does it mean to me? I mean, what am I going to see? 

Are you telling me there is going to be no difference whatsoever or 

I am going to be so pleased with this merger that I am going to 

say, ‘‘Why didn’t you do it before, because it has given me so much 

more benefit’’? I mean, what is going to be in my district for my 

constituents—what difference are they going to see? 

Mr. ROBERTS. Great question. I think first thing is, we hope to 

improve the quality of NBC’s programming, okay? We will make 

this—this is the signature piece of our content. And our investment 

117 

strategy and our management expertise will solely be focused on 

improving the quality. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Well, my alma mater is trying to help you, because we have a new football coach, so we hope that—— 

Mr. ROBERTS. And we thank you for that. And—— 

Mr. LUNGREN [continuing]. The product on the field will be better 

in the coming years. 

Mr. ROBERTS. Second is accelerating the technology that your 

customers are going to be able to use to get more content on more 

devices faster. We are convinced at Comcast that there is a technological moment in time, explosion of choice with the digitization of 

these industries, and they are changing all over the world. 

And our company for 40 years has just been a cable company. We 

then invested in broadband, and that changed our company. We invested in phone, and that changed our company. And we think investing in content will continue to change our company and make 

it a better company with innovating faster, more creativity for our 

consumers than we are if we just stay doing what we are doing. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Mr. Zucker, if I am someone who enjoys NBC, 

watches it, I get it through the system I get now, what is going to 

be the impact on me from the standpoint of NBC? 

Mr. ZUCKER. Yes, I think that I would echo some of the comments that Mr. Roberts made. I think, first of all, Comcast’s willingness to invest in NBC is good for NBC and should lead to greater opportunities for independent programmers and for your consumers who hopefully will be able to watch more and hopefully 

even better programming. So I think that—— 

Mr. LUNGREN. Well, it is a capital infusion question. 

Mr. ZUCKER. So that—well, the capital infusion I think will be— 

will be very helpful to us. I think, as Mr. Roberts said, the fact that 

the ability to provide that content anytime, anywhere will also be 

a benefit to the consumers and your constituents. 

And I think—I would not underestimate this commitment to the 

broadcast model so that the station in Sacramento, the NBC affiliate there, KCRA, which is a fantastic affiliate—we are very proud 

of our relationship with them. The fact that free, over-the-air 

broadcasting will remain vibrant and strong, which has been under 

a lot of duress in recent years, I think is a very important thing 

to happen here. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Well, that brings up another area of concern that 

has been at least expressed to me by some of the affiliates. Are 

they—are they in a weakened position now as a result of this? 

And the reason I say that is this. When I was in Congress in the 

1980’s, we had the explosion from telephones, the breakup of 

AT&T. No one could truly forecast what was going to happen. And 

here we were in Congress trying to pass laws, and technology outstripped us every single time. 

So when I look at what we do, whether it is overseeing a merger, 

whether it is new legislation, it is, can we anticipate what the possibilities of technology are so that the laws that we pass and the 

decisions we make will be appropriate not just today, but 5 years 

down the line? 

One of the things that I noted when we had the big snowstorm 

here and when we had the big storms back home, you know, you 

118 

turn to your local television station or your radio station—in most 

cases now television, because they have more news—to learn about 

what the weather is, to learn about where the problems are. 

It is nice to get the national. It is nice to get other kinds of 

things. But, man, they do serve a real public purpose and public 

service. How do we make sure that they are not disadvantaged by 

your larger market power, so to speak? I mean, you are a bigger 

gorilla than after this merger than you are now. 

And how can I be assured that the—the affiliates are not going 

to be disadvantaged by that, and to the extent that then it would 

have negative economic effects on them such they may be forced to 

cut back on their commitment to newsrooms, cut back on their 

commitment to keep people apprised of what is happening in their 

area? 

Mr. ROBERTS. Well, I will weigh in, if I might, and then Mr. 

Zucker may want to—he has the relationship today with the affiliates. We have made several upfront commitments. 

Probably the first, most important commitment is doing the deal 

itself. This begins with GE deciding to sell NBC. And one could 

think, where might that have gone? One answer is the 20 percent 

owner is Vivendi. Perhaps Vivendi would have bought the other 

100 percent. Perhaps it would have been another media company 

that would have said, I already own a broadcast system or I already own other things, a studio that NBC owns. 

We are making a commitment that, as has been pointed out, is 

not universally guaranteed success. This is a very, you know, big 

gamble, I believe, hopefully wise, hopefully at the right moment in 

time. 

GE has, you know, said that they aren’t happy that NBC’s in 

fourth place, but they have other investment opportunities to invest in other businesses all over the world, in infrastructure and 

other things. For Comcast, the opportunity to try to restore NBC 

and its cable networks and to continue to grow them and invest 

isn’t lip service. It is the mission. Why else would you buy it? Many 

other companies chose to pass, I am sure, on wanting to get into 

some of these businesses today. 

So we are making a bet on the U.S. economy turning around. We 

are making a bet that advertisers and car companies are going to 

come back to advertising, that the future is brighter than the 

present. And I think we are—you know, we are confident and excited about that, but it starts with the essence of your question, 

which is, you wouldn’t do that if you weren’t really willing to make 

an investment in growth and in future and in job creation that we 

are coming out of this cycle. 

It doesn’t have to be this month, but it has to be at some point 

or probably the trend that has happened in the past, where some 

of these businesses have declined will now turn around. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Yes, sir. 

Mr. SCHWARTZMAN. Thank you, Mr. Lungren. I have three very 

brief points I would like to make in response. First of all, Mr. Roberts has introduced a red herring here, because Vivendi—and Mr. 

Morial made the same point, that he was concerned that NBC go 

to an American company. The suggestion that Vivendi might buy 

NBC is just wrong, because as a matter of law, the CommunicaVerDate Aug 31 2005 12:53 Nov 10, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00122 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\WORK\FULL\022510\55068.000 HJUD1 PsN: DOUGA
119 

tions Act prohibits the operation of broadcast licensees by aliens, 

so that is just a complete red herring and an effort to suggest a 

threat that doesn’t really exist. 

Second, Mr. Roberts talks about program access and program 

carriage rules in several occasions and saying, even suggesting that 

they have been beneficial to Comcast operations. It has challenged 

the legality of both the program access and program carriage rules, 

and we have asked Comcast to withdraw its legal challenge to the 

program access rules. And thus far, it has refused to do so. 

To the extent that he said they might comply anyway voluntarily, that is not very reassuring, and that assumes that those 

rules are sufficient in the first place. And as I said in my prepared 

testimony, we think those rules aren’t sufficient. 

The third point is that the continuing legality of those rules—of 

the program access rules, they only run for 2 more years. And Mr. 

Roberts is not committing to comply with them beyond then. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Dr. Cooper? 

Mr. COOPER. Mr. Lungren, so you are concerned about predictions about what is going to happen to your constituents. And 

I think when you allow a company that represents a quarter of the 

market to give guaranteed access to programming—now NBC and 

Comcast argue about the price of the programming, they argue 

about the channel location, they argue about the bundle size. 

You take that argument away, and now they have a commonality 

of interests, so they certainly have a commonality of interest on 

bigger bundles. Comcast now has a proprietary interest in pushing 

NBC programming in big bundles. They will certainly continue 

their policy of not allowing you to buy channels on a single basis, 

but now they own a bunch of programming which they really want 

to keep in the bundle, and they are going to put it in the bundle. 

So they will continue their bundling activities. 

Second of all, they will try to tie Internet distribution to cable 

distribution. That is their TV Everywhere model. They want to preserve that cable subscription and prevent other cable operators and 

other people from selling Internet-only service. 

And those two things are a big deal to your constituents. They 

really could use true choice on a channel-by-channel basis. They 

really could use the Internet as a platform that breaks their market power. And when you combine one of the top four programmers 

and look at the popular programming—not the 500, look at the top 

30—that is where NBC has specialized, along with a handful of 

others. 

You take that dominant programming, must-have programming, 

marry it to regional must-have programming, add it to a quarter 

of the market guarantee. Every company in America would love to 

have a guaranteed quarter of the market. That gives them a lot 

more bargaining power when they deal with everyone else. This 

will raise your price and reduce your choices, especially if it entails 

the Internet. 

Mr. SCHWARTZMAN. I have one more thing. It is about Notre 

Dame, so if I might get a second bite at the apple—— 

Mr. LUNGREN. Only if it is positive. 

Mr. SCHWARTZMAN. Well, it is a concern. NBC is restricting online availability of the Olympics to cable subscribers. If you want 

120 

to watch online—the Olympics online, you must authenticate that 

you are already a cable subscriber. Once Comcast acquires NBC, 

they may put the Notre Dame programming so it is only available 

online to Comcast subscribers. 

So that is the kind of concern that we have when you migrate 

this stuff to the Internet. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Dr. Cooper, you brought something up that has 

been a question of mine. It comes out of my just individual experience, and that is, the difficulty in buying a la carte. I used to have 

one—I wanted the Western Channel. I happen to love to watch old 

Westerns. And you could only get it bundled with something else. 

When I came to Congress and my salary went down, my wife 

said, ‘‘You are going to suffer along with the family, so we are not 

going to have the Western Channel anymore.’’ Came home one day, 

tried to turn on one of those things, it wasn’t there. 

And that has bedeviled me, why it has been so difficult for a la 

carte pricing? 

Mr. COOPER. Well, the cable industry will give you all manner of 

economic explanation about the recovery of costs, but the interesting thing is that you don’t have those costs on the Internet. You 

don’t have to build systems. You don’t—there is no geography on 

the Internet, and that is what really gets our attention at this effort to require a cable subscription or an MVPD subscription in 

order to view Internet content. 

That means that the company that sells me my cable subscription is, in fact, preserving its business relationship to me. And if 

I cut that relationship, I don’t have any way to view this programming on the Internet. 

So the key here is that their control over the market, their bundling—they have been able to impose the bundle. And we have 

tried for years to find a variety of ways to break that bundle. I 

have testified before a variety of Committees in Congress. 

It is a question of the exercise of market power. And here you 

have a moment where the Internet comes along. NBC has invested 

in a competed alternative distribution system. They need to kill 

that threat off, because on the Internet, you do tend to buy individual channels. 

Someone mentioned the iTunes model. You buy individual songs 

on iTunes, a perfect model for selling digital content. So this is the 

key moment, to stop the practice from physical space. That you 

have noticed. They didn’t give you true choice. And prevent them 

from undermining choice in cyberspace. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. CONYERS. Steve Cohen? 

Mr. COHEN OF TENNESSEE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, once 

again, proving all things comes to those who wait. 

First of all, this has been very enlightening. Mr. Zucker, I have 

seen you on television, particularly with the Conan-Leno world, 

which is, no, not your favorite moment, but now I know who Bob 

Costas has been doing an impression of all these years. You sound 

a lot like Bob Costas, or he sounds a lot like you. 

Mr. Harper started his remarks talking about Mr. Roberts and 

his father’s company starting in Tupelo, Mississippi, and I found it 

interesting to hear that the reason you started it is because the 

121 

folks there couldn’t get their antennas to pick up Memphis. I don’t 

think that is why Elvis and his family left Tupelo and went to 

Memphis, but there are lots of reasons to do it, and I want you all 

always to remember that Memphis is responsible for everything. 

Elvis and Memphis. Before there was Elvis, there was nothing. 

That is what John Lennon said. Before there was Memphis, there 

wasn’t any Comcast. Remember that. 

I concur with some of the remarks made by my colleagues, Sheila 

Jackson Lee and Maxine Waters, about diversity and minority representation on the station. But I am correct, Mr. Zucker, does not 

Harold Ford, Jr., who is a Tennessee Nine and my predecessor in 

this position, appear quite frequently on NBC? 

Mr. ZUCKER. He does quite frequently. 

Mr. COHEN OF TENNESSEE. And is that kind of unique among the 

networks for an African-American to be that frequent on the networks? 

Mr. ZUCKER. Well, I think we are actually quite proud of our— 

the diversity that we have on our news and cable news program. 

And I think Mr. Ford is the latest example of that, and I think we 

have done quite a good job there. 

Mr. COHEN OF TENNESSEE. It is a good—the district brings those 

type of people forward. Was Al Roker one of the first African-American weather people on the networks? 

Mr. ZUCKER. Yes, I—— 

Mr. COHEN OF TENNESSEE. Or the first? 

Mr. ZUCKER. If he wasn’t the first, he was the first with such a 

prominent role as he has played on ‘‘The Today Show.’’ I think our 

history of diversity in our news programs has been quite strong. 

My first job at NBC was actually as the writer-researcher for Bob 

Costas, and I think that is where I may have picked this up. 

But after that, my next job was at ‘‘The Today Show,’’ where Bryant Gumbel played a huge role in turning ‘‘The Today Show’’ into 

the most-watched morning show in America. And it was joined by 

Al Roker not there long after. And today, Mr. Roker continues to 

play a huge role. Lester Holt is the anchor of weekend ‘‘Nightly 

News’’ on NBC News. 

As you have pointed out, Mr. Ford plays a prominent role on 

analysis on our news programs. So we are quite proud of the job 

that we have done with regard to that. 

Mr. COHEN OF TENNESSEE. And I was going to bring up Bryant 

Gumbel. I appreciate your mentioning, but I was really in another 

vein with Al Roker. My next movement was to be the band leaders. 

And I remember Skitch Henderson and Doc Severinsen, and, of 

course, we all know Paul Schaffer, who does so much Warren 

Zevon to keep David Letterman entertained, and I appreciate that. 

Mr. ZUCKER. I am not familiar with that program. 

Mr. COHEN OF TENNESSEE. You should be. 

Mr. ZUCKER. I am. 

Mr. COHEN OF TENNESSEE. But was Kevin Eubanks the first 

band leader on a nighttime show that was African-American? 

Mr. ZUCKER. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. 

Mr. COHEN OF TENNESSEE. And if you notice, there is a theme 

there with Al Roker and Kevin Eubanks, follicly challenged individuals. I support that. 

122 

Mr. ZUCKER. And I am supportive of that, as well. That is their— 

that is their claim to fame, exactly. 

I think that all of these things point out that obviously, as I said 

before, diversity has been an incredibly important part of what we 

have tried to do at NBC, NBC Universal, NBC News, and I think 

we have done a good job. 

It will never be perfect, but we have done a good job, and I am 

quite proud of the record that we have shown both in news and entertainment. 

Mr. COHEN OF TENNESSEE. If my memory is correct—and I am 

not a student of broadcast journalism or executives and networks— 

but I think David Sarnoff was known as being a pretty good fellow 

and doing things to see that there was diversity and being against 

discrimination. 

I don’t remember Mr. Paley so well. I think he was thought of 

as a pretty nice fellow. And I don’t know who ABC had, I think, 

at Disney. I don’t know who they had. But Mr. Sarnoff was a leader. And he might have been the leader. So your network does have 

some roots. 

Mr. ZUCKER. We are very proud of the record that we have had, 

especially with regard to African-Americans in prominent roles, in 

first roles, dating back to the advent of television. And I think that 

that is a position that we continue to believe very strongly in. And 

I think you see that every day on the NBC television network. 

Mr. COHEN OF TENNESSEE. Now, I know you have never heard 

of that guy, Letterman, and he has got his Top Ten lists, and you 

mentioned you got a top five list. You hadn’t quite got the Top Ten 

yet. 

You have mentioned diversity. What are the other four issues on 

your top five list? 

Mr. ZUCKER. Yes, the strategic priorities that I have laid out for 

the company are, first and foremost, great content, whether that is 

in television, film, local, at our theme parks having great rides, 

having great content, because this entire conversation that we are 

having, none of it matters if you don’t have great content. 

Digital and the transformation to digital in this new world that 

we live in is another priority. International growth is another priority for us. Making sure that we move from an analog cost structure to one that anticipates the new digital world and all the 

changes that that brings along is fourth. And then diversity would 

be the fifth. 

Mr. COHEN OF TENNESSEE. Is there any reason for any of the 

local folks to be concerned that you will take the local stations off 

of broadcast? 

Mr. ZUCKER. Comcast has made a clear commitment—I think it 

is number one on their list of commitments that they have put forward with regard to this merger—that there is a commitment to 

free, over-the-air broadcasting. 

That commitment should not be underappreciated in this day 

and age when broadcasting models are the single source, ad-supported model is under a lot of stress. And so keeping NBC and 

Telemundo strong, vibrant and over-the-air should give comfort to 

all of those local affiliates. 

123 

Mr. COHEN OF TENNESSEE. Mr. Roberts, I asked you yesterday— 

and I just want to understand the issue—the Comcast is the provider in Memphis, Tennessee. 

Mr. ROBERTS. That is correct. 

Mr. COHEN OF TENNESSEE. And many of my constituents of my 

persuasion were upset that MSNBC was taken out of the free tier. 

Is there a manner where constituents in my district can get 

MSNBC in the free area now? Or would there be—will there be one 

in the future? 

Mr. ROBERTS. Yes to both. When you say free, I think you mean 

the first level—— 

Mr. COHEN OF TENNESSEE. Basic. 

Mr. ROBERTS [continuing]. Expanded basic. And—we are going 

through the same—we are going through the same kind of transition that the whole broadcasting industry went through with conversion to digital. And as Jeff just said, that is a way for us to reclaim bandwidth and then have more high-definition, faster Internet, more On Demand choices. 

So we are taking certain analog channels and rebroadcasting 

them in digital. Any customer that wants that service for no additional charge can get the device to convert you to digital. Eventually down the road, they will all be digital, and we are just in that 

transition period, and we need to advertise that better, and we 

want to work with your office to make that more understood. 

Mr. COHEN OF TENNESSEE. Thank you very much, sir. I yield the 

balance of my time. 

Mr. CONYERS. Darrell Issa? 

Mr. ISSA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Zucker, just to finish off on a couple of questions that my colleague from Tennessee began, NBC has led in a lot of areas, but 

I have it on good authority that ‘‘Make Room for Daddy,’’ featuring 

the first prominent Lebanese-American—— 

Mr. COHEN OF TENNESSEE. Buried in Memphis. 

Mr. ISSA [continuing]. Who is buried in Memphis and for whose 

hospital you had better take good care of there—began on ABC. 

NBC did not avail itself. He had to go to CBS. ‘‘MASH’’ with Jamie 

Farr, CBS. It wasn’t until ‘‘Monk’’ that you got into the game. 

Now, I am not going to ask you to explain why it took you so 

long to outreach to Lebanese-Americans or why we still feel that 

we are very underrepresented. We will move on to just a few other 

questions. 

Dr. Cooper, I have the honor of being a Member of Congress on 

this Committee and not being an attorney and being just a lowly 

businessman. So whenever I try to understand antitrust and the 

considerations, I always try to say, okay, relevant market, you 

know, what blocks entry, what are the barriers and so on. 

So maybe you can help me with a couple of items. If there were 

unlimited content out there available either for free or free when 

attached to some advertising, if there were unlimited bandwidth— 

let’s just say we discovered the terahertz bandwidth and you could 

have all the broadcast in the world—if the cable companies through 

breakthroughs in cable or fiber were able to have 1,000-fold more 

bandwidth, and if any pricing scheme was always a cost-plus, a 

pass-through with some minimal add-on by providers, whether they 

124 

be over-the-air, a cellular event, FiOS, whoever, if that were all in 

place, do you have any objections to this merger. 

Mr. COOPER. The hypothetical you have given me—and I have 

been an expert witness for 30 years, and the first lesson you do is 

make sure you actually don’t accept the hypothetical—if that were 

true, we would live in a wonderful place, but none of that is true. 

Mr. ISSA. Okay. Well, let me go through this again, though. And 

actually, I will go to Mr. Roberts, because he is enjoying this too 

much on the end of the table there. What is your bandwidth today 

for being able to broadcast, let’s just say, low-def level, you know, 

480, in number of channels versus what was it, let’s say, 20 years 

ago? Just give me a round number, if you know it. 

Mr. ROBERTS. Probably has gone in 20 years from 150 megahertz, which would be, say, 30 channels to 860 today. And then 

when you multiply the digitization that occurs within that bandwidth, which is 10 to 20 times, you can begin to get the range of 

the outcome. 

Mr. ISSA. So essentially we have gone from 30 to 1,000 potential 

channels before you get into basically an On Demand or a system 

in which you push out more channels, but deliver them from a 

server locally, which is—— 

Mr. ROBERTS. The only thing that would not get you to 1,000 was 

that we then devoted, let’s say, 100 into high-def, and high-def took 

two and three times the capacity, where—you started with lowdef—— 

Mr. ISSA. Having help pay for the model station and all that 

work when I was at the Electronic Industries Alliance, trust me. 

We are acutely aware that that was a tradeoff. So we did go for 

quality, not quantity in that case. 

Mr. ROBERTS. We also had On Demand, to your point. 

Mr. ISSA. Right. So if we look at it as sort of the old standard, 

we have gone from 30 to 1,000. And if we go to an all On Demand, 

then it is virtually infinity, because you can push down 1,000 

things to various sub-areas or 100,000 things and then they can be 

divided up to each individual TV. 

And if you eliminated all your cable and you only had your 

broadband, you could essentially have an unlimited amount of 

channels delivered through that system, only limited by how many 

the last mile would achieve, with today’s predictable technologies. 

Is that true? 

Mr. ROBERTS. I think there is a theoretical that you could somehow get to that scenario, I think so. 

Mr. ISSA. Okay. Dr. Cooper, I will go back to you, because although I can’t guarantee you that the cellular network will roll out 

on that model, they could. I can’t guarantee you that FiOS and others can roll out on that model, but they could. I can guarantee you 

we are not in the near future going to find enough bandwidth overthe-air generally in a non-cellular way, so we will eliminate that 

part of it. 

So if you recognize that we are increasing bandwidth at an incredible way, assuming now only that Mr. Roberts’ company and 

companies like it are not prohibited from any way impeding others 

getting on to that digital highway and delivering content if I want 

it, do you see why we are leading toward a question of, if not now, 

125 

is it foreseeable that in the future good content will have no limit 

to being able to get to me, should I choose to want it, even if Mr. 

Roberts, through his selection of channels, chooses not to have me, 

let’s just say because I want 25 million, to let his channel have it 

and he doesn’t want to pay it, but I can still send it on a subscription basis through the Internet. 

Does that affect your thinking at all? 

Mr. COOPER. Well, here’s where your hypothetical has bumped 

into the antitrust laws. Of course, the antitrust laws are not ‘‘it 

could be,’’ but ‘‘what is’’ and ‘‘when will it be?’’ And if in the relevant timeframe—and we tend to use a couple years—it won’t be. 

It isn’t today—we know that—and it won’t be within the relevant 

timeframe, then antitrust looks at the market as it actually is, not 

the hypothetical market, first answer. 

Mr. ISSA. Okay. Give me only two answers, because I am a very 

simple guy. Remember, I am not an attorney. 

Mr. COOPER. Second answer is that TV Everywhere is an effort 

to prevent that from happening. So essentially what that deal says 

to the public is it says, look, you have to subscribe to cable or another MVPD in order to get Internet content. And the effort here— 

the two biggest guys have made the deal—the effort here is to signal to the rest of the industry that the gentleman’s agreement that 

has existed in physical space—let’s be clear: Comcast has never 

chosen to compete in physical space with a neighboring cable operator. It has never overbuilt someone. 

It could have—at least since the 1996 act, it could have entered 

someone else’s service territory to compete. It might claim there 

are difficulties, construction costs, et cetera, in—— 

Mr. ISSA. I would only ask that you not apply that to the District 

of Columbia, where my own scheduler had multiple choices and 

chose to go from one cable provider to another within her apartment complex and is so delighted to have left the unnamed other 

company. 

Mr. COOPER. Well, but that company never has. They have chosen not to compete. They have occasionally been the target of competitors who would come in here and—— 

Mr. ISSA. Actually, they were the winner in that particular one. 

That is why I didn’t name the one that she left. 

Mr. COOPER. And the guy who is in bankruptcy will explain to 

you why denial of access to programming helped put him there. So 

in cyberspace, however, there are—those impediments don’t exist. 

Mr. ISSA. Okay, well, let—— 

Mr. COOPER. Now they have made this deal, to require me to get 

Internet content to subscribe to a cable operator. That is a market 

division scheme. That is an antitrust—— 

Mr. ISSA. Okay, and a given. Mr. Zucker, I am now going to concentrate the rest of the time on you, because, first of all, I have got 

a lot of time with broadcast and not all of it was good, so I want 

to try to enjoy my time here today asking you some questions. 

You currently have the ability to send how many broadcast channels if you choose to go to your lowest resolution today with your 

new spectrum in the markets where you have some? 

Mr. ZUCKER. Three. 

126 

Mr. ISSA. Do you anticipate being able to potentially go further 

with the existing spectrum in any time in the future? 

Mr. ZUCKER. In each local market you are talking about? 

Mr. ISSA. Yes, sir. 

Mr. ZUCKER. Yes. That is about what we will—— 

Mr. ISSA. At 720, you can do three. 

Mr. ZUCKER. Yes, exactly, so that is about it. 

Mr. ISSA. You want to give me that old fuzzy stuff, you can do 

a lot more, but it is 720p. 

Mr. ZUCKER. Well, high-def and all of that, I mean—— 

Mr. ISSA. Right. 

Mr. ZUCKER. Yes, so—— 

Mr. ISSA. Or as I like to say, having come from the industry, 

higher but not what I call high. But at that point, you have three. 

How many channels does NBC currently produce—obviously, not 

broadcast—but all forms, how many channels do you believe you 

own, how many network, sub-networks? 

Mr. ZUCKER. You know, more than 20. 

Mr. ISSA. More than 20. So broadcast is really a relatively small 

amount of your model now, compared to what it once was. 

Mr. ZUCKER. Completely. Broadcasting accounts for less than 10 

percent of our operating program. The name of the company is 

NBC Universal, but NBC accounts for a minimal part of our revenue and profit. 

Mr. ISSA. So although Dr. Cooper is talking not about you as a 

content entity, because the truth is, Mr. Roberts has the ability to 

start content and build it to create studios. He can do all of that. 

There is no barrier for him choosing to do it. And with what he is 

paying for you, it would be less expensive to do that, but that is 

a business decision. 

You could, for all practical purposes, walk away from every 

transmission capability, all your bandwidth, and simply take your 

content, walk out one day, and deliver it to cable or DirecTV or 

anybody and you would still have what percentage of your revenue, 

not knowing bottom line, but what percentage of your revenue, if 

you cease to be a broadcaster in the old system? 

Mr. ZUCKER. Well, probably more, because it would continue to 

be a majority. 

Mr. ISSA. Okay, so trying to understand the market that we are 

being asked to, we have been modeling here today—and the Chairman’s been very generous with everyone having an opportunity to 

try to model it—we have been modeling some old models. You 

know, we are sort of thinking that the Peacock, before it was in 

color and then when it was first in color and then when people 

fooled around with it for a long time trying to figure out how it was 

going to look, but, in fact, what we are really talking about is a 

broad content designer, producer, licenser, enabler who, in fact, is 

more and more looking for places to go, including cable, all cable 

providers, DirecTV, and the Internet, right? 

Mr. ZUCKER. Well, I think this is the most salient point of the 

entire day, which is that much of what we have been talking about 

here, whether it is old Simpson rules or casting of television shows 

or access to have your programming out there, the world is incredVerDate Aug 31 2005 12:53 Nov 10, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00130 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\WORK\FULL\022510\55068.000 HJUD1 PsN: DOUGA
127 

ibly different today, and it is more different today than it was 2 

or 3 years ago. 

And to apply the old rules when 30 years ago three networks 

owned 90 percent of all television viewing and to think that that 

is the way it is today, we live in a multicultural society. That is 

why the programming, the casting of our TV programs today is 

multicultural. It is not all one ethnicity. It is why the idea that 

there are barriers to access of where programmers can bring their 

material and it is to just one of the networks is looking at the 

world 20 years ago. 

The world is incredibly different. And to apply the models that 

were in vogue 20, 30 years ago doesn’t work today. 

Mr. ISSA. So let me just briefly summarize. You make a lot more 

money not broadcasting. You are a content creator looking for distribution, looking for every distribution, including through all cable 

networks. You live or die based on whether or not, in some way, 

shape or form, somebody’s going to pay for your content. A chunk 

of your content is advertiser attached, although sometimes not. 

Your competitors or everybody who is creating content, all of you 

have a Web presence, more all the time. All of you, in fact, are perfectly willing to have a model in which your subscriber is a direct 

customer through some transport which is ubiquitous. See, if I was 

a lawyer, I would be able to see that more clearly. 

The fact is that, whether I get it on my cell phone, I get it 

through my cable provider, I get it through a fiber optic link somewhere else, or, quite candidly, anywhere I go, I simply log in and 

it is there for me on the Internet the way Sirius-XM is both broadcast from satellite and available on any Internet connection, that 

is who you are. 

Mr. Roberts has made a decision to make an acquisition because 

he thinks it is a good combination, but he is in an odd situation. 

Everyone else who is like you—if I understand correctly—is able to 

do all the same things you do, and he either now or likely throughout all of our actions is not going to be able to prohibit your competitors from jumping on to his backbone, even if he owns you, and 

at least, at a minimum, delivering content directly to my PC, which 

is a media center that goes to all my TVs. 

Did I misunderstand any of that? 

Mr. ZUCKER. I think you got it exactly right. 

Mr. ISSA. Mr. Chairman, hopefully for both of our deliberation, 

that will add to our small body of knowledge. Thank you, and I 

yield back. 

Mr. CONYERS. Judge Hank Johnson? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you. It is hard to follow a mind like Darrell 

Issa’s. And then, I must admit, during my prior career, I was an 

attorney. And so I feel like I have been set up here to seem like 

attorneys throughout the country look either good or bad. And 

so—— 

Mr. ISSA. If the gentleman would yield, it is my inferiority complex. I hope you didn’t take it in any other way, Hank. 

Mr. JOHNSON. No, I did not. Now I am worried about my inferiority complex. 

128 

But I do understand that our regulatory environment, including 

antitrust regulation, has to be flexible enough to allow for ingenuity and innovation. Before I proceed, I will share this. 

Back around 1993, 1994, 1995, in that era, in that time period, 

I was faced with a cold slap in the face, a harsh reality set upon 

me. It was during—it was around September, whenever the football season started. And I turned on channel six, CBS in Atlanta. 

They say you could get two, channel two was NBC, channel four 

was ABC, channel six was CBS. 

I turn on CBS, channel six, and, you know, because the football 

game is on, and it was not CBS anymore. It was FOX. And I tried 

to find CBS somewhere around and had to go up to channel—I still 

don’t know what channel—where CBS is now on the channel. 

And since then, we have had so much change coming at us, it 

is almost like now I don’t even get upset about it. I just try to 

adapt to it. And I certainly want our business or our regulatory 

system to be able to do that same thing, adapt to current realities 

which are changing on a daily, if not moment-by-moment basis. 

I guess at some point in the future there will be like a watch 

that could plug in to. You can get the time. You can your news. 

You can get your content on that watch. And you can even take a 

phone call on it. And then you can—when you need to add something up, go to the calculator that is already there on your watch. 

And so the content being delivered in forms that—or in ways 

that we can only dream of now, but others are working on that 

stuff, and they are working not just in America, but they are working in China, they are working in India, because, right now, we 

don’t really share much international programming, but, you know, 

with all of the migration going on and the fact that we are living 

in a world of global economy and a global world, we can’t assume 

that content will remain limited to that which is produced in America. 

So, you know, I am looking toward the future without knowing 

how it will actually go in this industry, as well as other industries. 

And that is a cause for concern for some, and it is also a cause for 

curiosity from others. And those with the curiosity will be the ones 

to come up with new ways of doing things differently than we have 

done them in the past. 

And then as far as cost goes, I don’t know—even a haircut—I forget how much I used to pay for a haircut, but now, you know, I 

see haircuts being offered for $20 bucks. And, Mr. Zucker, I am 

sure you don’t have to really—— 

Mr. ZUCKER. I was not aware of the current prices of haircuts. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. JOHNSON. But I say all that to say that, you know, I am open 

to this vertical merger. I do associate myself with remarks that 

have been made and questions asked earlier about diversity, but 

even things like that, I see so much potential for change, I see dynamic—I see the dynamic nature of this business, and I see Black 

entrepreneurs offering African-American-based or-themed content, 

as well as non-African-American-themed content, and just competing on a level playing field. 

And that is why what Mr. Morial has stated is so important in 

terms of diversity in the ranks of companies from the boardroom 

129 

all the way down to where you started, Mr. Zucker, at NBC and 

below. But you had a very humble beginning. And so I believe in 

this country, and I believe that we can make a lot happen with just 

a little something, just like Mr. Roberts, your dad, Mr. Roberts, 

1963, Tupelo, Mississippi. 

I imagine—I don’t know anything about your dad, other than 

what he has accomplished, but I don’t know whether or not he was 

a lawyer or whether or not he was a businessman, whether or not 

he was a local broadcaster, or—but I imagine that down in Tupelo, 

Mississippi, in 1993, that, you know, I imagine him being on the 

town square with an office or just talking with some friends about 

the football game getting ready to come on, and it is on CBS, and 

we can’t catch it here. And we are going to drive to Memphis to 

pick it up for whatever. I don’t know what was happening. 

But on a hot summer afternoon in Memphis, with all of the sand 

twirling, and folks just knocking around, somebody came up with 

an idea and, boom, executed the idea, and now it has blown up into 

100,000-person or 100,000-employee company, that is a great 

American success story. And for America to compete in the future 

in this global environment, we are going to have to continue to 

produce the same humble people, small beginning, and they have 

the opportunity to do what has been done with Comcast, which is 

to turn it then over to the next generation for further expansion. 

And at some point, it would become too big, and it will start to 

just fall over due to its own weight. And then there will be some 

person who is there to pick up the pieces, some company that is 

there to pick up the pieces or to step over the carcass or the dying 

company, step over it and take over with a new operation, new attitude, new means of conveying the same kind of info and distributing it, maybe breaking that whole process up again. I don’t know 

what is going to happen in the future, but I do think there is a lot 

of things that can be left to future circumstances, especially in this 

particular industry. 

It is not subject to being—should not be subject to being overregulated so as to stunt the ingenuity and the innovation that we 

need in order to keep this country as the top of the pecking order 

from an economic standpoint. 

But I will ask this question, Mr. Roberts. Mr. Cohen has issued 

what I would consider to be a scathing indictment, and the allegations of the indictment are that Comcast has made promises in the 

past. The past promises including a 2002, I believe, negotiation 

with labor, insofar as whether or not labor would oppose or support 

a merger effort by Comcast. 

And during those negotiations, it is alleged in the indictment, 

Comcast made certain representations like it has done on its commitments. And one of those was that the unions then representing 

the acquisition target would be left in place. They would not be— 

they would be—status quo would be left insofar as that relationship and the new company. 

And I know that you were not at the helm of this great company 

at that time, but would you care to offer a response to the comments that were made by Mr. Cohen? Or would you prefer to take 

the Fifth Amendment so that you can talk to your lawyer before 

you respond to the question? 

130 

Mr. ROBERTS. Well, first of all, no Fifth Amendment. But I probably should consult with my lawyer. You can be my lawyer, because I thought to be—what you described as what makes America 

so great I could not imagine articulating any better. 

It is exactly how Comcast began. It is an idea to dream—to answer your question, my dad’s not a lawyer. He was an entrepreneur, is an entrepreneur, and has tried many different ventures, 

and one day was fortunate enough to get out of the belt business 

and to get into cable TV. And I would not be probably sitting here 

today if we were doing a belt deal, but rather in something as vibrant and as important as communications and entertainment. 

So I take my responsibilities very seriously, but I always say 

thank you to my father for the wisdom of seeing the greatest trend 

that could happen, and change and not being afraid of it, but rather embracing it. And I think that same spirit, as you look at where 

we are at today, he feels as bullish about this opportunity as I do. 

It is not without its risks. You are right. I hope everything until 

you got to the carcass and somebody stepping over us, but that is 

a very real risk for any company as they get larger. And we have 

got to keep the culture—and part of that culture is how you treat 

your employees. 

So I want to, first of all, just state for the record that we don’t 

believe and I don’t believe that there are any commitments that we 

have made that we have not kept at the time of that acquisition. 

But let’s look forward, not backwards. 

We are making commitments today. We made commitments in 

the Adelphia deal to invest in a bankrupt company, and those communities all have seen an upgrade since that time. 

We are making commitments in this deal that do involve labor 

commitments, and we are endeavoring to reach out to the principal 

areas where there is organized labor and to have a new beginning. 

And that is all I think you can do as you start out. 

It is nice to hear that NBC has enjoyed good relations, and we 

certainly want to do that which we can to maintain and improve 

on that. 

And, finally, I think the key to any enterprise is attracting those 

people who say, ‘‘This is where I want to work. If I am creative, 

if I am a technologist, and if I am not necessarily in the company, 

I want to start my own company, I want to work with this company, whether you are an independent company or a new kid in 

a garage inventing that next dream that you have talked about.’’ 

And for me to do my job really well is we have to foster an inclusive, open culture and to try to build on the things that my father 

started that I think I have helped continue that has put Comcast 

in a position to be before you today. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you. I have one last question. Mr. Roberts 

and Mr. Zucker, recently Americans have been glued to NBCU 

channels watching the Olympics in Vancouver. However, just this 

past July, Comcast and the United States Olympic Committee tried 

to launch a cable TV network devoted to the Olympics that would 

launch after these current Olympics. 

Now, I understand that that effort has been dropped in the face 

of objections from the International Olympic Committee. And I 

think they are planning on doing much the same thing. And it 

131 

seems to me that this was an area where Comcast and NBCU were 

going to directly compete. 

Can you explain to us why this example does not show that, absent this merger, Comcast and NBCU would be actively competing 

for programming? 

Mr. ROBERTS. Well, the example you cite is complicated, because 

this was the United States Olympic Committee’s initiative, and 

they came to seek carriage for a channel they wanted to start, and 

then they have since, as you have described, suspended that initiative. 

More broadly speaking, it is very competitive—anyone, whether 

it is that group or a content company, a producer, sporting event, 

there are multiple parties who get the opportunity to bid. That particular example, what NBC does today, is broadcast the Olympics. 

That particular channel was not going to broadcast the Olympics, 

but rather events from the sporting community sort of during the 

intervening 4 years, and to try to build up those sports locally and 

communities where there is not an opportunity traditionally to see 

those sports, because they are not necessarily popular except during the Olympics. 

So it actually wasn’t trying to supplant NBC’s broadcast of the 

Olympics, I don’t believe. That was never stated to us. It was actually going to be everything but the Olympics, but everything about 

the Olympic sports. 

But in general, my answer is, we don’t—events that NBC makes, 

shows that they make, like ‘‘The Office’’ or theme park rides or 

movies. Those are not things that Comcast does today. And so I 

think there is very little, if almost no overlap, and I think we have 

shown that in our statement and believe that. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. Zucker? 

Mr. ZUCKER. I would concur with what Mr. Roberts said. I mean, 

the idea of that channel that had been proposed was not competitive with what our broadcasts were. 

And I think that is similar to what Mr. Roberts said, is that I 

think one of the great things about this coming together is that we 

really are in different businesses. And so I think this is complementary, and that is why I think it is so beneficial. 

Mr. JOHNSON. All right. Well, I thank you all for your patience 

and for submitting to our questions. And mercifully, I will yield 

back, but not before letting the Chairman know that I really appreciate his—this is a complicated area. And it has profound ramifications. And so I appreciate the Chairman being able to see that and 

give us time to build on certain themes and ask certain questions 

in excess of the 5 minutes that we normally limit ourselves to. 

Thank you. 

Mr. CONYERS. Judge Louie Gohmert? 

Mr. GOHMERT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There have been so 

many nice things said that I will skip right through all of those 

and go right to my question. With the intellects I have got here in 

front of me on the witness panel, I need to address my question 

mainly to Mr. Roberts and Mr. Zucker. 

You know, believe it or not, I have a district in which I have got 

Democrats who are friends. And they like to see a channel not only 

where they can watch the Olympics, but where they can find someVerDate Aug 31 2005 12:53 Nov 10, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00135 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\WORK\FULL\022510\55068.000 HJUD1 PsN: DOUGA
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thing favorable being said about the majority in the House and 

Senate. And NBC helps fill that need. And so—— [Laughter.] 

So, anyway, you have a combination of NBC and Comcast. And 

in my northeast part of my district, you have got potential Comcast 

competition. And the other cable providers, you know, they would 

like to provide NBC to fill that need that is out there. 

So how is it that there doesn’t end up being some conflict when 

other cable providers want to compete with Comcast, and yet 

Comcast would be in a position to say, ‘‘We own NBC. You want 

and need NBC. We have got quite a bargaining position with the 

conflict we have.’’ How do you resolve that? 

Mr. ZUCKER. Yes, well, thank you for your comments, by the way. 

I think the answer to that is there are actually laws in place dating 

back to the 1992 act which would preclude Comcast from withholding NBC and our channels from their competitors and—— 

Mr. GOHMERT. Well, it could never be done overtly, but if a conflict is there, I mean, just like in Washington, you know, there are 

things people aren’t supposed to do here. And lo and behold, they 

have enough pressure and power and significant position that they 

can get things done that perhaps overtly they are not supposed to. 

So how do you deal with that? 

Mr. ROBERTS. You know, I guess there is any—you can always 

imagine scenarios of bad behavior. You are not going away. Government is not going away. That has not been our history. We have 

been in the content business for more than a decade. We have built 

a successful content company, albeit small. 

Other content and distributors have been in businesses together. 

News Corp. owned DirecTV. 

Mr. GOHMERT. I mean, this is not a new question. 

Mr. ROBERTS. It is not a new question. And history has shown 

that the market is so competitive that you can’t just artificially 

change the price and imagine that the whole market is going to follow behind. There are too many channels. There is too much visibility. There is too much contention. There are too many independent distributors and too many independent programmers that 

we wouldn’t be involved with. We are probably 10 percent to 12 

percent of the TV audience, so 90 percent, 80 percent—— 

Mr. GOHMERT. Yes, but you understand, when you get in a very 

rural area, there is just not much competition. And that is why, 

you know, the relationships are so important. 

Mr. ROBERTS. Well, when Congress in 1992 to help address that 

issue created the satellite industry, so that every home in America 

would have at least three choices for their content, with DirecTV 

and Dish, and then in many cases now the phone company, and in 

some cases an overbuild company, such as RCN, it is a very different marketplace. 

But even back then, it recognized that, okay, let’s—if you want 

to be in the distribution business and the content business, you 

have to agree to comply with this program access law, program carriage law. Back then, about 55 percent of the channels were owned 

by distributors. Today, that number is like 15 percent. 

And the trend, as has been pointed out during this hearing, is 

to go the other direction. So we are actually not doing this. The moVerDate Aug 31 2005 12:53 Nov 10, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00136 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\WORK\FULL\022510\55068.000 HJUD1 PsN: DOUGA
133 

tivation for this transaction is not to do that kind of behavior. That 

is not where we are going to win or lose. 

The motivation is, we think that with—now that there are more 

distributors and there are new technologies coming, if you can keep 

it licensed—one of the discussions has been piracy—then I think 

you are going to see creation of value in content here and around 

the world. 

We also think GE wanted to sell, had lost some motivation to invest and we also have an economy that we believe is hopefully past 

the bottom. So there are certain fundamental bets that we are 

making, and it is not universally agreed that those are the right 

judgments, but I hope they are, that we are going to see these businesses grow, the economy grow, and that we are going to have a 

new dimension to our company that we haven’t had the last 40 

years. 

Mr. GOHMERT. Giving an answer like that to a question that I 

ask tells me you really ought to be up here, anybody that can 

dance that effectively. But it sounds like, seriously, that what you 

are saying is, well, with the laws and, you know, with the competition, it sounds like it falls back on Committees in Congress that 

need to do a far better job of oversight than we did when Republicans were in the majority, to make sure that the—that the temptation to perhaps maneuver and use position doesn’t occur. 

But I can tell you, from having been a judge for a decade, the 

longer you are in a position where you can take advantage of the 

position, the more temptations arise. 

I never ruled—I never exacted a grudge against attorneys who 

had screwed me around before I became one, but the longer you are 

in that position, as Judge Poe had verified, the longer you are 

there, the more you see opportunities. You just even have to be 

more and more diligent not to give into temptation. 

And although I am dealing with people, I am sure we would be 

very ethical and use great propriety, the longer you are in a position that actually could be maneuvered and manipulated, somebody 

will come along and the temptation gets great. 

So that is my concern. Thank you for your patience in handling 

it and your adeptness in dancing around it. And I will look forward 

to—and, by the way, as I think you know, I mean, any time you 

have additional information, additional things you can point out, 

we welcome those, as I am not being facetious. 

We really want to make sure things stay fair, and that would 

apply to any competitor of yours trying to misuse a position. We 

want fairness, and that is what we ought to be about. 

And, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the time. 

Mr. CONYERS. Judge Charles Gonzalez? 

Mr. GONZALEZ. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

And I have to respond to my fellow Texan when he said oversight 

when the Republicans were in the majority. I would have hoped for 

that, and we have a lot of evidence that probably did not happen, 

but let’s not get partisan here. 

Let me start off by framing my questions with some background 

in the way that I look at this. This is a particular merger—— 

Mr. GOHMERT. Will the gentleman yield? Because I want to make 

sure you didn’t—I was actually being self-effacing by honestly sayVerDate Aug 31 2005 12:53 Nov 10, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00137 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\WORK\FULL\022510\55068.000 HJUD1 PsN: DOUGA
134 

ing I would hope we would have better oversight than we did when 

we were in the majority. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. Well, let me—I misunderstood you—— 

Mr. GOHMERT. Because that was my point. We didn’t do adequate oversight. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. I apologize, because I agree with you 100 percent. 

That is bipartisanship. 

Mr. GOHMERT. We didn’t—yes, we did not do adequate oversight, 

and so we are in agreement on that. Thank you. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. I have got to play that on YouTube. But two 

things. We have the merger, which is the instant case, and we go 

case by case, and it is important. But it is very limited to its circumstances. 

My concern—and you could say, look, that is not what we are 

here for today—but I do believe that the rest of the witnesses or 

most of the other witnesses are here for that, beyond the immediate proposition or merger. 

But I am looking at it systematically and how it could affect— 

and what it sets in motion if people attempt to maybe mimic these 

particular mergers on two different, and that is, I understand, in 

the instant case, we have to make very, very careful and be very 

vigilant that what might be a legitimate business opportunity is 

really not an unfair advantage or is anti-competitive. And we are 

going to deal with that. 

But going beyond that, when I talk about public policy, there are 

two areas—and I am going to direct my questions to Mr. Roberts 

and Mr. Zucker—the first one is going to be the use of the public 

airwaves for broadcasting, what we refer to as really true free TV, 

and some people may say, ‘‘Well, Charlie, that is noble of you, because you are thinking of what people can get free over the airwaves.’’ That is part of my motivation. 

The other is this. I really believe this. This Committee and the 

entire Congress, the entire Federal Government, the only say that 

we really have over what goes on out there as far as broadcasting 

on the quality of the broadcasting, on decency, on localism, in my 

view, is really tied to the use of the public airwaves. 

Once you take that or once you diminish it, you diminish the 

ability of Members of Congress to represent their constituents, the 

American public on what they may desire. Now, I understand that 

they express all sorts of choices and when they select to go with 

cable or what, whatever, but I think that is an important distinction. 

The other is broadband build-out, and what does it mean in this 

particular instance, and if we continue down the road that we are 

going? So the question to Mr. Roberts and the question to Mr. 

Zucker—and this is a hypothetical, but unlike Dr. Cooper, I think 

you are going to have to accept the hypothetical. And the reason 

for it is, either it is going to happen or it is not going to happen, 

and I am talking about the merger. 

So I am going to read you from today’s Post. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski said Wednesday that the agency will recommend to Congress that 500 megahertz of spectrum be freed up to meet the growing needs of mobile 

broadband users. 

135 

Much of the spectrum is expected to come from broadcast airwaves and would be auctioned for commercial use. But broadcasters that own these airwaves reacted with skepticism, saying 

they need the spectrum to develop new business models such as 

mobile digital television and to serve millions of customers who 

still get news and entertainment through free, over-the-air broadcasting. 

Genachowski said in a speech at the New American Foundation 

that the spectrum would be culled from broadcasters on a voluntary basis. Broadcasters would get a cut of the auction proceeds. 

So the question is this: Pre-merger, you remain as you are. It is 

the nature of your enterprise, everything that goes along with it, 

remains as it is. There is no merger. How do you view this? Are 

you ready to be culled and volunteered? 

And then post-merger, the merger does go through, I want to see 

how under both scenarios your decision, your interest is affected in 

any way. 

So, Mr. Roberts, without the merger, do you really care about 

this? 

Mr. ROBERTS. Without the merger, we don’t own any of that 

spectrum, so I don’t have a position, or it is not our spectrum to 

speak for. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. All right. Mr. Zucker? 

Mr. ZUCKER. We, obviously, respect the goal of further broadband 

deployment in this country, so I would say that we are in agreement with that. We also believe that the spectrum that we currently have is important, and we think that the goal of the FCC 

to get that further broadband deployment—we shouldn’t be looking 

to the broadcast spectrum at this point in order to facilitate that. 

You know, there is still a considerable portion of this country 

that relies upon that spectrum to receive the over-the-air broadcasts, and so I think that we respect both goals, we respect the 

goals of the FCC in the broadband deployment, but we don’t know 

that the broadcast spectrum is the way to get there. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. Okay, post-merger, you are now merged. Mr. Roberts, do you have an opinion on what the chairman of the FCC’s 

proposing? 

Mr. ROBERTS. You know, I haven’t seen today’s story, I have to 

say, so, if I might, I think that I am not sure what the merger 

would do. I think the goal—and we are working with the FCC right 

now ourselves on his ‘‘100 Squared’’ initiative, how to get—— 

Mr. GONZALEZ. But would you now have a dog in that fight? 

Mr. ROBERTS. Yes. So I think we would say that we would like 

to be treated as all the other broadcasters, whatever that resolution is. We would love to be a participant in that conversation. 

We are very much in broadband today. We helped create 

broadband in the United States through something called DOCSIS 

cable modems. And it is a great business opportunity, in my opinion, to speed up for the consumer broadband adoption. And it is 

why we spent $1 billion on the next DOCSIS, called DOCSIS 3.0. 

So I don’t specifically—not a wireless expert on broadcast wireless. I don’t know if there is other spectrum that would be available 

to be auctioned first. But I think that is a place where we have got 

to get smarter and got to have a point of view when a deal does 

136 

close—hopefully if it closes—and we would like to participate in, 

whether it is an association of broadcasters or however best that 

communication takes place. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. Now, Mr. Zucker, post merger—and I am just assuming that this is your—— 

Mr. ZUCKER. Yes, I think our opinion from our perspective—you 

know, that is the position that we have held. But I think you have 

to remember that all broadcast spectrum amounts to less than 200 

megahertz. And you can’t get to the 500 megahertz that is needed 

even if you killed broadcasting, which we don’t think you should 

do. 

So we support the overall concept. I think this is just a question 

of how you get there. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. Is that interest diminished whatsoever by the 

fact you are now merged, which someone that is more into cable 

and providing the Internet—and I understand about the different 

platforms and trying to get what—you know, on your telephone via 

Internet and so on. 

But what I am talking about is, because of the merger, you guys 

are going to be facing Sophie choices every once in a while? And 

I am just wondering, what will be the impact on over-the-air broadcasting, which I have said is the only nexus for our involvement, 

and secondly, building out broadband? 

Mr. ROBERTS. So I think that the merger is actually not the relevant trigger to get this conversation—this is a very relevant conversation with or without the merger. As you have pointed out, 

there are two scenarios. 

And that is because what is happening in wireless is nothing 

short of a revolution and an explosion of choices. And, you know, 

there are two predominant large companies that, whether you buy 

an iPhone or you get other mobile broadband that are not named 

Comcast, we are not today a wireless voice provider, and we are 

an investor in a company called Clearwire, trying to build a new 

fourth-generation wireless network. 

So we very much are hoping that there are going to be more and 

more wireless choices in the future, because it is a great part of 

what our consumers want to do, take the products out of their 

home and travel with them here and around the world, and multiple users, and they all want to do different things at the same 

time. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. And now are you going to have content interests, 

also? 

Mr. ROBERTS. So one of our goals is to help, how can we accelerate that vision? Because that is what consumers want. I don’t 

think we have that type of choice. We are spending as fast as we 

can build broadband capacity. We have got more wideband offered 

in residential homes in America than all the phone companies combined and, I believe, all the other cable companies, something 

called DOCSIS 3.0, which is over 50 megabits per second. The capability to do that, that is a forward-looking bet. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. No, and I understand what you do. We started 

off by saying voice-over-Internet protocol and all that and what you 

can do. I mean, I understand that. But what I am just saying is 

137 

that you are not going to be the same. You are going to have other 

considerations. 

And somewhere along the way, you have to make decisions that 

obviously you wouldn’t have made if you didn’t have the interest 

that you are going to be acquiring as a result of the NBC Universal 

assets. 

And I am just wondering what that really has in store for us 

down the road when it does come out to build out. And I am talking about broadband build-out. I am not just talking about fiber 

optic and such and what goes into—I am talking about broadband 

all the way, the wireless and so on. 

When it comes to content, do you have such an advantage? What 

happens to the interest of NBC at some point? You know, what— 

if they diminish the importance of their broadcaster character—and 

I think that is incredible important, because it is so different from 

what you have in the way of cable, and I know NBC has cable and 

so on programming. 

The last question I have is simply going to be on competition. 

Now we are going to come back to the specific issue before us. How 

would this merged entity have any advantages as to other providers that may not have the access to the content that you are 

going to have, Mr. Roberts? 

Mr. ROBERTS. As I stated previously, we have today a carriage 

relationship with NBC and its channels, and six out of every seven 

channels that we carry are not owned by NBC. And I don’t believe 

that our relationship with NBC is any different than the other 

major companies, based on the other distributors they have in the 

market or the other content companies who they compete with. 

So I actually think we are going into relatively a new space with, 

as you have pointed out, new opportunities and new dilemmas. And 

we are excited by that. We think that we can use that new business to change the nature, the types of people that work at the 

company to accelerate our growth, but I don’t think it really 

changes the competitive dynamic for us, because we are about 10 

percent of the programming market, and the other 90 percent, they 

have to put out great shows and they have to be on our competitors’ platforms, or their 10 percent is going to go down. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. And so whatever your advantage that is gained 

from this, it doesn’t rise to the level of what would be an unfair 

advantage or anti-competitive? 

Mr. ROBERTS. That is correct. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. I mean, that is what you are telling me? 

Mr. ROBERTS. That is correct. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. Mr. Zucker, anything you want to add? 

Mr. ZUCKER. No, I would add—the only thing I would add is that 

it is in our interest to make sure that our programs are as widely 

distributed and seen by as many people as possible. So that is the 

way that we will recoup the tremendous investment that we make 

in entertainment, news and sports. And so from our perspective, we 

want to make sure that our programs are as widely distributed as 

possible. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. And I want to thank the witnesses. And I know 

I have gone long, and I apologize to my colleagues here real quick, 

138 

but I do want to give Dr. Cooper a few seconds, if you want to comment on any of the responses to the questions. 

Mr. COOPER. Well, the most interesting thing in—I am not sure 

it was this question or the previous question, but earlier in the testimony, Mr. Roberts said that the Xbox competes with Comcast. He 

then said that Comcast regional sports network does not compete 

with NBC Sports. 

That doesn’t make any sense. These two people sell products that 

compete with each other. And that is a fundamental observation. 

It seems to me that you also said that the nexus for this Committee is spectrum. Actually, if this were the Commerce Committee, that would be the nexus. But in this Committee, it is the 

Sherman Act and the Clayton Act. 

And the analysis that you have to do is look at the products and 

see if they compete. The most recent study from Nielsen says that 

98 percent of the TV viewed in America is viewed over the traditional delivery mechanism, cable, satellite and broadcast. 

So this notion that the Internet had radically changed the marketplace is simply wrong. Now, it could, and that is why NBC invested in Hulu. And it is that competitive threat that going forward we really have to preserve. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. Thank you very much. 

I yield back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. CONYERS. Judge Ted Poe? 

Mr. POE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I feel like the Lone Ranger 

down here. You know, it seems like it has all been said, but not 

everybody has said it, so it is my turn. 

And I wish Judge Gohmert was here, because he kept saying, as 

my friend, Judge Poe, knows about being on the bench too long, 

you could be influenced, so I served 22 years on the bench, twice 

as long as Mr. Gohmert, so I think he was offending me when he 

made that comment. 

I am a big believer in television. I mean, I am so old, I remember 

our first black-and-white TV. My kids don’t even understand that 

there was such a critter. They don’t. 

And, you know, but I don’t watch TV much. If it is not on the 

History Channel or the Discovery Channel or American Movie 

Classics, I am probably not watching it. 

But as a judge, I was the first judge in Texas criminal courts to 

allow an entire criminal trial to be televised on live TV, introduced 

legislation to let the nine Supremes down there have their Supreme Court open to the public so we can see what they are doing. 

We will see if that ever gets anyplace, Mr. Chairman, within this 

Committee. 

But I am a believer in competition. Competition makes for better 

products, and the consumer generally wins on competition. That is 

my philosophy, across the board, sort of a free-market guy. 

And when you don’t see competition, you see problems. And there 

are a lot of anecdotal issues that we could talk about. But to just 

give you one—and not picking on Comcast, but just give you: 

Comcast is the only folks in town in part of my district. If you want 

to watch television, you are on Comcast, or you have to have rabbit 

ears. 

139 

And tomorrow, one of my constituents will have in the last 18 

months the 77th visit by Comcast to come out and try to fix the 

cable problem. They can’t get satellite, because they are on the 

wrong side of the—you know, of the sun. And they work from their 

home. And so they have got to have Internet, and they have got 

to have TV service, and that is the only way they can get it. So 

Comcast has no competitor with this constituent. 

Anyway, so I believe that we ought to promote this, the competition. And I am concerned—I hadn’t made up my mind on this legislation. I am still open-minded about it. But the concept of being 

able to deliver the service and have the content of the service controlled by the same folks concerns me a great deal. 

So my question to you—and this is my only question, Mr. Chairman—to each of you, including the three silent ones for the last 

hour, do you believe that this deal will promote competition where 

the consumer will eventually win out? 

Mr. Roberts? 

Mr. ROBERTS. I appreciate that, and I am sorry about that customer. And if I might, I would like to see why there have been so 

many visits. That is not how we like to do business. 

Mr. POE. Well, they have been out there that many times—— 

Mr. ROBERTS. Well, that may be true, but that is not acceptable. 

I believe this is pro-competitive, because we are going to innovate 

as a company, we are going to make better programming for NBC 

and Universal. We are going to try to accelerate how it is used by 

technology. 

The consumer’s time—what I am referring to and what is being 

competed with from the Internet and from Xbox and from iPhones 

and from television. And as you pointed out, not everybody watches 

TV like they have in the past, and the world is changing at a 

breathtaking speed. 

So we are at a crossroads in time. And our company is wanting 

to invest in advertisers, having more ways to reach their message 

than ever before. Again, it has been said, oh, this will reduce the 

way for advertisers. I don’t believe that. I believe you have a company, one of the great brands and assets in America in history of 

television, NBC, and it is now in fourth place, and it is not what 

it once was. 

So it is not a risk-free decision on our part to want to come in 

and try to make it much greater, invest in it, and I think that that 

is all about competition, because they have more competitors than 

they have ever had as the technology has changed, and I think that 

there are more technologies coming that we can’t envision. As Jeff 

has said, in the next 5, 10 years, there will be more change again. 

And I think this is building America and sold all over the world, 

and we are looking forward to trying to transform our company 

with that kind of innovation. 

Mr. ZUCKER. I believe it is a fiercely competitive world, and this 

doesn’t change that at all. The fact is, with this combination of assets, we will still reach less than 11 percent of all television viewing on a daily basis, so vibrant competition is really the hallmark 

of what we do in our business. 

On the Internet, where there is so much attention, programming 

on the Internet is even more competitive. The fact is, today, NBC 

140 

Universal has 1.6 percent of all viewing on the Internet. With this, 

we would move to 2.2 percent. 

So no one, in fact, has more than 5 percent, other than Google. 

So I think that the competitive dynamic remains fiercely alive even 

with this. 

Ms. PREWITT. I think we believe that this merger creates and bolsters the power of two gatekeepers who determine what content 

will actually flow through the major pipelines that come to the consumer’s home. We think that conditions that protect competition 

both at the NBC level and at the Comcast level can make that 

problem come right. 

And if the merger is properly conditioned, we would hope to 

share in their vision of a vibrant distribution infrastructure within 

the United States. But without those conditions, what we see is a 

vision in which no one else can be a part, except these two companies. Thank you. 

Mr. COOPER. In my testimony, I identified three areas where it 

directly reduces horizontal or head-to-head competition, local TV 

markets, multi-channel video content market, and the Internet, 

where they both distribute content. 

I also identified two areas where vertical leverage can be used 

to undermine horizontal competition. That is in program access 

and cable carriage. And they identify a sixth factor, which is the 

illegal tie and the market division scheme between cable and Internet. For those reasons, I believe it will significantly reduce competition. 

Mr. POE. Thank you, Dr. Cooper. 

Mr. COHEN. Yes, I would echo that. My frame here was, most 

consumers are also workers. And the consequences about employment both internally and the combined companies, huge employers, 

and also externally, in terms of the competition and investment. 

And we believe that as it is structured now, it would impede investment and investment particularly in high-speed connections, 

fiber connections to the house, like in your district, at least the 

parts of it that are rural. It won’t encourage that competition because of what we earlier discussed, bulk pricing that is bundled up 

when a potential competitor decides, do we invest or not? 

I would agree with Mr. Roberts that their own investment in 

DOCSIS 3.0 is a positive and that we all need to encourage investment in high-speed connections to houses across this country, and 

we need to look at the impact of these kinds of decisions not only 

on competition, which is at the core here, but also in terms of investment and jobs and where the U.S. is in the global economy. 

And it is in that realm that we believe that this bundling vertical 

integration of content and the pipe or the network will impede that 

investment and that that investment by others is already slowing 

dramatically. 

Mr. SCHWARTZMAN. In my written testimony, I explained why I 

believe existing law is insufficient to address the anti-competitive 

consequences of this transaction with respect to availability in the 

video programming market and how it increases costs to competing 

satellite and cable providers, increases their programming costs in 

an anti-competitive way. 

141 

But I would like to focus my remarks here on what has not been 

to my mind sufficiently discussed during the course of today’s hearing, and that is the impact on the nascent Internet distribution 

markets, TV Everywhere model, which Comcast employs. 

The entrepreneurs that Mr. Johnson was asking about, the wireless providers that Mr. Gonzalez was asking about, new forms of 

competition, new programmers who want to reach their customers 

by the Internet face barriers by having a system advanced by 

Comcast that locks in the existing video subscription model and 

would make it impossible for somebody using the Clearwire system 

that Mr. Roberts talked about to deliver video programming unless 

they were also a video subscriber to Comcast. 

It is a geographic tie-in, because Comcast will not offer its TV 

service outside of Comcast’s franchised cable television areas, even 

though from a technological standpoint, it can offer it throughout 

the United States. And it is a profoundly anti-democratic model, 

which would allow Comcast in the absence of network neutrality 

regulation to take the entrepreneurs that Mr. Johnson was asking 

about and charge them more for Internet access to upload than a 

large competitor or the NBC content which was competing with 

this new entrepreneur. 

So for all these reasons, I believe that the proposed transaction 

is profoundly anti-competitive, will leverage existing anti-competitive conditions in cable to a far greater extent. Thank you. 

Mr. POE. Thank you, all of you, for being here so long. 

Thank you for your patience, Mr. Chairman. I yield back the remainder of my time. 

Mr. CONYERS. I am very pleased now to call our last witness, 

who has been very constant with this Committee on a number of 

subjects, Luis Gutierrez of Illinois. 

Mr. GUTIERREZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Well, you have had a long day here, so I will try to keep it brief. 

I want to say, first of all, that I had a wonderful meeting yesterday, Mr. Zucker, with Paula Madison and other people from your 

group, your attorney and others, your general counsel. I think it 

was a very productive meeting, and so I thank them. I know some 

of them are here. It was a productive meeting, and we got a lot of 

things discussed there. 

I want to say that I did fly out with my wife out on the 1st of 

February to be at the L.A. Federation of Labor. And I had to tell 

you, Mr. Cohen, you inspired me that day. Thank you so much for 

your commitment to the rights of working men and women. 

I was there for your entire presentation and those of your—obviously, of your membership. And I will tell you, I came back and 

told them, ‘‘Let’s get that card check,’’ which is, I think, the best 

and most viable way we can help you as companies such as NBC 

and GE and others merge or continue to grow and expand in America. 

And I say that because, although I heard Mr. Roberts say he is 

going to keep the spirit of the union contracts and union spirit at 

NBC, when NBC bought Telemundo, the on-air personnel were not 

allowed immediately to gain the same access to the same union 

that the NBC staff did. 

142 

And it was a long wait and a long struggle, I have to say, but 

we had to discuss with them, especially the contracts of many of 

the on-air, because they were brought in from different countries, 

and so they had immigration issues. They didn’t use any of those 

issues, but we have to make sure they didn’t. 

And in the end, the workers voted by one vote. But I just never 

knew, since there were 21 people employed and 21 had signed saying they wanted a union—I didn’t know what we needed an election for. But even after the election, we won, and it just shows the 

spirit. 

So I want to thank you. Keep up—and I know we have our work 

to do here in the Congress of the United States. 

I want to say to Mr. Roberts and Mr. Zucker, so I have two 

daughters. I have Mita. She is 30, grandson, Lucito. And I have 

Jessica, who is a senior in college, graduating this year. I imagine 

you guys, if you don’t have daughters, you have wives, you have 

mothers, you have sisters. 

And so I bring this issue up to you because—and I discussed this 

yesterday with the folks from NBC, and I want to bring it up again 

to both of you. And that is the treatment of women particularly on 

Telemundo, what could only be described as one of the most misogynist portrayals of women that is on TV. 

I do not believe that you would allow on NBC or any program 

created by Comcast to have the same depiction of women on NBC 

as you do on Telemundo, whether it is in your regular broadcasting 

or on your news cycle. 

There is a great and huge problem in the Latino community, one 

of which is the relationship between men and women. We can say 

it is an ageless problem. But it is a particular problem of violence 

which exists in our community. 

And part of it is the correlation of power between men and 

women and how men and women are viewed and looked at. I remember, as I grew up, watching ‘‘Leave it to Beaver,’’ ‘‘Father 

Knows Best.’’ I wanted my father to be like them. Although I had 

a great dad, unfortunately, that is what TV taught me, right? 

You know, I didn’t like my coarse hair. You know, I wanted to 

be like them, because that is what TV taught me. It taught me that 

what I looked like and what I represented and what I was wasn’t 

of great value. It wasn’t portrayed on TV as anything of value. I 

never saw it. So I wanted to be, in spite of all of the things about 

immigrants and not wanting to be American, I wanted to be nothing more than American. And TV taught me I wasn’t. 

So I want to go back to the issue of women. And I just want to 

say to you, take a moment—Mr. Zucker and Mr. Roberts—take a 

moment. You are going to buy NBC. You should know about 

Telemundo. You should know. And I am particular—and let me tell 

you, there are a lot of great people on the newscasts there that do 

a lot of great work. 

But I am going to tell you something: Something has to be done 

fundamentally about the program specifically as it relates to 

women. It does not help a community advance forward when one 

of their major avenues of information is viewed. 

And don’t only look at it. Look at the newscasts and compare the 

newscasts on MSNBC, the newscasts on NBC, portray how women 

143 

are dressed, how they are viewed, the desks they sit behind. Just 

portray them in their complete context and then see how they are 

seen on NBC. 

There would be outrage in this country if you were to take the 

same and portray it on—it just wouldn’t happen in this country. I 

don’t believe it would, not on all the news, not on all the news, but 

on some of it. 

And there is enough of it to say—I just came back. There was 

a study. I just came back from spending some time with my mom 

in Puerto Rico, and I just got back last week, and there was a 

study that was issued. Even in Puerto Rico, 10th country in the 

world of men killing women, of husbands killing wives, 10th country in the world, 4 million people. 

Now, that is nothing to be proud of. We are 10th in the whole 

world? I am not trying to say TV is the only thing, but, you know, 

it is part of the vicious cycle that we have, and it is a powerful 

component for changing how people view the world. 

I came back on that airplane, coming back, and I watched the 

program not on NBC, and it was amazing. Here was this senator 

running for President whose brother was gay, and he was engaging 

his fiancee whose brother was gay, and they were returning to the 

veteran that came back from Iraq, right? And how these two gay 

men were portrayed in that series I think does a lot for ending bigotry and hatefulness in how people view one another. And I think 

TV and how people are portrayed is very, very powerful. 

I don’t think that you would—that it would be allowable if you 

were to take women and substitute them for Black people, substitute them for Jews, substitute them for any other group, that it 

would be acceptable for Telemundo to do that. 

And secondly, look at how it is you look at the gay community 

on your Spanish-language network, both in terms of the jokes, in 

terms of the nuances, things that, I tell you, you know, I don’t believe would be acceptable in a broader range, because I think I 

know where America is going and where the programming is going, 

in terms of this country. 

So I would ask both of you to just speak to that issue a moment 

and to—look, just to say, yes, Luis, tell you what, I am going to 

take a look at it, as a dad, as a father, as a son, I am going to take 

a look at it and, as a human being and as a man with power, to 

kind of change that equation. I guess that is what I would like both 

of you to speak to. 

Mr. ZUCKER. So, Congressman, Paula Madison, Rick Cotton filled 

me on your conversation yesterday, and they were grateful to hear 

from you on that, and I would echo the same today, which is that 

I appreciate your comments. We are very proud of Telemundo, but 

I will give you my word here today that I will go back to the executive team at Telemundo, which includes some very prominent 

women in that executive team, and I will discuss it with the executive team to make sure that your comments are passed along. 

Mr. GUTIERREZ. Yes, and take the powerful women at NBC and 

let them help the powerful women at Telemundo get together and 

have that kind of power, you know, that they already have within 

the corporate structure and convey that to them, if you will. 

Mr. Roberts? 

144 

Mr. ROBERTS. I am pleased to hear what he just said. I will do 

the same. I will go back, as you suggested, and watch—— 

Mr. GUTIERREZ. Watch it. 

Mr. ROBERTS. Yes. 

Mr. GUTIERREZ. Watch it. But watch—tell them to put together— 

and you will see what I mean, and you will say, ‘‘Maybe Luis has 

something here.’’ And if you watch it day in and day out, you are 

really, really going to have a sense. 

Let me go to Mr. Roberts. So you have about 100,000 employees. 

And I understand about 8 percent of them are Latino, is that correct? That is the information that I have been given. 

Mr. ROBERTS. I don’t have that stat—okay. 

Mr. GUTIERREZ. And it is from your folks. So Latinos constitute 

about 15 to 16 and ever growing part of the population. So why is 

there such a disconnect between the number of Latinos employed 

at Comcast, a company which much to—we have heard from our 

friends from Texas from the rural area, it is the only cable company—and one which I have sent lots of checks to over the year, 

I assure you, to Comcast, you can go check, always on time. You 

know, direct payment makes for a good payment, because my 

bank—they are very good at sending you the money on the appropriate date you demand it. 

So as a customer and somebody who has a many, many year relationship with Comcast, why not? Why not? We have got a large 

urban city like Chicago, L.A. It is easy, and they are easy to find. 

And if you can’t find them, I will tell you something. You call together your public relations folk, go to any one of those schools, 

they are going to show up for jobs at Comcast. 

So why such a disconnect between—and I assure you that if you 

were to take their proportion—I am using general population. That 

is 16 percent of the general population. If I were to take the kinds 

of jobs that exist at Comcast—that is, the people that drive the 

cars and the—you will see we are even higher participation rate. 

And that spectrum or that portion of the job of the economy, we 

are even greater in that area. So why such a disconnect? 

Mr. ROBERTS. First of all, let me go back and look at that specific 

number. I am not familiar that—I hope that is the right number. 

And if it is not, I will write to you or come visit. 

Mr. GUTIERREZ. Well, come visit, but I would like to talk to you 

about it, because, you know, Comcast has a huge presence in Chicago. Through the agreement it has through the city of Chicago, it 

is my cable company. I don’t have a choice. They made an agreement with the city of Chicago. And if I live where I live, Comcast 

is my provider. 

Mr. ROBERTS. We have been making a lot—I agree. There is no 

disagreement. I mean, we want our employees and our channels to 

represent our customers, and that is great business. I am pleased— 

I don’t know if you were here earlier when I said that—— 

Mr. GUTIERREZ. I was. 

Mr. ROBERTS [continuing]. Top 60 companies Hispanics, you 

know, for 4 years—5 years in a row by Hispanic Business magazine, we have been recognized. We have our Web site in Spanish. 

We have all sorts of more programming. As we are going from anaVerDate Aug 31 2005 12:53 Nov 10, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00148 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\WORK\FULL\022510\55068.000 HJUD1 PsN: DOUGA
145 

log to digital, a lot of our initiative, are to both English-speaking 

and Spanish-speaking programming and to broaden—— 

Mr. GUTIERREZ. And, Mr. Roberts, you have great people in Chicago. I mean, there is a—you have a Latino population of workers 

there that are wonderful. I call upon them all the time. Wonderful 

workers, they show up early, they stay late. They would be a credit 

to the company. 

Mr. ROBERTS [continuing]. Accelerate that. 

Mr. GUTIERREZ. It is just you hire insufficient numbers of them 

in relationship to our purchasing power. I mean, I am not asking 

you to give us something for nothing. I don’t know how many 

Latinos purchase Comcast, right, how many of your viewers, but I 

would—I believe, understanding a little bit of my community and 

having grown up and never, you know, gone to college, and I didn’t 

move from the neighborhood, I stayed in the same neighborhood, 

right, having that connection and that nexus to that community a 

lot. 

Because I will tell you something, I can’t figure out a person in 

my neighborhood that I visit that doesn’t have a Comcast box. So 

I can only assume and extrapolate from that that you are doing 

very, very, very well in the Latino community. 

So all I am saying is, yes, look at the numbers. If you find that 

they are correct and that they are insufficient, then tell me, because I know there is going to be a grand meeting, right, for everybody to get together and kind of say, you know, how are we going 

to all get along and sing, you know, ‘‘Kumbaya’’ together. 

But, listen, seriously, 8 percent, 16 percent. It is only half. It is 

even greater if you look at that particular sector of the labor force. 

You are going to find it is very disproportionate. There should be 

a reason why it is happening, and then it terms of other numbers. 

And I will say one other thing. I know what, you know, Hispanic 

magazine and others, and the Chamber of Commerce and others, 

have to say about you. I am sure they are right, and I am sure they 

had good reason for extolling those virtues of Comcast. But you 

have 13 members of your board of directors. You couldn’t find one 

Gonzalez, Rodriguez, Martinez, of any competence, of any significance to be on the board of directors of Comcast in the year 2010? 

Why not? Why isn’t there one? 

Mr. ROBERTS. There is not a good answer to that. And as I said 

earlier, it is a major priority for our board, and I hope not to be 

before you again where we don’t have an answer to that. 

Mr. GUTIERREZ. And it shouldn’t be. And, look—and it is not only 

just finding somebody, because you will find somebody, but finding 

somebody who is going to go and challenge, who is going to go and 

challenge and make sure that you become a stronger, more vibrant 

company. 

It is my opinion that in America, the companies that are going 

to move forward, that are going to advance, that are going to prosper are those that have a connection to the communities that they 

serve. And the connection to the communities that they serve are 

going to come through the people on the front lines that speak to 

that community. 

You will not know how angry it makes people feel that when 

they call somebody on the phone and they go, you know, for 

146 

English press one, and then they go, ‘‘Para espanol, oprima el dos.’’ 

I mean, it sounds like my Spanish teacher, you know, from freshman year. 

You know, we want our people speaking our language to our people, not others doing that, because what you are saying is that you 

couldn’t find anyone from our community, but someone who went 

to college and was smart enough to take Spanish as a second language and put them on. 

That is going to be very critical and very important, I think, to 

your success. So if I were given—which is what I am doing—given 

you—hire them. It is going to be good for the bottom line. In the 

end, you are going to be richer and make more money and be more 

profitable because they are going to bring you ideas and they are 

going to bring you energy that you do not receive because of our 

life experience. 

It is going to happen. So don’t have it, and don’t do like—let me 

see. I will give you an example. Don’t do like my friends at Verizon. 

They put a Latino on their board from Puerto Rico, and Verizon 

shut down its operation in Puerto Rico. I was like, how could this 

be? So it is not the fact of simply having one, but having one that 

is going—that has a stake, that has an interest to carry forward. 

Thank you all very much. I know you have had a long day here. 

Thank you so much for listening. 

Mr. ROBERTS. Thank you. 

Mr. CONYERS. Our last witness, Judy Chu. 

Ms. CHU. Congratulations on your stamina. Well, I did want to 

take this time to ask about a few issues. One is on the retransmission issue. 

We are seeing an increasing number of instances in which retransmission, consent negotiations are breaking down, leaving consumers at risk of losing access to broadcast television service. Even 

when these negotiations are resolved without an actual disruption 

of service, the uncertainty is certainly disruptive to consumers, in 

terms of what finally happens. 

For instance, when FOX threatened to pull their premium content during the holidays, people, of course, would have missed the 

Super Bowl. And as a result, there would not have been that content to certain cable providers. 

With your merger, you would be at an advantage over other providers in terms of being able to negotiate and to not have this disruption in service. In your view, is there a need to adopt reforms 

to the transmission consent process established by Congress in 

order to protect consumers? 

Mr. ROBERTS. I think the first point that you made, where FOX 

and Time Warner, was very high-profile, and some of the points 

you have made, we have traditionally also made, which is, this is 

very compelling content, like the Super Bowl, and is this the right 

process? 

I think any review of that should be across the entire industry, 

because no matter what happens with this situation, there are several other networks at 80 percent, 90 percent of the viewing, 75 

percent of the distributors. There is going to be this conversation 

of retransmission consent. This has been a longstanding set of 

changes in the marketplace. 

147 

What I believe is that by now, we will still be 80 percent a cable 

company in terms of cash flow after this transaction, approximately 

20 percent a content company. I think it allows us to have a role, 

to help come up with constructive solutions of how—for the industry, how should this get resolved in the future? 

There is no easy answer. I think it would have been before you 

or would have happened at the FCC already. And I think it is an 

ongoing conversation. 

At some level, the cable companies now view us as a broadcaster. 

The broadcasters view us as a cable company. So in some respects, 

those conversations still have to take place without us, but we may 

have an opportunity to play a unique role. 

One of the things to your other—I believe inside your question 

is specifically with NBC, will we treat others in a way that would 

create some harm potentially? So one of the first conditions we 

made after saying we continue to want to broadcast and will commit to broadcast NBC free over the airwaves is to have the program access rules, which heretofore have not applied to retransmission consent negotiations, apply to retransmission consent negotiations. 

So another distributor like DirecTV knows they are going to have 

the same access to NBC that they do to CNBC in the future with 

the FCC having a role, if there is a problem there. 

But I think, more importantly, frankly, is, what about all the 

other negotiations in the industry? And it may well be something 

that you are hearing more and more about because the stakes are 

so large. 

Ms. CHU. Okay. Then I wanted to follow up on some of the questions that were about piracy. I do represent a district in L.A. County, and I have spent a lot of time talking to folks in my district and 

in Los Angeles to folks in Los Angeles during the recent congressional district about this issue. 

And I learned that, in 2005, piracy costs the city of Los Angeles 

about 106,000 jobs, with wages of $5.1 billion, so this is an extremely serious issue. 

So I wanted to ask about the balance, about the balance between 

making sure that there is the protection of intellectual property 

rights, which we certainly hope that you can do, but also, balancing 

that with net neutrality and the open Internet. How do you balance 

the two? 

Mr. ROBERTS. Well, I think that we—again, it is a little bit like 

retransmission. These are tough issues. Earlier, we were talking 

about how fast the technology is changing, both for the pirates and 

for the capabilities for the consumer to take advantage of these 

technology changes in a legal way. 

And one of the real opportunities for this new company is to play 

a leadership role in trying to crack down on the piracy to keep the 

model legitimate, because so many parts of the ecosystem depend 

on that, and the statistics you have cited just for California are 

stunning. And over the world, it magnifies many, many times. 

So heretofore, we have been looking at it as solely a distributor, 

and now we have made a large investment in content, so it accelerates our desire to find good technological solutions. 

148 

One of the other points is that people try not to use this as a 

competitive advantage, where some networks you can get pirated 

content, and other networks are policing and enforcing in a way 

that reduces that likelihood and that you are criticized for that behavior. 

So industry-wide solutions are, in my opinion—again, this merger does nothing but to help foster our desire to try to help play a 

role in those industry-wide solutions. 

Ms. CHU. And how about the issue of maintaining net neutrality? 

Mr. ROBERTS. Well, you know, net neutrality means different 

things to different people. We have always been for an open Internet and a free Internet. We helped invent broadband in this country with cable modems and DOCSIS. And we have invested billions 

of dollars. And as I said, we are now moving on to DOCSIS 3.0 and 

even faster Internet. 

There has been very few allegations—it is a very vocal community. When somebody does something that somebody’s upset about, 

it gets a lot of attention very quickly and tends to change behavior 

quickly. And the FCC, again, industry-wide—I don’t think this 

merger, frankly, affects Comcast’s behavior as a cable company, as 

it affects its broadband. NBC doesn’t deliver ISP services. 

So the question is, as the FCC reviews net neutrality, we are an 

active participant. It is a very open and fair process, very transparent that Chairman Genachowski has been having. And, you 

know, we are involved. We may have a difference of opinions as to 

what the definition, where it should start and stop. 

But, frankly, it is critical to our future to have broadband continue to grow and be successful, and consumers have to feel comfortable both with their provider and with their access to information from the Internet. And I think, so far, it is the engine of a lot 

of growth, and I hope it will be so in the future. 

Ms. CHU. Okay. And then, finally, there has been some reference 

to Hulu. I just wanted to know, what is your relationship with 

Hulu? And do you see them as a competitor? Do you share content 

with them? And how do you see that relationship changing with 

the merger? 

Mr. ROBERTS. NBC Universal owns 32 percent non-controlling interest in Hulu. There are other companies, FOX, Disney, Providence Equity that own the balance, I guess, in addition to management. 

I don’t view us competing with Hulu. They are an ad-supported 

service today. There is so much explosionit is such a nascent market. There is a lot of experimentation, innovation happening on 

video with the ’net. What is the business of Hulu and others who 

provide it? Comcast today, about 40 percent of our video views of 

professional content come from Hulu, so we are distributing. People 

can access Hulu through our portal. 

We are about 3 percent of Hulu’s views, so we are a very small 

part of Hulu’s eco-world. And together, NBC and Comcast are 

about 2.5 percent of professional video content. 

Google, YouTube, over 50 percent of the 30 billion video views, 

Apple, Netflix, it is a nascent market. And many people are trying 

to figure out how to participate, how to grow, how to find things 

that consumers want and a great business model. 

149 

So personally, it is an exciting new area. We don’t come in with 

any agenda other than to help try to make it grow. And, you know, 

something we will learn about once we are together, but I have 

never actually met the people at Hulu. I have talked to them on 

the telephone, but looking forward to learning about their business. 

Ms. CHU. Okay, thank you. 

Mr. CONYERS. This has been a very important hearing. We will 

leave the record open for any of the witnesses that may want to 

submit any additional comments or supplementary statements. I 

particularly thank my staff for working for many weeks on pulling 

this together. There will undoubtedly be future public discussions 

about this matter. 

And I thank all of you very much for your honest and thoughtful 

contributions. 

The Committee stands adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 3:11 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 

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