Anticipated Comcast-NBC Universal merger must be stopped
The Communications Workers of America have joined forces with two of the nation's top consumer advocacy groups to bring attention to the list of reasons that the Comcast-NBC Universal merger should be stopped.
Free Press and the Consumers Federation of America - along with CWA - are speaking out about the significant anti-trust problems with the proposed deal.
"With this acquisition, Comcast will have the market power to determine what programs get aired and how much people pay to view programs on every media channel: cable, television, and the Internet," said CWA senior director George Kohl. "The merged entity would control one out of every five viewing hours in the United States."
The reasons that this deal is bad for everyone other than its Wall Street benefactors are numerous:
- Comcast is the nation's largest cable company with 24 million viewers and has control of significant regional sports programming;
- With the deal, they would add a major TV network, 27 local TV stations, multiple cable channels, Internet entertainment website Hulu and vast amounts of programming and movies;
- Comcast has a long history of violating workers' rights, firing pro-union workers, stalling contract negotiations and launching aggressive campaigns to decertify local unions; and,
- Comcast has a long history of non-democratic processes, notably its severe limitations on shareholders rights.
Free Press launched a website devoted to fighting the merger - and asks visitors to sign a letter to President Obama and spread the word about the merger via email and social networking websites.
Kohl said, "Diversity in media is central to our democracy. This merger erodes that diversity and should be stopped.
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