Bloomberg LP Set Up Lobbying Group To Try To Block Comcast-NBC Merger: The Nation

The Nation:

Last July, a group called the Coalition for Competition in Media wrote a letter to two key House subcommittee chairs on Capitol Hill, pleading for help in stopping the then-pending $30 billion megamerger of Comcast and NBC Universal. The group identified itself as "a coalition of public interest organizations, unions, small and minority media companies and independent programmers," and said the merger was "fundamentally threatening to the public interest." That may well have been a sound contention, and any reader might have thought the letter--part of an extensive PR and lobbying campaign--was distributed by a grassroots consumer organization. The letter was signed by the members of the coalition, including the media conglomerate Bloomberg LP. What the letter did not say is that Bloomberg LP was the driving force behind the PR campaign, and the Coalition for Competition in Media was conceived, funded and staffed by lobbyists for New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's $7 billion-per-year media company.

Read the whole story: The Nation

Comments

[tooncesrocks]

08:50 PM on 02/13/2011

boy the media really does a great job at arguing over the wrong thing... the "merger" was simply the purchase of comcast by the metastasizing GE Corporation.

The merger is just smokescreen for the real issue which is GE now owning a major chunk of the internet backbone

[bcarb]

04:34 PM on 02/13/2011

I'm lking this guy more and more. Comcast NBC merger never should have happened.

[mobut]

03:56 AM on 02/13/2011

Seems Comcast got better friends in higher places than Bloomberg.

[Matt12]

09:14 PM on 02/12/2011

crook?

[castlerider]

05:41 PM on 02/12/2011

Aww man, too bad it didn't work.

[Genders]

08:53 PM on 02/12/2011

Agreed, break up the media monopolies: one out let per area.

[Kepler Poinsot]

09:09 AM on 02/12/2011

I keep reading more and more stories about this Mayor doing all sorts of activities that do not seem to have a direct and distinct duty with being Mayor of NYC.

Must be an easy job that he can spend so much time doing all of these other things

[Angelus2007]

04:04 PM on 02/13/2011

I was thinking the same thing. Regardless of how noble his causes may be, your job first and foremost is to the citizens of NYC.

[bcarb]

04:33 PM on 02/13/2011

Are you the moderator that has been deleting many of the pregressive posts? Rumor has it, so thought I would come out and ask.......

[Jackie O]

02:38 PM on 02/11/2011

file:///Users/andreestolte/Desktop/A%20London%20trader%20walks%20the%20CFTC%20through%20a%20silver%20manipulation%20in%20advance%20%7C%20Gold%20Anti-Trust%20Action%20Committee.html

Learn about Andrew Maguire

[NickTAZ]

01:20 PM on 02/11/2011

I wonder if a media outlet ever gets so big that it can not longer be controlled enough to put out a specific message? I realize that Bloomberg's issue was probably more about market share for "Bloomberg TV" than about the media's ability to shape society, but none the less, it brings these questions to my mind.

[JuergenHartl]

12:00 PM on 02/11/2011

Whatever they called themselves, and who was involved: Too bad they did not succeed.

[NorquistNemesis]

12:38 AM on 02/11/2011

Making it seem like it was some sort of grassroots organizations that included unions and a bunch of little guys was his first mistake. He should have listed mega-corps with tons of lobbying bucks and PACs to get their attention and action.

[mcmutter]

09:02 PM on 02/10/2011

nobody stops Kabletown ....

[JohnnyAce Okeke]

08:12 PM on 02/10/2011

Trying to crash the party after it's already over? Real smart, Mikey. {{-_-}}

[1donewrong]

08:06 PM on 02/10/2011

Bye bye mayor, hope that you get a nice prison cell

[studmoose]

06:38 PM on 02/10/2011

Lobbying Group = Legal Graft Group

It's a shame that legalized bribes are what's required to get our representatives to do anything.

[NOSOCIALNETS]

05:57 PM on 02/10/2011

Kabletown won. Who knows were we are going now.