Executive Session with Andy Schwartzman

Comcast-NBCU Is Bad For Broadcasting

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I don't think that auctioning it later is such a good thing. I do not think auctioning off spectrum is good public policy. The incumbents wind up with the spectrum and they just grow bigger and it makes it very difficult for new interests to get in and get to the spectrum. So it's not good public policy, whereas unlicensed spectrum offers opportunities for many new entrants and technologies that will make much more efficient use of the spectrum.

What about the broadcasters' concerns? They say unlicensed users will fill the band with interference.

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Well, I'm going to have to respectfully disagree with the broadcasters about the white spaces. The technology is very promising and it is quite possible to devise methodologies that will not interfere with broadcasters' delivery of programming.

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Comments (7) -

RustbeltAlumnus2 Nickname posted over 2 years ago
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If vertical integration is so bad, why haven't any planets collided since the early 1990s when it blossomed under the watch of a Democratic White House? It seems to me that the media are doing fine and the audience have no complaints. It's hard to feel sorry for the Government. It seems to be large and in charge, firing executives of companies it has nationalized. Maybe it should nationalize all the media and put Andy Schwartzman in charge as the czar.
HopeUMakeit Nickname posted over 2 years ago
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consolidation is much more dangerous than vertical integration. Local stations in small markets can be very profitable is they just focus on being small stations in small markets. They do have to be WCBS or WABC. They just have to be relevant to the viewers in their DMA. Here in Houston, I would never dream of looking at a national weathercast for this DMA.
GuyFawkes Nickname posted over 2 years ago
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Afraid you're wrong. The small-market (and not-so-small market) stations are becoming less and less profitable every year. Simple fact that is almost certain to continue barring major change. Best hope for stations is complete or at least major local-market deregulation, or union elimination... or both. The argument that all broadcasters' problems can be solved by "just being more local" is awfully tired at this stage. Everyone's already doing it and it's not stanching the slide in retained earnings, which is what you need to continue an operation viably.
HowardMBurgers Nickname posted over 2 years ago
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Sorry Rusty, this has nothing to do with Democrats or Republicans, this is a business deal. Look, this deal will go one of two ways; either after five years it will be deemed the AOL-Time Warner of 2010 with both NBC and Comcast stock being relegated to junk status or worse, or Comcast will operate the business for a few years then divest itself of NBC at the time window when GE will be looking for a buyout of their shares. By that time Comcast will have enough of a content track record to stand on it's own without NBCU, or will strip parts or the group they want and spin the rest. Comcast has to do a deal like this or Wall St. will start looking at cable as just as much a dinosaur as traditional broadcast is viewed. What confounds me is how much in debt Comcast will be to pull this off. With cable margins hovering around 5-10%, what lenders today would finance a speculative play like this without some HEAVY restrictions and lending covenants? (Much like the Time Warner AOL deal)
Kevin Quinn posted over 2 years ago
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First off, I don't understand how Andy can claim there's a need for more "new and interesting programmers to get carriage". I pay for more than two hundred cable channels that I don't even watch, so please don't pretend like we need one more stinkin' cable channel. The only new channel that's missing is one on how to knit and it's probably in the works. Secondly, if Andy has any concerns at all about local stations, then he wouldn't be worried about the lack of TV shows on the internet. That has only helped the networks at the expense of the local stations. Why watch it on your local affiliate if you can watch it on the network's site or some third party site? There have been some series that I've only seen on the web and never on my local affiliate. At first it made sense that you were attracting viewers to watch a show on a regular basis by letting them catch a missed episode or be introduced to a show. But where the viewer formerly was confined to a small computer screen, now they can hook up their internet to a regular sized TV and watch all episodes with no local commercials. I can't believe that I used to think that it would be the DVR that would hasten the demise of local TV as we all know it. The day is coming quickly when stations will just be another web site providing mostly local news. Someone has got to figure out a way to put the lid back on Pandora's box now and I don't think Andy is that person.
PSIPthing Nickname posted over 2 years ago
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I was thinking back about "Andy" and his three decades of "activism." I was wondering what he had actually accomplished. (Not that I think Comcast buying NBC is a good thing for broadcasting.) His "accomplishments" seem to be limited to delyaing deals and writing pleadings before the FCC that are either fatuous or ultimately -- at best -- put a new layer of lipstick on a pig. Now, Pluria Marshall, at least he built a few radio stations while taking what amounted to payoffs.
GuyFawkes Nickname posted over 2 years ago
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I can tell you one thing Andy managed to do -- scare all investment capital away from the TV station business by single-handedly court-shopping the case that stymied the FCC's reasonable attempt at local-media deregulation in 2003. Broadcasters can thank Andy for a lot of the headaches they're faced with today. Andy, thanks but no thanks on your efforts to "help" broadcasters with the Comcast-NBC situation. You want to help broadcasters this time? Then get out of the way of local-media deregulation. You've done enough harm.

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