General agreement
Staff -- Broadcasting & Cable, 9/11/2000
NBC's Rick Cotton sat down with FCC commissioners last Friday to talk about the AOL-Time Warner merger. After a week of news stories on who thought what about the merger, NBC apparently felt it was time to make sure its views were clear. And those views are pretty much the same as Disney's: non-discriminatory access to broadband networks for competitive content providers. In July, when Disney lobbyist Preston Padden heard NBC's position squared with his own, he got on his knees in front of the House Telecommunications Subcommittee and kissed the hand of somewhat flustered NBC lobbyist Bob Okun.
Speaking of Padden, he and Disney Vice Chairman Sandy Litvack also were busy on the AOL-TW front last week, making the rounds on Capitol Hill, the FCC and the FTC. Litvack was head of the Department of Justice's Antitrust Division during the Carter administration.
