Comcast Blasts TWC Deal 'Extortion'

Taking off the gloves, Comcast struck back at critics of its proposed Time Warner Cable merger Wednesday, branding many of them extortionists just looking to further their own businesses and dismissing others as putting forth feeble efforts being peddled without factual support. 

It said Discovery had "demanded unwarranted business concessions from Comcast as a condition of Discovery’s non-opposition to the Transaction," and said Netflix was trumping up its economic theories to get out from under content costs.

That is according to an executive summary of Comcast's response to petitions to deny and request for conditions on the deal filed by various competitors, public advocacy groups and others.

To read the full story, visit Multichannel.com.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.