NBC affiliates tell FCC to make sure Comcast keeps sports on NBC after merger

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http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/ente...er-merger.html

NBC's affiliates are worried that the network will stop carrying big-ticket sporting events after its deal to merge with Comcast Corp. closes.

In a meeting with commissioners and top staffers at the Federal Communications Commission this week, NBC affiliates said one of the conditions of regulatory approval of cable giant Comcast's proposed takeover of NBC Universal should be a commitment to keep sports on NBC. Details of the meeting were disclosed in a regulatory filing by the D.C. law firm of Covington & Burling, which represents the NBC affiliate board.

Specifically, NBC's affiliates told the FCC that the agency needed to ensure the "availability of highly valued sporting events on free, over-the-air broadcasting by preventing the migration of such programming to Comcast cable channels," according to the Covington & Burling Ex-Parte filing.

NBC Sports' lineup includes the Olympics, NFL Football and NHL Hockey as well as golf and the Kentucky Derby.

The affiliates also want the agency to safeguard against the possibility that Comcast would drop a station from being an NBC affiliate in a market where it owns the cable system and could create its own channel to carry NBC. The FCC must "protect the integrity of local markets by preventing a bypass of local affiliates via a direct feed from the network to Comcast cable systems."

Obviously, NBC affiliates (who had already felt burned by the whole "Jay Leno at 10 p.m., five nights a week" ordeal) have seen what has been going on over at ABC, with Disney preferring to showcase major sporting events on ESPN instead. So naturally, Disney and ESPN tries to appease ABC's affiliates by putting together nothing more than an ad hoc Saturday afternoon package called ESPN Sports Saturday. So of course, the fear is going to be for NBC's affiliates, that things will eventually be passed over to Versus, where most of the money (due to the duel revenue stream of advertisers and subscription fees) would be made (at the expense of more exposure).