Adelphia Deal’s Touted Benefits Repeat Past Claims

Adelphia, answering opposition to its pending takeover, repeated previous claims about the potential benefits of the $17.6 billion deal with Comcast and Time Warner. In an FCC filing late Fri., the 3 firms said the transaction will speed rollout of advanced services and cut costs by clustering cable systems - claims made in a May document seeking FCC approval (CD May 20 p4). The latest filing may do little to squelch criticism of the deal; at least one media activist expects public comments against the transaction to continue.

The companies rejected criticism of the deal by DirecTV, EchoStar and RCN in the cable operators’ first response to such opposition. “None seriously questions the compelling showing” that Adelphia customers will be “substantially better off by removing these systems from the cloud of bankruptcy,” they said. Media activists’ concerns, such as those voiced by the Media Access Project (MAP) that the deal would increase consolidation, should be addressed in a separate FCC rulemaking on cable caps, the filing said.

DirecTV’s request that the FCC impose conditions on Comcast and Time Warner like those it did in News Corp.’s purchase of DirecTV (CD July 25 p5) mark “a rather feeble attempt to fashion an argument,” the filing said. Opposition by The America Channel contains “fanciful and unsupported theories,” Adelphia said, though the filing did say the deal would boost regional sports networks’ market share in the Mid-Atlantic region, Philadelphia and the Southeast.

More than 15,000 comments have been filed with the FCC expressing concern, many from an e-mail campaigns led by Free Press. That number will rise in “waves as other organizations work their networks,” said Harold Feld, MAP senior vp. The FCC may react to public criticism by imposing limited conditions, said Stanford Washington Research Group analyst Paul Gallant. “There is a realistic chance of a sports-related merger condition,” said the former FCC staffer. - Jonathan Make