Bloomberg files FCC complaint against Comcast

Bloomberg filed a complaint Tuesday with the Federal Communications Commission accusing Comcast of favoring its own programming.

Bloomberg argues Comcast is violating the conditions of its federally approved merger with NBC-Universal by refusing to group Boomberg’s “BTV” network near other news and business/news channel on its cable networks.

Bloomberg's complaint contends that “BTV” has long been ignored by Comcast as the company has revised channel lineups to establish or maintain news neighborhoods.

A “news neighborhood” is created when a significant number or percentage of news and/or business channels are placed substantially adjacent to one another in a system's channel lineup.

Comcast argues it has not grouped news channels into the same “neighborhoods” since its merger.

A Comcast spokeswoman told The Hill that Bloomberg “continues to willfully misinterpret the 'neighborhooding' condition in the FCC's Comcast NBCUniversal transaction Order,” and said that despite the accusations, “Comcast does not 'neighborhood' news channels in the way Bloomberg seeks to be repositioned.”

---