April 2014 6 World Last month, both The Washington Post and The Financial Times addressed the issue of Comcast’s great political influence in Washington, D.C., where regulatory agencies have to review the $45 billion acquisition by Comcast, the U.S.’s largest cable company, of Time Warner Cable (TWC), the nation’s second largest MSO. According to FT, the FCC (the U.S. communication agency) has achieved “a monumental failure of regulation,” and “Americans pay more per megabyte than consumers in any developed country, except Chile, Mexico and Turkey.” The FT article, written by Susan Crawford, a visiting professor at Harvard Law School, stated that if FCC chairman Tom Wheeler approves the deal, he’ll be remembered as the former chief cable lobbyist. The Post’s article, on the other hand, focused on Comcast’s political and social contributions. During the 2010 Congressional hearings for Comcast’s takeover of NBCUniversal, it was pointed out that “the company had given more than $1.8 billion in cash and in-kind support to community organizations over the previous nine years.” According to the paper, in the 2012 election cycle alone, Comcast has given to both the Republican and Democratic parties a combined $6.5 million. In addition, Comcast’s Washington lobbying budget has increased from $2.4 million in 2003 to $18.8 million in 2013, for nearly 100 lobbyists, including four former members of Congress. Also working on the acquisition are lobbyists for TWC, which last year reported more than $8 million in lobbying spending. To underscore the power of Comcast togetwhat itwants, the Postalsowrote that theMSOhas worked with most of the major think-tanks in town that are interested in communications issues, including the Aspen and Brookings institutes. The Power of Money Over Regulations The 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics may have recently concluded, but we remember just before the 1980 Summer Olympics in Russia (then the Soviet Union). Sol Paul, the former boss of VideoAge’s editor Dom Serafini, sent Serafini to Moscow and Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) to report on the preparations for the Games. Paul, then publisher of TV /Radio Age, wanted to please NBC, the official U.S. network covering the Olympics and one of Paul’s largest advertisers together with RCA (that provided some electronic equipment to what were then called the Moscow Olympics), which at that time owned NBC (now NBCUniversal, a Comcast group). As we all know, ultimately the U.S. boycotted the 1980 Olympics under orders from then President Jimmy Carter, who was upset by the Soviet’s jail sentences for two dissidents. Serafini is pictured with Russian Olympics deputy chairman Alexander Issurin and translator Tanya Kashyntseva. (Continued from Page 4) Recalling The 1980 Moscow Olympics R7.K17
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