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By Claire Atkinson
A cable industry group wants the US Department of Justice to review alleged antitrust practices at Comcast – and the call has drawn the attention of President Donald Trump.
The American Cable Association, or ACA, which represents small and medium-sized cable systems across the United States, sent a letter Monday to the Department of Justice asking it to closely examine Comcast's business practices. Comcast said the allegations were unfounded.
Comcast is the owner of NBCUniversal, the parent company of NBC News.
The letter suggests that Comcast has concentrated its power because of its ownership of a broadcast network, local television, cable and regional sports networks, and is the largest provider of cable television in the United States. United States.
Trump tweeted about the letter after Charlie Gasparino, principal correspondent at Fox Business Network, covered her.
Trump's constant attacks on journalists and media organizations have suggested that the president has targeted companies for their information operations. Representative Adam Schiff, D-Calif., Who is expected to become the new chairman of the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee in January, told Axios that he was considering whether the president had attempted to use "instruments of state power" to put pressure on companies these own media – many of which have been publicly criticized by the president.
Members of the cable associations would like to share examples of alleged antitrust practices involving Comcast, which through NBCUniversal, sold bundles of channels to cable companies for distribution to consumers. But the group said it wanted confidentiality attached to a formal process.
The Department of Justice did not immediately respond for comments.
The ACA would not cite antitrust cases in NBC News, but the letter to the Justice Department raises the risk that Comcast will prevent competitors from offering the Hulu streaming service to its customers.
"Comcast-NBCU may restrict, if it has not already done so, their ability to access Hulu and make it available to their customers as an alternative to their cable offerings," says ACA in its letter.
ACA declined to explain this potential problem.
The letter comes shortly after the expiry of restrictions imposed on Comcast because of its acquisition of NBCUniversal in 2011, including conditions imposed by the Justice Department that prevented NBCUniversal from retaining its competing programs and also required NBCUniversal to become a silent partner of Hulu, the video streaming company.
Allen Grunes, a former antitrust attorney at the Department of Justice, said the Justice Department had the power to investigate even if it ultimately decided to take no action.
"The Department of Justice is still able to examine anticompetitive behavior if it occurs," Grunes said. "In this regard, it does not matter whether or not there has been a decree of merger or prior consent."
The Department of Justice has already announced that it will closely monitor Comcast's business practices even after the end of the consent decree.
Comcast said in a statement that the ACA letter was supposed to give more power to cable operators during negotiations and that the television industry had become more competitive thanks to more options offered to consumers.
"We believe that the ACA letter is baseless and constitutes an inappropriate attempt to gain influence in the commercial market," Comcast said in a statement.
The company said Comcast Cable brought Netflix and YouTube to its X1 TV platform, while NBCUniversal sold programming to Hulu, Netflix, and other online services.
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