Broadcasting & Cable
Minnesota Democrat Al Franken was looking to leverage his high-profile criticism of the Comcast/NBCU merger into some cash for his campaign down the road.
Franken got national attention with his grilling of NBCU President Jeff Zucker and Comcast Chairman Brian Roberts during last week’s Hill hearings on the proposed $30 billion joint venture.
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He took particular issue with NBC’s stand back in the 1990’s on sunsetting the financial interest and syndication rules that prevented networks from taking a financial interest in the domestic syndication of their prime time programming. While NBC claimed it would not push independents off the network schedules, Franken said that had been the result. More…