CHICAGO – Media Access Project (MAP) President Tyrone Brown will testify at the Federal Communications Commission’s public hearing today to express MAP’s opposition to Comcast’s proposed acquisition of NBC Universal. Brown will focus on the adverse impact of the merger on diversity of programming sources and its negative effect on the public.

In his testimony, Mr. Brown, a former FCC Commissioner, said:

“The merger is not likely to serve the goals of localism. Comcast has had ample resources and opportunity to contribute its own programming to the pool of locally-originated programming in the communities where it is franchised. Aside from public service announcements and regional sports programming, about which Comcast is very aggressive, it has largely declined to get into the mix of creating its own local programming. Based on past performance, Comcast is more like than not to decrease rather than maintain or increase local programming at the NBC-owned stations.”

“The former entrepreneur in me is certain that approval of transfer of the NBC broadcast stations to Comcast, especially those that are co-located with Comcast cable systems in some of our largest media markets, would give Comcast market-moving power that it would deploy to the detriment of online video competitors and the viewing public.

“The former Commissioner in me is equally certain that approval of these license transfers would result in a significant diminishment of what the Supreme Court has called the free and open “marketplace of ideas.” Preservation of that marketplace is critically important to our democratic society, and its protection is the FCC’s most special mission.

Read Mr. Brown’s testimony here.