White House Seemingly Not Unfriendly to Telco, Media Mergers, Comcast's Cohen Says

Despite questions about President Donald Trump's receptiveness to telco and media mergers and acquisitions, the administration likely showed less hostility to larger horizontal or vertical M&A, Comcast Senior Executive Vice President David Cohen said in an interview on C-SPAN's The Communicators to be televised starting Saturday and put online. At the same time, Cohen said, Trump's populist streak "could be a bit of a governor on M&A policy."

Trump's past comments questioning AT&T's planned buy of Time Warner (see 1610220002), like his tweets, seem to be "conversation, not policy," Cohen said. "I think it's a bit of a release valve," given the way Trump will sometimes seem to reverse a previously expressed stance. And under Chief of Staff John Kelly, there have been fewer tweets and "more of them are more controlled and more substantive and less head scratching."

Cohen said his company isn't looking at any major, strategic M&A, though it also hasn't shut the door on making further acquisitions: "It has to be the right deal."

Asked about AT&T/TW, Cohen demurred, but said the proposed deal "is the ultimate compliment to [Comcast CEO] Brian Roberts and his vision because it's a copycat" of Comcast/NBCUniversal. He declined to directly address Sinclair/Tribune, though he said it could benefit NBC in some ways, but also poses "potentially troubling issues for consumers." He said such a large block of local broadcast affiliates will undoubtedly put upward pressure on retransmission consent fees, which are the biggest drivers of consumers' cable bills.

The best outcome of FCC-proposed rollback of Title II regulation of broadband service would be if Congress steps in to legislate net neutrality rules, ending the cycle of FCC regulations and court challenges that are the "the ultimate definition of Groundhog Day," Cohen said. Calling Title II reclassification "misguided and dangerous," Cohen said Chairman Ajit Pai doesn't seem to want to do away with net neutrality rules against blocking, throttling and discrimination. He said Comcast and the ISP community in general feels the same way.

Paid prioritization might be the one area that might need compromise, Cohen said, talking up past FCC net neutrality rules under then-Chairman Julius Genachowski that banned anti-competitive paid prioritization. He said worries about paid prioritization might not be as germane as they were five or so years ago, given increasing broadband speeds. There could still be some business cases to be made for paid prioritization, such as in telemedicine, Cohen said.

Cohen said the current pay-TV universe isn't outdated but "in transition," and Comcast's X1 platform adding Netflix (see 1607050061) and YouTube (see 1709120003) was part of its adaptation. He said there will be "a continued role" for traditional cable TV in coming years, with much of that driven by sports, alongside the growth of subscription VOD and of short-form video providers. Amazon and Twitter have made plays for sports content, but they're not necessarily threats even as competitors for sports rights, Cohen said: "There is room for a lot of different business models in this space."