Coalition for competition in media

Coalition for Competition in Media (CCM) is a group set up by Bloomberg LP, and conceived, funded and staffed by lobbyists for New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's $7 billion-per-year media company. According to a February 2011 study by The Nation, CCM was set up to oppose the then-pending $30 billion megamerger of Comcast and NBC Universal.

Is CCM a "Front Group?

While CCM may have been established to advance the interests of Bloomberg LP's media interests, there was broad opposition to the Comcast-NBC merger and its implications for media monopoly and internet freedom. The members of CCM suggest that it truly was a "coalition;" in addition to Bloomberg, members included: Common Cause; Concerned Women for America; Free Press; Greenlining; Mabuhay Alliance; Media Access Project; National Association of Independent Networks; National Consumers League; National Coalition of African American Owned Media (NCAAOM); National Organization for Women; National Telecommunications Cooperative Association; New Media Rights; Organization for the Promotion and Advancement of Small Telecommunications Companies (OPASTCO); Parents Television Council; Rural Independent Competitive Alliance; Sports Fans Coalition; WealthTV; Western Telecommunications Alliance; Writers Guild of America, East; and Writers Guild of America, West.

According to The Nation article:

"Coalition building is a normal feature of Washington’s influence efforts. Still, Lisa Graves, executive director of the Center for Media and Democracy, says this case stands out. “I would say that it is clever and somewhat deceptive because the assembly of the groups is mainly meant to further Bloomberg’s interest.” Strictly speaking, she points out, it is not a front group, but it is similar. “It is like a front group because the name of the group and the superficial appearance obscure the primary intent, which is to further this company’s corporate interest.”

CCM's Opposition to the Merger

In July 2010, CCM wrote letters to key House subcommittee chairs on Capitol Hill, President Obama, and others, and "were plastered all around Washington." In the letters, CCM identified itself as “a coalition of public interest organizations, unions, small and minority media companies and independent programmers,” and said the Comcast-NBC merger was “fundamentally threatening to the public interest.” The text of the letter can be found here.

CCM also ran ads in Washington DC and Chicago.

Bloomberg's Role in CCM

Bloomberg's Interest in Opposing the Merger

While around 87% of Bloomberg LP's annual revenue comes from Bloomberg terminals (described by The Nation as "the desktop software with floods of financial data that is ubiquitous in Wall Street firms, despite its $20,000-a-year price tag"), it has been aggressively expanding into the media business. Bloomberg Television is its major concern, but Bloomberg also bought Business Week in 2009 and has transformed it into Bloomberg Businessweek, prints the monthly high-end business magazine Bloomberg Markets, produces Bloomberg Radio on XM, Sirius and WBBR, and has also started "Bloomberg View, where Michael Bloomberg’s political, philosophical and business opinions will be distilled in editorials that can be distributed across all his news platforms."

While Bloomberg Television has been more of an advertising and marketing effort for Bloomberg than a profit center, The Nation article suggests Bloomberg has aspirations of the independent cable channel producing greater revenues in the future. A major way for the channel to generate more viewership is through "neighborhooding," where similar channels are grouped near one another on the dial. Bloomberg executives reportedly feared that, if the Comcast-NBC merger went through, Comcast would try to punish independent channels by placing them elsewhere on the dial and making them harder to find.

A VIctory for Bloomberg, a Defeat for the Coalition

Bloomberg's interest was not in blocking the merger per se, but guaranteeing that it would not interfere with "neighborhooding." While the merger was eventually approved and was regarded as a loss by most coalition members, Bloomberg got what it wanted:

"The FCC ruled that Comcast would have to “neighborhood” channels together, in the exact same language Bloomberg and its lobbyists had pushed for. “Whenever Comcast carries news channels near each other, it will have to include all independent news channels in all of these neighborhoods,” the FCC announced. “Bloomberg,” says the Media Access Project’s Schwartzman, a member of Bloomberg’s coalition, “got what it wanted.” Bloomberg LP’s president, Daniel Doctoroff, who had worked as a deputy mayor in Bloomberg’s administration until late 2007, put out a press release in celebration: “The FCC has taken strong action to preserve independent news programming, and protect competitors against discrimination.” “Bloomberg TV a winner in Comcast-NBC deal” was the headline on Politico."

Lobbying Efforts and CCM's Formation

To counter the merger, Bloomberg hired former FCC Chair Kevin Martin as its lawyer for the lobbying effort, and his lobbying firm Patton Boggs, one of DC's largest and most effective lobbying firms. The company also hired the Democratic lobbying firm Glover Park Group, which had been partially owned by Howard Wolfson until Bloomberg appointed him as Deputy Mayor of New York. Glover Park Group then set up CCM, and recruited a diverse group of groups that support democratic media.

Bloomberg Media Synergy

According to The Nation:

"In the jockeying over the Comcast-NBC merger, Bloomberg corporate synergy also came into play.On October 19, Bloomberg Businessweek published a well-researched story exposing how Comcast had boosted its donations to politicians as it pushed for the merger. Reviewing Federal Election Commission records, Bloomberg reporters found that Comcast’s political action committee had increased its donations to politicians by more than $400,000, to a staggering $1.1 million. Comcast’s massive lobbying and PR campaign to push for FCC approval stood in direct tension with Bloomberg LP’s own lobbying and PR campaign around the merger."

CCM then informed its members that it would capitalize on the story and flag it for reporters. The Nation article continues:

"There is no evidence that the Bloomberg reporters wrote the story as part of a companywide strategy or were assigned the story because of corporate influence. A Bloomberg spokeswoman says there is an “impenetrable firewall” between editorial decisions and the other parts of the company. Still, it was a captivating confluence of forces: Glover Park Group, paid by Bloomberg LP, and acting with the coalition it had created on Bloomberg’s behalf, was on the warpath to distribute a news story Bloomberg Businessweek had written about the issue that was the most important pending matter in Washington for the Bloomberg brand.

References

External Links: website: http://www.competitioninmedia.org/