The U.S. Department of Justice has opened a probe to determine whether Comcast's ad sales practices violate federal trust law. The Wall Street Journal first reported the story.
Specifically, the Justice Department’s antitrust division has issued a document known as a “civil investigative demand” — similar to a subpoena — to look into whether Comcast attempted to monopolize the sale of cable ads in local service areas where Comcast offers service.
These zones comprise what’s known in the industry as the “spot market,” deals made between cable companies and channels to reserve a limited number of ad slots in their programming for local advertising. These slots give regional advertisers the ability to run ads side-by-side with national advertisers over national programming.
Local ads are typically sold with the aid of cooperatives called “interconnects,” ads shops run by multiple cable companies that offer service in a particular region. These cooperatives are intended to keep costs low for local advertisers and increase ad sale efficiency, allowing rival cable companies to coordinate and arrange how local ads are sold and inserted into programming in these markets. It also means larger cable companies like Comcast negotiate local ads sales on behalf of smaller cable providers. Comcast owns interconnect Spotlight, and as the largest cable operator, manages interconnects in 26 of the top 50 TV markets in the country, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The Justice Department probe is concerned with whether Comcast monopolizes local cable ad markets in regions where it offers cable service, and whether the company overstepped its boundaries in negotiating with competing cable providers the required use of its interconnect Spotlight for the sale of ads.
Comcast in February called off its much-maligned $45 billion acquisition of Time Warner Cable, which would have effectively established Comcast as a 33 million customer company. That yearlong plan was terminated after the Department of Justice announced that it planned to file an antitrust lawsuit against the two companies, given the alleged effect the merger would have on competition in the broadband and cable markets.
Trump Media & Technology Group today reported a $58.2M net loss on $4.1M in 2023 revenues, a disclosure that drove its stock price down 22.6 percent to $47.96.
Barry Pollack, an attorney at Wall Street’s Harris St. Laurent & Wechsler, has registered Julian Assange as a client with the Justice Dept. “out of an abundance of caution.”
Paramount Global to slash 800 jobs in what chief executive Bob Bakish calls part of an effort to “return the company to earnings growth"... Rolling Stone editor-in-chief Noah Shachtman is exiting at the end of the month due to disagreements with chief executive Gus Wenner over the direction the magazine is taking... The New York Times broke the $1 billion barrier in annual revenue from digital subscriptions in 2023... Press Forward is investing more than $500 million to strengthen local newsrooms.
The majority of news articles are read within the first three days of publication, according to a recent report.
The Los Angeles Times gives pink slips to 115 people or 20 percent of its newsroom staff... TIME is also laying off about 30 employees, which is approximately 15 percent of its editorial staff... The Baltimore Banner, which was launched by Stewart Bainum in 2022 after he failed to buy the Baltimore Sun, added 500 subscribers per day in the three days following Sinclair Broadcast Group's deal to purchase the Sun.
Have a comment? Send it to 
No comments have been submitted for this story yet.