While there are many lingering questions about the implications of Comcast’s announcement that it will spin off its cable network portfolio into a publicly-traded company, its unlikely that the move to create SpinCo will warrant a review by the Federal Communications Commission, New Street Research analyst Blair Levin told The Wrap.
“As the spin-off does not involve any transfer of FCC licenses, there is no FCC review,” Levin wrote in a research note to clients. He also pointed out that there shouldn’t be any antitrust issues, given that the move does not involve any combination that would “increase horizontal or vertical concentration.”
But he warned the “X factor” is whether Donald Trump, who recently won a second term in the White House, would ask any government officials to “slow-down or otherwise interfere with the transaction, which involves MSNBC—a major Trump nemesis—until Trump receives some sort of concession for how MSNBC covers news in the future.”
Trump has selected Brendan Carr, the author of the FCC section in Project 2025 and the senior Republican on the FCC, to serve as the agency’s new chairman.
Levin expects a Carr-led FCC to revise current broadcast ownership rules that enable more local and potentially national consolidation, which will create new opportunities for Comcast and NBCUniversal to participate in with its spin-off.
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