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[Jimbo]

OK, but NBC Sports Philadelphia IS available on Verizon FiOS, RCN and Service Electric, plus Hulu with Live TV and PS Vue. So it's not like Comcast is withholding it from their competitors in general. Maybe D* just didn't want to pay whatever Comcast was asking to carry it.

Unlike AT&T with the decision announced today, Comcast actually did have a number of "behavioral conditions" placed on their merger with NBCUniversal. I'm pretty sure those conditions would have kept Comcast from being able to do what you're saying happened with Philly Sports. (That said, I'm pretty sure all those behavioral conditions recently expired or will soon, as they were only in force for so many years after the merger went through...)

So while you complain that other companies get away with stuff that AT&T doesn't, today's ruling is actually the opposite situation. The most comparable merger to AT&T + Time Warner is Comcast + NBCUniversal. And in that deal, a number of conditions were placed on the company to try to keep them from harming competition and consumers. But NO conditions at all are being placed on AT&T.

Maybe they feel that ATT isn't trying to pull anything on anyone, vs how they may have felt about the Comcast merger .... also, conditions have changed since then.

Btw, I'm sure IF Comcast had to play by the rules .. that ATT (D*) would not have to pay any more than any other provider for Philly Sports, but we know thats not the case.

Yes, Philly sports is available on all those other services, and with a loophole, Comcast when told that they had to supply it to D* , said, OK, give us 1000 per sub or something stupid like that.

I don't know why I'm adamant about this because it doesn't effect me at all, I just feel its bad for all the D* people that would like the service.

I don't like the fact that the Pac 12 isn't on D* either, but think thats more on the Pac 12 than anything else.