A lot less complicated than some people would like to make it. So when you think about it in the video space, it is not a horizontal deal. We do not compete with Time Warner Cable anywhere. There is not a consumer in america who has a choice between buying comcast products or Time Warner Cable products. At the end of the day, were are going to have under 30 of the market. So not scary. There is one thing that is appropriate to think about and discuss. It is the implications on the broadband side. I think there is a very good story there as well. Lots of competitive impacts and proconsumer impacts from the transaction as a result of the increased investment. Again, not a very scary story when you look at market share. Something less than 40 of the wire line broadband share. But if you factor in wireless, and it is indisputable that wireless is beginning to be an effective competitor and substitute for at least many uses of broadband, market share is as low as 20 . Again, National Share and broadband, not sure that that matters. The issue is local share. No local market will there be any less choice after the transaction than there is before the transaction. Host i want to get you to respond to what the New York Times wrote after the announcement of the proposed merger. Consumers, cable is not Just Television anymore. It is where the internet comes from. And should this deal goes through, more people who want to cut the cable cord will still have to buy their broadband from a Cable Company where prices go only one way up. Guest so, a lot of respect for david carr, but a lot of mistakes in that statement. In terms of buying broadband today, consumers are going to have the same choices after this transaction as they had before the transaction. The application of that particular theory is that somehow this transaction is going to reduce choice for the purchase of broadband. That is not true at all. Number two, according to the fcc, 93 of americans have access to broadband to wire line broadband and 97 of them have a choice of at least two broadband providers. So it is not a single choice market as mr. Carr represents. And last, the notion that prices on broadband only go one direction, which is to go up, i s again, true only if you look at sticker price. But with promotions, prices for broadband have been amazingly stable. When you realize the additional speed and the additional capacity we have held into our stoadband network today, comca consumers paying 92 less per megabyte of speed that is delivered to their homes than they did a decade ago. So sharply the coining affective prices in the market. Host joining our conversation is an executive senior editor. You have yet to file your merger application. Can you tell us what the timetable is and what seems to be taking time to get that in . Guest sure. The current plan there is no definitive date but the current plan is to do our filings and our Public Interest application for license transfer early in april. My guess would be probably in the second week of april. That is roughly the time period we have always said this would take. As you know, you have covered transactions before, the Public Interest statement is a major, major filing. And it does take a considerable amount of time to prepare and to prepare thoroughly. So this is all just part of the mechanics to get the process started at both the fcc and the Justice Department. Guest i spent a lot of time covering at t and tmobile. I realize that is totally different. We are starting to see a lot of opposition to this. There is social media. I am just wondering are you concerned about the level of opposition you are starting to see . Guest i mean, there has clearly been opposition in the transaction. But i think it is also safe to say that in any media transaction that has been or Telecom Transaction that has been unveiled in the last 20 years, there has always been opposition. It tends to come from the same group of people whose basic argument is that anytime there is consolidation in the telecom space, the sky is going to fall in the world is going to end, the internet is going to end. And those predictions have largely been discredited and is proven in multiple prior transactions. I think they are equally untrue today. I think i have been struck by the absence of rational, knowledgeable voices in this space coming out in opposition or even raising serious questions about the transaction. Unlike at t mobile where you had serious economist and antitrust experts and lawyers saying from the outset, what is at t thinking . It is number one competitor acquiring number four competitor in a horizontal transaction. Eliminating or reducing consumer choice. I never heard any of those voices way and in this transaction because of the fundamental differences. Guest you have a psychological problem of taking one of the out oftional competitors the market like you did with tmobile. A lot of of the questions have circulated around the issue that with this acquisition you would control 40 of the National Broadband market. And theres questions about when it big too big . Is there some limit to the size, how big one operator can get . Guest so, great questions. Let me start. A lot of the opposition from this group of people who oppose everything is based upon big is bad. And whenever you get big that is bad. And sometimes big is bad. Reallyetimes big is important, really necessary and really good, and that would tend x bended sure industries, and industries were innovation is fastmoving and you need a lot of investment in r d to be able to keep pace. That is our industry. So the size, the rationale for this transaction is all about scale. We are going to get bigger. Im not walking away from that, but that is the critical benefit from this transaction will r un from that scale the ability to invest more, to spread the investment in r d across a larger base to enable us to compete against our real competitors. Cable, charter are not competitors. Our real competitors are directv, national company, dish, verizon,bal company, increasingly netflix, national, company. Bal and most of those companies are bigger than we are. Most of them are bigger by revenues and market capitalization and or by customers. Transaction is about increasing competition, creating more consumer benefit as a result of gaining additional scale. That should not be scary to people, and i think knowledgeable people will look at the transaction and will say, hey, this is a really good thing for consumers to create a Near National cable and broadband competitor in order to compete against the national and Global Players that are shaping this market place in the future. In terms of broadband market share, i want to reiterate it is so important. If you only look at wire line broadband, we would have a market share something less than 40 . Wireless, you factor the market share of 20 . It is not scary. I would argue that 40 is not scary. The relevant market is for you, for peter, for anyone watching the show what are my broadband choices . What are the choices where i live in terms of broadband . And there is nothing in this transaction that is going to reduce broadband choices for any consumer in america. David cohen, when comcast bought nbc. What conditions would comcast except to get this deal done . Have other than what we already said about extending the universal conditions, including our commitment to abide by the internet rules which makes is the only isp to abide by these rules. We do not think there is a need for additional conditions, but we are very respectful of the process. Out, we havented not even had a chance to start the process yet ver. When the time is right, we will have discussions about that with the Justice Department. Guest with the fcc, in the wireless space, there is a psychological thing where they nationalave four carriers. Do you think that they will have a perspective on how big is too big . I know what you were saying about overall market share. Do you not think at some point they start to draw the line . Guest i have huge respect for the fcc, for the career folks. I have a tremendous amount of respect for tom wheeler and all of the current commissioners. I think they will look at this based on the law and based on facts and not on an emotional commitment to something amorphous about how big is too big. But specifically, the good news for american consumers, the good news for this transaction is that the fcc has spent a lot of time working on the question of how big is too big in the multichannel video marketplace . With two extended proceedings about the question, how big a share can one company have in this market place . Es, the commission concluded that they wanted to set up 30 horizontal ownership cap. Should not get higher than 30 of the video marketplace. In both cases, the d. C. Circuit struck down that ownership cap, fccsg that the conclusions were arbitrary and unsupported by the fact and unsupported by the law. In fact, a Single Company could have a much higher market share fcc had determined and still not have adverse impacts on the market. Notwithstanding that ruling, which is the law of the land today, we have agreed that we will divest 3 million customers to bring us underneath the 30 horizontal ownership cap that the fcc twice tried to put in place. So i think to the extent there is an emotional attachment to the question of how big is too big, i think we are coming in underneath the level at which that emotional attachment might exist. Guest you mentioned tom wheeler. After the february fcc meeting, we were asked about his meeting with sprint officials about the position of tmobile, and one of the things he said was, at least i came in, and comcast never did before announcing its deal. Eason, was that a mistake not to see the chairman before . Guest i dont think he said at least they came in. Guest comcast never did. Guest we do not believe the fcc is in the business of issuing advisory positions. Advisory opinions. It was out of respect of the process and the long history we had with the fcc that it has never been in our interest to put an fcc chairman or an fcc as an institution on the spot to ask for an advisory opinion without the benefit of a filing and the full analysis and review of any transaction. D perceive tom wheeler as being critical. I think he was making a factual observation and as a professional, i was sort of take it as a complement. I am not sure he meant it as a compliment, but i take it as a compliment that we understood the role of the fcc, and maybe sprint and softbank did not quite understand those rules. Host david cohen, one other factor in all of this is congress. Would you be testifying before congress when they host hearings on this . Guest we have one hearing scheduled so far which is the Senate JudiciaryCommittee Hearing which will be april 9 as currently scheduled. I will be the comcast witness at that hearing. To thise have been rodeo a few times before. We thoroughly respect the role that congress has in its oversight role of the Justice Department and the fcc. Even though there is no decisionmaking role by congress. Frankly, we look forward to these public hearings as an opportunity like appearing on to spell the communicators out the strong, proconsumer benefits of this transaction in the absence of any material risk of any competitive activity as a result of it. Host so many of the articles after the merger was announced were about you and your political influence. What did you think about those articles . Guest i am always a little bit humored by those articles. You have known me for a long time. It is not my favorite and in the morning to wake up and see an article about me. Like government. I like politics. I have been involved in politics and government for 25 years. The old classic line, some of my best friends are elected officials. And they really are. I respect the work that is done. I enjoy my relationships with them. In theing been involved political arena, i know there are no print quid pro quos, there are no preset expectations. Any good elected official, and i would like to think that the many elected officials who are my friends are all great elected officials, are going to make decisions on the merits based upon what they believe is the truth based upon the facts and the law. And at the end of the day, if an elected official who we have a relationship with and this transaction is awful for consumers or does not agree, does not believe the facts we are presenting, they are going to oppose this transaction. This is their job as elected officials. And i will respect that judgment test is much as i respect the judgment in favor of the transaction. Guest i want to ask how much data you anticipate having to file with regulators to get this thing approved. Are we talking box carloads full of documents . Guest i am sure there will be a significant amount of data. Remember, we file with the Justice Department. And it is not public. That is a private process. We file at the fcc is largely public, although confidential and proprietary data may be redacted and there may be certain elements that are files that are not part of the Public Record. So in connection with our Public Interest in, we will be filing applications for licensed transfer. And there are hundreds of licenses involved here. So those will be voluminous. Those will be the Public Interest statement itself. There will be several affidavits that are attached to the Public Interest statement on which the public into statement relies. So you will have hundreds of pages of public filings on day one. In terms of what follows, that eeally goes to what the Commission Asks us to file an supplement, which will become a little bit further in the process than with the filing in the Public Interest statements. Guest in cases like this, if they take a broader view and they seek information from competitors and they want to do the market snapshot, do you anticipate that thats likely in this case . Guest so, i, again, the Justice Department clearly will talk to competitors, programmers, others in the ecosystem. With the fcc, what will happen is we will make, we will file her applications and Public Interest statement. And then in some amount of time, a week or three weeks, the commission will issue an order which puts that Public Interest statement on what is called Public Notice. And it will set a schedule. And there will be some amount of time for people to file at the fcc. And some amount of time for people to applaud those filings. So youll actually see the positions, and people meet with fcc staff and with individual commissioners, and there will be ters that disclose the existence of those meetings and roughly speaking what was said in those meetings. And all of that becomes a part of it guest sometimes they move beyond that and they are to build morgan industry snapshot. Because that is what the question is about how big is too big . Guest i mean, maybe. Entities lot of the fcc does not even have jurisdiction over. So most of what happens with the theis going to build off record that is created as a result of putting the Public Interest statement on Public Notice and creating a process for anyone who has any interest in the transaction to make filings with the commission. That is where, i have got to tell you, they are not going to solicit additional comments. But the fcc process is so public, it is very unlike the doj process that almost anything they do they will want to make part of the Public Record of the proceeding. Is theavid cohen executive Vice President of comcast. He serves as chair of the trustees of the university of pennsylvania where he graduated from law school. Also serves on the National Boards of the urban league and la raza. Mr. Cohen, how long has comcast had its eye on time warner . Guest so, it is interesting. It is easy to answer because we did file our rs4 with a proxy. So, i think it is safe to say that we always are interested i n looking at possible attractive acquisition opportunities and for probably a year or two before this was announced, there on lateen on off and conversations about whether it made sense for comcast and time warner to be put together. Over the course of a year, there were discussions among multiple players in the industry with comcast and with others about cable consolidation, most theicularly on conversations between charter and comcast and charter and Time Warner Cable and charter and Time Warner Cable and comcast. And then ultimately, the deal was struck between Time Warner Cable and comcast. So we are very disciplined in the way in which we think about financial transactions. We want to make sure anything we do is financially accretive for our shareholders. Cable under the leadership of neil schmidt is functioning at the highest level it ever has, and really in a distinctive way from the rest of the cable industry. We would never want to do anything that takes away from the Operational Excellence that we have at comcast cable. But with Brian Roberts and michael so focused on the future of the company and our Balance Sheet, brian, lust asd the question, we are comfortable with where we are today, but 10 years from now, what is this landscape going to look like . The additional scale that comes from this transaction gives us the ability to continue to invest in innovation and r d to ensure that we remain at the head of the class in terms of delivering high quality, very attractive and appropriately priced video, highspeed data, and Telephone Services to residential and business customers. Brian keeps all of our eyes focused on the ball in a great way. Weis that frame of how tdo continue to be competitive and impactful in the space with a Balance Sheet and financial discipline that michael brings to the table and the Operational Excellence that neil smit and steve burke bring to the table . Host in the few minutes we have remaining, i want to ask you about a couple other issues comcast is working on right now. Peering agreements. Is that the wave of the future . Guest i do not know if it is the wave of the future, but it is the wave of the past. Interconnection agreements have been in existence since the birth of the internet. It is how the internet was told. It is how the internet functions. Hsa 40 trafficly providers and content Delivery Networks that are out in the marketplace very aggressively competing to sell access to the comcast network. We have over 8000 internet edge providers who access our internet through a variety of peeringnection and agreements. Andnternet interconnection peering agreements, the vast majority, by the way, our settlement free they are free connections to the internet. It was how the internet was built up. And it is absolutely impossible to imagine an internet that does not continue to rely upon that a veryagreements and competitive market and one that is working extremely well from a competitive and financial perspective. Guest somewhat famously, netflixs ceo was critical of these paid agreements. He said this kind of leverage is expected against netflix, imagine the plight of Small Services today and in the future. One, do you expect the fcc to or closely at this issue . And how do you respond to mr. Hastings . Guest i do expect the fcc to look at this. I think they were looking at this before Reed Hastings spoke. I have tremendous confidence in the fcc and in the current leadership of the fcc. I think we will be able to make a case along the lines i just made in response to peters question that this is not a place where Government Intervention is helpful or necessary. Terms of mr. Hastings, i have a huge amount of respect for him, he built an amazing business. He is a great partner of comcast. I think he would say that comcast is a great partner of his because of it were not for comcast and the cable industry, and the investments we made in broadband, netflix would not be as successful as netflix has enabled us to sell more subscriptions. But with his argument, with all due respect, on this issue is hogwash. It has nothing to do with access to the internet. That has nothing to do with Net Neutrality. It is not a matter of stronger Net Neutrality which is what he talked about. The transit market is intensely competitive. There are 40 companies who are out there selling access to our pipe and our broadband. The history, if it ever becomes known, is that it was netflix that was the moving party in this deal with comcast, and the reason why was because they wanted to cut up a wholesaler and deal directly with us controlling more than 30 of the traffic on the internet. We can get a better deal by going and dealing directly with comcast, and that is exactly what they did. Host finally, recently the wall street journal had a headline that apple and comcast are exploring a tv deal. Did not see you quoted in this article. What is your response to that headline . What is the advantage of working with apple . Guest you did not see anyone from comcast or apple quoted in that story. I am just going to say, we talk to people all the time. I am not going to have anything specific to say about the discussions with apple. Other than to point out that there is another example of how intensely competitive and fast evolving the entire multichannel video spaces. The you have a company, most valuable company in the world by market capitalization, a company that generates 50 billion a year in cash flow, in their working as hard as they can to figure out an entry into this market which will be a new competitor that is not there now. And it is further underscoring why there should not be any material concern about the comcastTime Warner Cable transaction because there is nothing but more, different and more interesting competition that is coming in the space down the road. Host david cohen, executive Vice President of comcast. And Howard Buskirk of communications daily. Cspan created by americas Cable Companies 35 years ago and brought to you today as a Public Service by your television provider. On the next washington journal, Atlantic Council ceo reviews president obamas trip abroad. Rrk discusses mondays deadline to sign up for insurance under the Affordable Care act. Tea Party Express cofounder russo talks about the current state of the party. And the former u. S. Ambassador examines the u. N. s role with russia and the situation in ukraine. As always, we will take your calls and you can join the conversation via facebook and twitter. Washington journal, live at 7 00 a. M. Eastern on cspan. Two weeks after the burglary, i received a large manila envelope that the washington post. It had a return address of liberty publications, media, pennsylvania, which did not mean anything to me. And inside was a cover letter from the Citizens Commission to investigate the fbi. That is the name the burglars gave each other. And what they wrote was something that a commission appointed by a president or attorney general might have. They described the fact that hady had or christ an burglarized an fbi office. They had become concerned that there were informers and antiwar organizations, and that they saw no way to confront this except by getting evidence of whether such suppression of dissent was taking place. And so it said that files were closed and they hoped that i would make it public. These thoughts have been sent to five people. Two members of these files have been made public. Senator andt to a another to a publisher in baltimore and three but that were not named. I wasod out so much that not sure that they were real. I thought they might be a hoax. On march 8, 1971, a group broke into an fbi office in pennsylvania and stole every document in the building. The story, sunday night, at 8 00 on cspans q a. Next, a look at improving