Brian Roberts' Comcast Corp., amidst its pitch battle against tighter cable regulations by the Federal Communications Commission, now says it has hired one of the best telecommunications lawyers inside the Washington beltway to represent it before the FCC.
Kathryn A. Zachem will become the company's D.C.-based vice president of regulatory affairs, effective next February. She also will take the title of senior vice president of regulatory affairs for its Comcast Cable subsidiary. Comcast lured Zachem away from Wilkinson Barker Knauer L.L.P., a major Washington lobbying firm, where she worked for 23 years. The Washingtonian magazine this year deemed her one of the capital's best advocates if you're "appealing fines, getting new technologies authorized, or working to merge two satellite-radio networks" at the FCC. Or, perhaps, fighting to preserve your right to remain the country's No. 1 cable TV provider.
Zachem is not personally registered as a Washington lobbyist. But she'll evidently command Comcast's considerable firepower there. Her boss will be David L. Cohen back in Philly.
Comments (6)
Hey Robert, we're all here, just ask us. All email addresses and phone are listed on stories and on the web sites. But you're right about some of the FCC coverage. Unfortunately, we get stretched sometimes and have to use wire copy on some stories.
Posted by Thomas Ginsberg | December 27, 2007 1:17 PM
Posted on December 27, 2007 13:17
It's interesting that we had really good coverage of the FCC's process prior to limiting size of cable companies. Little or no coverage of the equally important decision to lift regulations on cross-media ownership (single ownership of cable and print news in a single market).
Interestingly, the Inquirer's business section appears to be wholly made up of syndicated content, so unlike with the local and national news sections, there's no one to ask: "Hey, why was there no news on this?" Possibly because the owners of big syndicated news feeds want less regulation, more consolidation of ownership.
Posted by Robert Monk | December 27, 2007 12:56 PM
Posted on December 27, 2007 12:56
Perhaps Comcast could figure out a way to repay the loyalty of long-time customers ie: if you've been one for over five years, how about one free month every so often? Throw us a bone, anything!!
Posted by Rosemary Quinn | December 13, 2007 11:46 AM
Posted on December 13, 2007 11:46
Now I know why Comcast can't afford to add the Big Ten Network. It all makes so much sense.
Posted by Josh | December 12, 2007 2:33 PM
Posted on December 12, 2007 14:33
It would also be nice to be able to reach customer service in less than a couple of hours. Maybe this new woman could do that and answer rate paying customer's questions instead of wining and dining government servants in order to get an advantage. I have been paying for HDTV for one year and the box has not worked for 8 months of that year. However, I have to work for a living so I cannot spare waiting for customer service for hours.
Posted by AG-Wynnewood | December 12, 2007 2:03 PM
Posted on December 12, 2007 14:03
Hey Comcast!!!! Instead of spending millions of dollars fighting the FFC so that you can monopolize the cable TV market, or paying your beloved CEO millions upon millions of dollars in salary, bonuses and stock option, why don't you just hire a competent cable installer to properly install my cable or better yet... run an actual cable line that gets the bandwidth for my internet that I am paying out the pie-hole for?
That would be Comcastic!
Posted by Anonymous | December 12, 2007 4:04 AM
Posted on December 12, 2007 04:04