Comcast has consistently argued that its proposed acquisition of Time Warner Cable won't reduce competition because the two companies do not compete in any city or town in the US.

“Not a single market will see a reduction in competition. Those are simply the facts.”

But the company seems to have had some doubts about this claim and accidentally made these doubts public today.

A blog post by Comcast VP Sena Fitzmaurice repeated the company's talking point that "if the proposed transaction goes through, consumers will not lose a choice of cable companies. Consumers will not lose a choice of broadband providers. And not a single market will see a reduction in competition. Those are simply the facts."

But in the original version of this blog post, that paragraph was followed by a seemingly out-of-place sentence. It said, "We are still working with a vendor to analyze the FCC spreadsheet but in case it shows that there are any consumers in census blocks that may lose a broadband choice, want to make sure these sentences are more nuanced."

This seems to be an editing suggestion that was disregarded—but not deleted until after the blog post went live. Comcast e-mailed Ars the full text of the blog's original version today, including that one out-of-place sentence, following up 20 minutes later with a corrected version without the sentence. The Consumerist picked up on the change in an article titled, "Comcast forgets to delete revealing note from blog post." The Consumerist also captured screenshots before and after the blog was edited:

Comcast's claim that no customers will lose a choice because Comcast doesn't compete against Time Warner Cable seems simple enough. As Comcast Senior VP David Cohen has argued, critics have "failed to account for the most important economic reality of these transactions—that Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Charter do not compete in any market, which means that there will be no reduction in competition or consumer choice for any of the services we offer."

But the transaction is a highly complicated one that also involves the spinoff of a new cable company and a transfer of customers to Charter, and there is a small amount of overlap in the companies' territories.

We asked Comcast to keep us up to date on the vendor analysis of the FCC spreadsheet, specifically on whether any customers will lose a broadband choice after the merger. The analysis is still going on, but Fitzmaurice told Ars that "Comcast has previously disclosed in its FCC filings that there may be some de minimis overlaps between the Applicants, which FCC precedent makes clear pose no competitive issues."

One filing from June says, "The Comcast-TWC Public Interest Statement noted de minimis overlaps of approximately 2,800 residential or small- or medium-sized business customers, and approximately 215 business customers, in Comcast and TWC service areas. As a result of the system exchanges and other changes in the Divestiture Transactions, these numbers will be further reduced. Specifically, the number of Comcast residential or small- or medium-sized business customers in these areas will decrease from approximately 2,800 to approximately 780, while the number of Comcast and TWC business services customers in these areas will decrease from approximately 215 to approximately 190. Also, there are similarly de minimis overlaps between certain Comcast systems and some of the systems acquired from Charter in the exchange."

Additionally, "customers are scattered across various 5-digit-zip areas, none of which has more than 260 customers, and it is quite possible that Comcast and Charter (and TWC and Charter) are not even providing overlapping services in some of these fringe areas but rather just have facilities within the same zip+4 area," Comcast also told the FCC.

"The FCC spreadsheet we are analyzing may provide further insight on this," Fitzmaurice told Ars. The data in question involves "one half of one percent of the 87 million homes passed" by the two companies.

Comcast said previous FCC decisions, including one on its own 2002 purchase of AT&T Broadband, found that such small overlaps "are no cause for competitive concern."

A new group lobbies against merger, and FCC sets new comment deadlines

Comcast's blog post today was written in response to two developments. A new coalition called "Stop Mega Comcast" has been formed to protest Comcast's proposed purchase of Time Warner Cable just as the Federal Communications Commission restarted its review of that merger and another involving AT&T and DirecTV.

Stop Mega Comcast has 15 members including the satellite company Dish, Internet providers FairPoint Communications and Hargray Communications, and two groups that advocate for small or mid-size Internet service providers—the Independent Telephone & Telecommunications Alliance and the NTCA Rural Broadband Association.

"Mega Comcast’s concentrated market power runs counter to well established antitrust law and is plainly counter to the public interest," the coalition says on its website. "These facts, along with Comcast’s long history of abusing its power and disregarding its legal obligations, provide ample grounds for the DOJ and the FCC to reject the deal. It is not a close call."

The coalition is being funded by "a number of its members," according to Public Knowledge, an advocacy group that is part of the coalition. Other members include BlazeTV, Consumer Action, the Consumer Federation of American, the Future of Music Coalition, The Greenlining Institute, the Parents Television Council, SportsFans.org, WeatherNation, and the Writers Guild of America, West.

Comcast called Stop Mega Comcast a "special interest group" in its blog post and provided a statement to Ars touting support the company has received from other groups. "Hundreds of community organizations, programmers, lawmakers and diversity groups have praised the pro-consumer benefits of this transaction," Fitzmaurice told Ars, pointing to letters of support the company received. "It is no secret that some companies that want billions of dollars in higher fees for consumers are paying lobbying firms to organize against this transaction. This minority of self-interested opponents has used the same tactics in our past deals, and their claims were not found to be credible by the expert agencies. We believe the same will be true here."

Also today, the FCC restarted its review of the Comcast/TWC and AT&T/DirecTV mergers. In October, the FCC suspended the public comment deadlines because of a dispute over whether content companies should have to let Dish and other companies view confidential carriage agreements. The dispute has gone to court and isn't fully resolved, but the FCC is setting new comment deadlines because it believes enough of the confidential information is available to let interested parties make informed comments on the mergers. New deadlines for comments are December 23 for the Comcast/TWC merger and January 7 for the AT&T/DirecTV merger.