No Laughs: Franken, Roberts Square Off.(Comcast Corp. chief executive officer Brian Roberts )(NBC Universal Inc.)

by John Eggerton

Washington-- Comcast chairman and CEO Brian Roberts and NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker have responded to a host of follow-up questions from Senate Judiciary Committee members about their proposed joint venture, with promises not to discriminate against competitors' Web programming but no commitments about putting new programming on the Web.

That is according to a copy of those answers obtained by Multichannel News and Broadcasting & Cable . Most questions were broadly philosophical and drew similar answers that essentially restated hearing testimony about the lack of overlap of assets, the competitiveness of the market or the relatively small …