The conditions Comcast agreed to when it acquired NBC Universal in 2011 are about to expire, and some lawmakers are urging that these conditions should be extended. Among them are restrictions placed on Comcast's management of Hulu, which were imposed after lawmakers worried that Comcast would try to scuttle Hulu's disruptive potential (Comcast took significantly criticism for blatantly ignoring those conditions at several different times). Comcast also agreed to adhere to some net neutrality principles independent of the FCC's net neutrality rules.

With Comcast lobbyists successfully killing both privacy and net neutrality protections for consumers, Senator Richard Blumenthal is wondering if the company's NBC purchase conditions should be extended. Or whether or not Comcast NBC Universal should be broken up completely.

Neither is a likely outcome in the current M&A obsessed climate. But in a letter to DOJ antitrust boss Makan Delrahim, Blumenthal argues that it should consider breaking up the media giant to help "restore competition" to media markets in the wake of the megadeal.

"If your investigation determines that the Comcast-NBCU acquisition will produce anticompetitive effects, even if the merger conditions are retained, you may need to consider separating Comcast and NBCU in order to fully restore competition," Blumenthal wrote.

"As a member of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights, I have previously raised concerns regarding whether the conditions imposed on Comcast and NBCU have achieved their intended effects of promoting competition and protecting consumers and, more broadly, whether these types of conditions can actually work," he said.

Comcast has been repeatedly under fire for ignoring conditions affixed to the deal, several of which it itself volunteered. That includes not only meddling in Hulu management, but hiding a discounted standalone broadband tier it promised to offer if the deal was approved. It's believed that these failures paid no small role in regulators signaling they would block Comcast's attempted acquisition of Time Warner Cable back in 2015.

But Comcast, as you might expect, doesn't believe it did anything wrong, and called any extended conditions unnecessary.

"There is no credible basis to pursue an extension or modification of the consent decree or conditions," Comcast said. "For nearly seven years, Comcast has met or exceeded all of the commitments and obligations under the NBCUniversal transaction. We have filed six annual compliance reports with the FCC setting forth in detail our exemplary compliance track record, none of which has been challenged or objected to by the Commission or any third parties, including by any member of Congress. The DOJ, which has received substantial information about our compliance with the consent decree, has never pursued any enforcement action against us."