The Federal Communications Commission has announced without much gusto that they will be approving the Comcast-NBC Universal merger, but with some caveats. The exact details of the restrictions, however, themselves seem to be restricted. While the FCC held a “background” conference on the deal this morning they asked that government officials not be quoted directly and they did not go into any depth on exactly what the deal would entail.

All Things D gets a little bit of the story for us together, but it’s still a blurry picture,

Completists will still need to hear from the Department of Justice, which is also reviewing the transaction, but since both Comcast and NBC announced yesterday that they expected the deal to close in January, it’s hard to imagine there’s much in the way of a surprise coming.

It would be great to tell you what restrictions the FCC wants, but the government agency won’t say so publicly, at least for now.

But since a document with the FCC’s proposed restrictions is currently being circulated to officials at Comcast and GE-owned NBC, the information should get out sooner than later.

The approval notice itself comes from documents released by both the FCC and the DOJ, including recent conferences making statements to that effect. Much to the unbounded job by individuals such as Jeffrey Zucker, as the CEO of NBC Universal will see a huge windfall from this deal. The New York Times has some quotes from those involved that help outline the next stages,

According to filings before the F.C.C., online video has been a focus of discussions with Comcast. Accordingly, the agency is likely to impose strong conditions on the deal that would affect the online video market. There have been no indications that the agencies would block the deal outright.

Jeffrey Zucker, the outgoing NBC Universal chief executive, said in a memo to staff members Wednesday that “we have made substantial progress this month with both the F.C.C. and the Department of Justice, and expect that we will get a ‘green light’ in January.”

Sena Fitzmaurice, a Comcast spokeswoman, concurred in a statement, which read, “We are appreciative of the hard work by the F.C.C. and D.O.J. staff and by our own transition teams, and look forward to completing the process early next year.”

A giant amount of this deal has actually caught the attention of many concerned industry watchdogs, net neutrality analysis, and even senators. For example, in an a letter to the United States Department of Justice [PDF link], Senator Al Frankin asked them to further investigate the merger between Comcast and NBC Universal as “jumping the gun.” He even gave a long speech about his fears involving the possible FCC approval of the deal happening during the winter holidays when American citizens would be spending time with their families, next to cozy fires, and not paying as much attention to politics.

“I’ve also heard that the FCC is going to be acting very soon on the NBC-Comcast merger and needs to be doing this in the light of day and not hidden in the middle of Christmas and New Years,” Sen. Al Frankin said in his speech. “The American people have the right to know about this merger, I will be supremely disappointed if the approval of this merger is slipped through when most Americans are unwrapping presents and spending time with their families. Not worrying about their cable or Internet bills.”

This almost seems exactly what’s happening. The FCC has just posted their approval, although they haven’t entirely hashed it out, and by the time the winter break rolls away from us, people will come back groggy from their eggnog and discover the Comcast-NBC Universal deal already done in all but the ink on the legal parchment.

We can see that there certainly is a balance to be had here. Comcast and NBC Universal would like to get together as soon as they possibly can so that they can get going on projects and make money—but at the same time, the American economy, people, and others need to know enough about what’s going on in order to inform the DOJ and FCC through expert parties as to why they may or may not see this merger as proper. It is obvious that a Comcast-NBC takeover has notable conflicts of interest between the cable industry and the rest of the telecommunications and media industry, especially where anti-competitive capability is concerned.

As the takeover has been approved, and that approval is occurring pretty much smack between Christmas and New Years, I expect that we’ll be seeing a lot more news.

As the restrictions and caveats from the FCC agreement come to light, be sure to check back as we report on them.