America’s largest cable services provider, Comcast, struck a deal today to take control of the media empire NBC Universal in a controversial move that creates a new entertainment powerhouse, bringing together production of popular television shows and films with distribution to millions of homes.
Comcast is to take a 51% stake in NBC Universal, with the company’s existing majority owner, General Electric, hanging onto the remaining 49%. The transaction attaches a $30bn (£18bn) valuation to NBCU which encompasses America’s NBC television network, the Hollywood studio Universal Pictures, theme parks and cable channels such as CNBC, Bravo, MSNBC and Oxygen.
There will be some anti-trust hoops to jump through with this one, at least according to John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet, who offered this boilerplate: “[We will] monitor the process closely to ensure that any legitimate anti-competitive and public interest concerns are fully addressed.”
h/t: latimes.com and guardian.co.uk
remember when bowie kuhn nixed the reds trading with the A’s for vida blue because it would “hurt competition” in the major leagues? those days are hilariously gone.
My only concern is how this affects Jack Donghy and Shinehardt Wigs.
gizmodo had a post detailing what exactly NBCU (and now comcast) owns:
http://gizmodo.com/5417897/comcast-eats-…
most interesting to me is the minority stake in hulu.com… i wonder if they will a) fuck it up on purpose to keep people watching cable tv or b) fuck it up on accident by doing a bunch of brain dead shit
freepress.net has a form letter up protesting this merger that gets sent to your senators: https://secure.freepress.net/site/Advoca…
I have a very bad feeling about this.
I’m still a little unclear why I pay for television with advertisements in it.
Creativity will out. If Comcast drives creativity out of their shiny box of toys, it will show up somewhere else. I think these media companies are hugely overvalued, anyways; what’s NBC got that I want? Bravo used to be interesting on occasion, but they aren’t anymore. If Comcast fucks up hulu.com (@3, I have near-infinite faith in Comcast’s ability to perform (b) on anything), something better will take its place. Demand drives everything, and demand works for better stuff.
Yeah, that’s a tough one, dougsf @6. Maybe for the same reason you pay for newspapers or magazines with ads in them?
I am not Nostradamus but I just had a terrifying vision of my next cable bill:
“FREE NBC access charge (unlimited usage except weekends and evenings) $14.99”
The revolution will not be televised.
I can’t wait until Comcast cuts off DirecTV access to these channels like they did with Versus.
This is worst than the time Bush took the presidency twice without being elected. This merger would destroy cable, especially in Seattle. Their service is already horrible, if they hold that many channels and provide service there’s no question they will abuse their powers further.