Comcast In Deal Talks With NBC Universal 160
Posted
by
CmdrTaco
from the this-can-only-end-badly dept.
from the this-can-only-end-badly dept.
schwit1 sent us an LA Times article about another step in the seemingly unending media consolidation. This time it's Cable giant Comcast Corp. looking at NBC. NBC owns a slew of channels, including Bravo, USA and Syfy (who might have the single lamest rebranding since Spike). The article says that it would be far cheaper than the Disney deal Comcast tried to pull off 5 years ago.
Consolidation ... (Score:3, Insightful)
CC.
When they control...... (Score:5, Insightful)
.....the content, the distribution channel, and the local government-granted monopoly over neighborhoods, then they control the minds of the people.
Re:Lamest rebranding (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, those are pretty good rebranding efforts. They replace a cumbersome word that might not be easy to remember or that doesn't have a good connection with the content of the site with a single short commonly-used word that is on target and easy to remember. (Of course, nobody ever visits either one of these sites unless they come up in a Google search....)
On the other hand, Sci-Fi's decision to call themselves "Syfy" is simply a lame attempt to justify having professional wrestling in their lineup.
Re:When they control...... (Score:4, Insightful)
Heh, rebranding... (Score:1, Insightful)
Syfy makes me think syphillis everytime I see it.
Great - I can see it now... (Score:5, Insightful)
When the deal is complete, Comcast will raise the rates to carry their newly acquired channels to DirecTV, to ridiculously insane levels, just like they did with the Versus channel... all in an effort to try putting DirecTV out of business. After the royal shafting they tried sticking those of us with their Internet service, but not their cable TV service* (which they referred to as "bundling", but which was, in reality, a "satellite tax"), I will never spend another cent with those greedy bastards. Fuck Comcast.**
*I had AT&T Broadband, and when Comcast bought them out, they decided to modify their price structure to bring it in line with the rest of the country (their words). In doing so, my bill went from $32.95/mo., to $37.95, to $42.95, and then to $57.95/mo., in the span of less than 10 months. (No promotional rates were involved, either.) The last increase of FIFTEEN dollars a month was because I didn't have cable TV. Funny that I didn't have it at the beginning, and only paid $32.95 a month to AT&T, for the exact same level of speed and service. As far as I'm concerned, Comcast is even more evil and untrustworthy as Microsoft, which is really saying something. Stay classy, Comcast!
**Come on already, Qwest - where's the FTTH that your commercials keep trying to pitch to me, but I STILL can't get, less than 5 miles from Downtown St. Paul?!?
Re:When they control...... (Score:3, Insightful)
*Most OTA stations let you stream the newest episodes from their site the day after it airs on TV. Those shows, and most of the ones not available for streaming, including cable shows, can usually be found on torrent within 12 hours of airtime anyway.
Re:When they control...... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, I pay for basic cable service even though it is not plugged into my TV. That's because I want fast internet access and Comcast has bundled them such that signing up for a cable TV service I don't use, saves me money. That is pretty much a conclusive indicator of a broken market that needs to be addressed by antitrust regulators.
Re:When they control...... (Score:3, Insightful)
Add to that one other word that most people seem to be leaving out of the thoughts: Hulu
Hulu was started and is still back in large part by NBC.
It is a distribution mechanism that has the potential to completely obsolete Cable Companies (except as ISPs), and buying NBC might give Comcast a stake in the company, or at least a say in the direction of the company ("Maybe we should run more adverts", "how about a three week delay and only show the last two episodes", "we really shouldn't run 'cable exclusive' content").
I'm just as happy having Hulu in the hands of content Producers and Over-The-Air broadcasters who are less used to draconian control of the distribution channel (VCR have been around for a while, and Pay-Per-View/On-Demand hasn't been an issue for Broadcast TV).
Re:When they control...... (Score:1, Insightful)
~0.5% of people who download would have bought the product on CD. So as rough estimate: 200 song downloads = 1 lost sale
99.5% of people who download will make up random numbers to justify their behavior.
Re:When they control...... (Score:3, Insightful)
How can your house face the wrong way?
Tall radio-opaque building to your south*, or your apartment is on the north* side of the building.
*Invert this in New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, or Brazil.
Re:Further comment... (Score:3, Insightful)
- KEEPING my NET CONNECTION UP
- KEEPING my NET CONNECTION AT AND ACCEPTABLE SPEED.
Re:When they control...... (Score:3, Insightful)
Comcast-NBC will be merging while the economy is on the rise
Do you really believe that the economy is on the rise? That pumping a couple of trillion dollars of debt into it has magically fixed all of the problems? We'll see a short-term improvement, perhaps, but in the long term we're just building it up to be worse than it ever would have without government "stimulus", tarp, and other such foolishness. /uninformed-but-common-sense-opinion
Re:When they control...... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:When they control...... (Score:3, Insightful)
And in a month I will be living on a street with 2 competing Cable providers!!!!! So I can hopefully haggle one down to about 50% normal rates and pay an acceptable amount.
And I will spout my discount as PROOF of monopolistic, and price fixing tactics on NO COMPETITION cable providers.
Re:Go back to dial-up? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Yes they can go back to dialup." by donaggie03
Okay that isn't fair but I suspect if he were here, and completely honest, that's exactly what he would say. He argues that Comcast is not a monopoly and people have other choices, but he forgets the alternative (50k dialup) is not really a valid choice. You can do a lot over dialup including bittorrent, but you can't watch hulu.com or nbc.com or other tv sites. ----- Also even in areas that have both cable and DSL, that's still just a duopoly... no better than our current political system.
Re:When they control...... (Score:4, Insightful)
>>>I will be living on a street with 2 competing Cable providers!!!!
Every urban street in the U.S. should have this. And not just 2 providers, but maybe 4 or 5. It is only through competition that you break the back of a monopoly, plus giving choice to the consumer empowers them to run their own lives.
Re:Great - I can see it now... (Score:3, Insightful)
What I meant was making the government do anything is often dismissed as "socialism" even if in this case it is to force competition.