Comcast to Buy 51% of NBC, GE Goes After 49% 258
An anonymous reader writes to tell us that Comcast and General Electric announced a joint venture yesterday to control NBC Universal, with Comcast coming out with the controlling interest. Comcast's hopes seem to be on succeeding in a marriage of distribution and content, where Time Warner failed. "The deal was approved by the companies' boards, and is subject to regulatory approval. GE said it expects the deal to go through in the third quarter of 2010. Congress has already said it will hold a hearing to investigate whether Comcast will gain 'undue advantages' from the deal that gives it access to programming."
In other news... (Score:5, Insightful)
In other news, comcast announced today that they have a revolutionary way of throtteling high-tv viewers during "primetime" hours. While primetime was not explicitly defined (nor was "high-tv viewer"), they promised that this was in the best interest of their customers in order to ensure that everyone gets their fair share.
Seriously though, it'll be interesting to see what happens here. Ads for new NBC shows over broadband anyone?
They are evil, not stupid (Score:3, Insightful)
Yet, I have serious doubts about that. When two legions that have sold their souls to the devil for money combine on a project that seems doomed from the start, I'm wary to dismiss it on the grounds that it defies common sense, and try to find out what they're looking at [wikipedia.org].
You're missing the big picture. (Score:4, Insightful)
Comcast is gunning for vertical integration. In order to optimize the benefits from its vertical integration, it has a very strong incentive to prioritize NBC sites and content over other sites and content.
I'm convinced that Comcast's package will include optimized delivery for NBC sites and content, only available to Comcast users. In and of itself not a bad deal, but there is very little difference to the end-user between optimizing delivery of your own stuff and throttling delivery of other people's stuff - except that one is dirt cheap to do, and the other is expensive. In a few years, I'm expecting Comcast to offer sites like it currently offers channels: with different pay tiers and different performance.
Nice troll sig, by the way. I'll reply with a quote from Sagan: " They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown."
Spoken Like a True Narrow-Minded Consumer (Score:3, Insightful)
It's the dinosaurs who are the ones funding the production of the entertainments that you are, ummm, appropriating from the torrents. You'd better hope they stay flush somehow, or the only piece of new content left to pirate will be Joss Whedon's grocery list. Oh, wait, I know -- we'll just instruct all the professional producers and directors to put their work on their blogs and fund production on what we tip them in PayPal. Worked for This Guy [rcreader.com], didn't it?
Slashdot: Yesterday's News... Today! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:In other news... (Score:3, Insightful)
A year from now, maybe even sooner, you'll no longer be able to watch Comcast-NBC owned channels over the net.
Goodbye Bravo.com, USA.com, or Syfy.com episodes over the net. Goodbye MSNBC.com or CNBC.com streaming livefeeds. Or else if you can still stream, they'll lock it behind a subscriber wall: free for Comcast account holders and $2 per hour for the rest of us.
If ever a monopoly needed to be busted, Comcast is it. No more exclusive licenses to supply cable tv to neighborhoods. Let other competitors enter.
Comcast needs to be split up (Score:5, Insightful)
This will allow for competition for those people who are stuck with Comcast being the sole provider.
Hulu (Score:1, Insightful)
NBC Universal owns (a large part of) Hulu.
Hulu obviously competes with Comcast's cable TV offerings. They'd much rather you pay for a cable TV subscription than watch the same shows for free, legally, online.
Ever since the deal was announced, Comcast has made a few noises about not wanting to kill Hulu off, but excuse me if I don't quite believe them given their track record.
Re:Did anyone consult Shinehart Wigs? (Score:3, Insightful)
Given that it is moderately entertaining, it will likely be canceled.
What happens to Hulu? (Score:5, Insightful)
Doesn't NBC partly own Hulu? Isn't Comcast's Cable system in competition with Hulu?
Re:We have FAR too many large companies (Score:1, Insightful)
Comcast definitely isn't "too big to fail." Comcast fails just fine regardless of it's size.
Re:Also announced... (Score:4, Insightful)
Unplug while you still can, there's a real world out there, and its more HD than HD and has surround sound.
/. irony at it's best.
Re:You're missing the big picture. (Score:5, Insightful)
>>>I'm convinced that Comcast's package will include optimized delivery for NBC sites and content
"If you watch videos elsewhere, it will count towards your 250 GB limit, but videos watched on nbc.com, nsnbc.com, cnbc.com, bravo.com, usa.com, and other NBC or Comcast-owned sites will not be counted." - Future comcast update to their TOS
Re:In other news... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Also announced... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yawn. I can visit the antarctic and china in HD, watch plane crashes and learn about huge construction disasters, go to the bottom of the ocean and see space. I don't have the funds to do any of the things in real life that I experience while TV.
When the local anchorperson starts coming to the front door to give me the news, I'll do that in your "real life" too.
Get off your soap box.
Re:Comcast needs to be split up (Score:5, Insightful)
This will allow for competition for those people who are stuck with Comcast being the sole provider.
Why don't you get your government to stop granting monopolies instead? They caused your problem, don't ask them to try to fix it too, they'll do just as good as job.
So will my bill go down in price? (Score:1, Insightful)
I mean now that Comcast won't have to pay NBC and all NBC owned stations, I should have a reduced Comcast bill correct? Of course, I could just be naive....
Re:This was the way it used to be... (Score:2, Insightful)
If you're from philly, you know how shitty comcast is, and why old women smash their offices with a hammer.
Of course this isn't the same now; NBC is a lot more than just NBC, and while NBC broadcast TV and RCA made TVs, they didn't OWN the method of broadcast. Comcast (and cable / sat.) is the ONLY way to receive most channels today. Add in to this that comcast also controls many peoples connection to the internet, and thats where the problelm comes in.
Re:Note to Jay Leno (Score:3, Insightful)