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Comcast to Buy 51% of NBC, GE Goes After 49%
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."
Starting immediately, CBS and ABC will now only be available as pay per view for all Comcast customers!
Such a large company in charge of the content AND the delivery channel? What happens when this all consolidates into just a couple of companies with content and channels owned...and then the government has to bail them out, and take control of.....oh wait....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
That was pretty hardcore dude. You're soooo nonconformist. Keep raging against the machine while Cheetos dust covers your neckbeard down in your parent's basement.
Originally NBC was owned by the now defunct RCA. NBC was founded essentially to make content so that RCA could sell more Radios and then Televisions and all the equipment needed to create a radio and tv station. So, not only did RCA own the pipe, they had actually owned the -hardware-. Eventually GE would buy RCA in the early 1980s for the sole purpose of getting NBC. They basically kept NBC, closed RCA, but sold the logo to the French. As an Ex-RCA Employee, I still curse Jack Welch but.... in those days, the merger of RCA and GE which should have been seen as troubling was almost irrelevant as both companies were still selling tubes in the age of the transistor and Sony was really stomping up a storm.
Bottom line is, yeah, it will be a big company, but there's a lot of other media and a lot of other competition out there.
[disclosure: I live in the Philly area and, having lost the World Series to the Yankees, the thought of the NBC HQ from NYC to Philly seems like it would be really sweet. They got the team, but we get the TV].
This is my sig.
Wonder what effect this will have on plots in 30 Rock. Is Jack going to gun for CEO of Comcast now? That lacks the same punch.
The last mile.
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