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Report: Comcast In Talks To Buy DreamWorks For $3 Billion (usatoday.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from USA Today: Comcast is in talks to buy DreamWorks Animation in a multi-billion-dollar deal, The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg are reporting. The cost of the deal would be more than $3 billion, according to both news organizations, citing unnamed sources. Jeffrey Katzenberg, CEO of DreamWorks Animation, has been searching for a buyer for the company, which has a current market value of $2.3 billion. DreamWorks is based in Glendale, Calif., and was founded in 1994 by Katzenberg, filmmaker Steven Spielberg and movie and music executive David Geffen. The animation unit was spun off in 2004. Philadelphia-based Comcast has two primary businesses, Comcast Cable and NBCUniversal. Comcast also owns Universal Parks and Resorts. Comcast already owns an animation studio, Illumination Entertainment, known for its work on the Despicable Me and Minions movies.
Interesting that Comcast imposes data caps and charges a pile of money for internet access, complaining that they need to do this to help manage their network infrastructure instead of investing back into infrastructure to accommodate their paying customers. Instead, they take money gained from their customers and use it to buy other companies. This is why it's so frustrating to see the FCC not push harder on these companies to prevent/remove data caps and increase bandwidth for customers, especially since the companies are doing all they can to punish customers for cord cutting. As a cable company, should they not focus on providing the best service available for their customers?
I would be all in favor of Comcast's efforts to become a content creator if they were't using their position against their customers who don't want their content via a cable subscription.