With the economy swirling away down the toilet, Iran enriching uranium to 20% and the nation surrounded by terrorists, perhaps news of yet another media merger does not do enough to pin the fear meter to make it to the top of the news cycle. One of my favorite media critics thinks differently though.
Lisa de Moraes, who writes ”The TV Column” for the Washington Post, took on the exciting job of covering a Senate subcommittee hearing on the proposed merger of Comcast and NBC. Yes that is correct; the cable delivery system wants to be your primary content provider. What could go wrong?
You can learn more on Ms. Moraes' take on the proposed merger.
My favorite part is when Comcast CEO Brian Roberts says with a straight face, “Our success will stimulate our competitors to be more innovative, too. So this joint venture should be good for consumers, innovation and competition”. Translated from CEO to English that reads - “by buying out our competitors we hope to make even more money, forcing the other media moguls to do the same and leaving the consumer with even fewer choices.”
Wasn't this all settled by the Paramount decision of 1948, when the United States Supreme Court declared it illegal for movie studios to own the theaters in which the movies that they produced were shown?
This blog is very interesting, but I might be the only one to be confused. Sprint and nextel merged and there wasnt a big fuss. Why is there such a big fuss over comcast and NBC?
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