NBC Universal and Comcast get beat up in hearings on merger
Posted
[Ed. note: While not directly an amusement industry story, the proposed merger of NBC Universal and Comcast does have potential impact on the fate of the Universal Studios parks, which are partly owned by NBC Universal. -J]
Comcast and NBC Universal didn't get a whole lot of love at Thursday's emotional Senate and House hearings on their proposed merger. But company representatives did get plenty of questions. Senator Al Franken of Minnesota had a lot to say about the past performance of the network in response to deregulation.
Read more from Ars Technica.
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Finally, something people on both sides of the aisle can agree on! Seriously though, Al Franken is actually a pretty good resource for politicians when it comes to media law and reform. "Smart enough" jokes aside, he really gets the business.
Jeff - Editor - CoasterBuzz.com - My Blog
You don't have to look any further than the VS (Comcast owned) v DirectTV flap to see that this is a bad idea.
Comcast already has a track record of using the content they own to get what they want from infrastructure competitors. To think that something similar won't happen down the line with the NBC/Universal list of channels is just short sighted and to accept Comcast's promise that they won't do as much is naive.
There's a reason they made it illegal for Movie Studios to own Movie Theatres. This is not any different.
^ Good call TD. I thought I was the only one who knew about the studio/theater thing. I was going to post about it earlier, but thought it was too old school of a reference.
jameswhitmore.net
I don't believe I'm saying this, but I actually agree with Al Franken for once. I don't think much good can come out of this merger. I mean the government got their panties in a wad about Microsoft building a web browser into their OS. This would seem to have far bigger potential ramifications for stifling the competition than that.
-Matt
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