Comcast deal to buy NBC is done, will be announced Thursday
By Nilay Patel 
posted December 1st 2009 6:10PM
posted December 1st 2009 6:10PM
posted December 1st 2009 6:10PM
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no...No...NOOOOOOO!!!
@Slutty McNugget I totally agree. There is a conflict of interest when a service provider (Comcast) owns a content provider (NBC). How does the FCC not see this? Comcast owns CSN, VS. and jack the prices up for Direct TV and Dish and causing Direct not to be able to offer CSN HD as part of their normal bundle and not able to supply VS at all!
Isn't it the job of the FCC to see this and put a stop to it? Really, besides Comcast and NPC, who thought this would be a good idea and give us (the CUSTOMERS) a better service? I am so sick... sorry... disgusted with Comcast that I go without cable over getting Comcast!
@Slutty McNugget
agreed. I currently reside in Tucson, going to the U of A, but because I have DirecTV I couldn't watch any of the football away games all season. It's total BS!
What does this mean for Hulu?
@Spiraling Shape
it means the service will suck more with random service outages from time to time especially during peak time. Any calls or complaints will be met with a "Ben" from India, who will faintly understand you. Pretty much what you would expect from Comcast cable internet really...
@Spiraling Shape I wonder myself. Hulu is the long term crown jewel. And Comcast, if I'm not mistaken already owns Fancast. So this would mean that Comcast would pretty much the lions share of internet TV.
@Spiraling Shape
I trust you'll be exchanging what you got for something hypnotic and strange. There won't be a refund, and you'll probably never go back.
abolish corporate personhood now
@pax copia
Seconded
@pax copia
Can I get a harumph. HARUMPH!!!
+1
Somehow, for some reason, I am afraid.
@artist
You're just starting to feel that way?
@artist
Yes they are gonna throttle your favorite NBC shows!
Be AFRAID...
Be VERY AFRAID!
@artist
Its just the natural fear that we all have of dealing with Comcast. Much like nonconsensul anal intercourse with a thermos jug with no lube, which is about how being a Comcast customer feels like.
wonder if they'll tie this into 30 rock =P
@WastingEons "30 Rock" won't exist in a year. nbc's schedule will include 2 hours of the highly successful (last place) Jay Leno Show, after 12 hours of the extremely cheap "Today Show", still with all of Yesterday's news. The other 10 hours will be loaded with infomercials to help pay for all of this content that no one will watch. Comcast has never run an actual TV network before. They aren't used to spending millions of dollars on a single broadcast, gambling on it's success. Anything that hasn't already been paid for will be cut.
Ever wonder what the LOST numbers (4 8 15 16 23 42) really mean? That's how much ABC pays per episode. Fortunately, ABC has a really GOOD parent company, Disney, who truly understands how this business works, and clearly they're doing something right. If Comcast is so worried that you're going to use the internet "too much" that they would go through all of the bad press and put a cap on your use, you know they will do anything to save a buck. I'll give them 2 years to live.
@NetNewsercom First I have to say NBC is not going anywhere, it was the original network, that they are truly too big to fail, too many affiliates depend on them. (And Fun Fact there used to be 3 networks in the early days of TV, NBC Red NBC Blue and CBS, NBC was forced to sell NBC Blue due to anti trust issues, NBC Blue then changed its name to ABC), while none of this has anything to do with the current structure of NBC or ABC, the fact is NBC wont die, hell they were a first place network only 15 years ago. ABC was failing until disney bought them in 1996, and it still took them 8 years to get to where they are now. This is just another phase of the TV industry, and I hope even though this is comcast, that the FCC and all the communication laws in place will keep comcast from abusing their ownership of the network, and hopefully under new ownership they can get rid of Jeff Zucker and put someone younger in charge, someone who knows where this industry is heading in the next 10 years.
@WastingEons
That's the first thing that came to my mind!!
@NetNewsercom "Ever wonder what the LOST numbers (4 8 15 16 23 42) really mean? That's how much ABC pays per episode."
I call bullshit. That's almost $5 billion per episode ($4,815,162,342, by your account).
@WastingEons
30 Rock is now 1701 John F. Kennedy Blvd
boo
Whatever... So does this mean that my cable bill goes up, down, or stays the same???
@LilCoop2 There is only one direction in the face of even more media consolidation...
Up.
@LilCoop2 The one constant regardless of whatever happens in the TV industry is that your cable bill will go up. Irrespective of this deal, Comcast will charge you more for content the following year than they will the previous year.
@LilCoop2 2 year price locked FIOS? HELL YES BABY.
@LilCoop2
I love Brighthouse (aka BHN), they are in every conceivable fashion the complete opposite of Comcast:
Superb Five Star Red Carpet Customer Service, comparable to a Mercedes dealership or a super fancy hotel.
Reasonable Rates ($9/mo basic cable) . BHN runs monthly promos and OFTEN slashed my cable bills! (I pay less now than I did last year and get more service)
LOCAL Customer support reps (who know and live with in the same area code as you)
I think with this I will stop watching NBC and their shows altogether. Then again when did I watch their crap anyway.
They own USA and SciFi too you know.
@dan1123 which they now spell SyFy for some reason
@Spiraling Shape
The network execs thought that was "cool" to do that. The geeks did not.
@dan1123
Thank goodness nothing I will miss
@(Unverified)
You've never watched 30 Rock then, have you? Or SNL?
Well, the FCC and FTC are the two agencies that make sure the end result of this is on the up and up.
I don't know why Comcast wants NBC. They won't be able to exclude other broadcasters in their markets.
I know GE wanted to dump NBC since too many questions started to arise of the collusion withe NBC programing and GE's lobbying of Washington D.C. Put it this way, GE spends more money than all of the oil lobby, tobacco loby, add other lobbies combined. What GE wants, GE gets.
GE is the reason that incandescent light bulbs will be banned and you can only buy the CF lights made by them.
@kjb434 This could have something to do with what TechDirt was saying a while back when they first reported on this,....Hulu.
http://www.techdirt.com/article.php?sid=20091116%2F1358106957&threaded=true&sp=1
"some of the pressure is actually coming from the cable guys as well (who view Hulu as a huge threat), this will only get worse if, as is widely expected, Comcast completes its purchase of NBC Universal."
Hulu is owned only in part by NBC so this could be at least some of the reasoning behind it.
Well I guess that's one way out of the net neutrality problem.
Just buy all the content creators you'd be competing with.
Fuck You Comcast.
@jon
I agree, this is extremely disturbing. But, interestingly, the first thing I'm worried about is how the TV show 30 Rock is going to be handled. They make fun of NBC-Universal, GE, and their parent company, Sheinhardt Wig Company all the time. Now that Comcast is in the picture, Tina, Alec, et al will surely take a few heartless jabs at their new employers. That's all fine and good, but Comcast is evil and I don't want them to go censoring brilliant creativity.
And yeah, that whole net neutrality issue is going to get interesting, too.
Given Comcast's horrendous compression rates, will the new NBC peacock symbol just be six, large, square pixels in an upside-down V shape?
@(Unverified)
That would be a yes. I canceled my digital service years ago because I couldn't stand the blocky images, and this was on a standard def TV.
@(Unverified)
Comcast's compression is miserable. There's no reason my sub-480p XviD rips should look better than half their 720p primetime feeds.
ABC and ESPN are the only ones using 720p, so I wonder what all this prime-time content is you're evaluating.
The bigger disgrace is AMC. WTF are they doing to that image? It's not just compressed to hell; it's blurry and DARK.
Bye Bye NBC shows on Hulu or anywhere else for free on the net.
@ZeRoCo0L
Free for us... but Hulu makes money from ads.
If NBC pulls all their shows off Hulu... they lose money. Unless people go directly to NBC.com to watch shows.
So which is better? Watching shows on NBC.com or Hulu.com?
@ZeRoCo0L I don't see NBC pulling itself from Hulu, since NBC owns Hulu. Comcast would own both now, in addition to their site, Fancast.
Hulu previously announced that it would start charging for content in 2010. To what degree, we don't know yet.
so . . . when you say it will be announced thursday morning does that mean sometime between 8 and 2?
amigod, does that mean we are going to end up with 50 spanish channels ?? I DONT" WANT CONAN IN SPANISH!
@(Unverified)
That's Conando to you! lol
@allenade my mom would love this
scary stuff.
*Groooannnn*
yup, still the worst news of the day for consumers.