Comcast inches closer to buying NBC
By Nilay Patel 
posted December 1st 2009 1:51PM
posted December 1st 2009 1:51PM
posted December 1st 2009 1:51PM
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worst news all day.
@TonyRockyHorror Yeah, I got shivers down my spine reading this -- the bad kind.
@TonyRockyHorror
Yep, there is no possible way that this bodes well for any consumers.
thats still mind boggling to me....so are they selling off JUST NBC and Keeping control over the Universal catalog or are they selling all of NBC/Universal?
Either way its a HUGE sell off
@(Unverified) Now that Oprahs moving on, Who'd want NBC?
@R V I was wondering what that had to do with anything....Kingworld is a CBS company if I'm not mistaken.....maybe where HE is it comes on NBC and he thinks its like that everywhere....lol
@(Unverified) Oprah is syndicated.
So if if I don't have Comcast cable I won't be able to watch NBC or any of it's affiliates anymore?
/Is that a stupid question or not?
//I'd like input either way.
@Juice
I'd imagine you'd still be able to get it, but it might cost you a bit more.
@Juice No, they wouldn't do that. They would lose huge amounts of ad revenue and there would be organized protests, haha.
I would make a point to steal all of the NBC programs that I wanted off of the internet. Maybe comcast would have on-demand access to everything that is on Hulu...
@(Unverified) I hear you there. I just want to keep my MSNBC. Can't live without my daily dose of liberal MSM
@Juice It's already happened to other comcast networks like the Versus network. In an effort to hurt their biggest competitor, DirecTV, during negotiation of contract renewal, they raised the price of their license 20%. The price was already high to begin with. As a result, DirecTV (in an effort to keep consumer costs down) no longer carries the Versus network (I'm not sure if that's the only comcast network they no longer carry).
@(Unverified) After I was had typed my last comment I remembered that G4TV is an affiliate of Comcast. And I had to sign up for that channel with a special package. It would be stupid for my TV provider to have to do that with an Over the Air broadcast network like NBC and I don't want to have to fork out more money for MSNBC.
@Juice
you would definitely keep your channels...
this is more because now comcast doesnt have to pay royalties to nbc based on every person getting cable, it saves them a lot of money on content.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!
@One Love
don't worry, be happy
@(Unverified)
sorry but there is no reason to be happy over this news. i hope they don't make it by 2010 and have to pay the $2 billion SUCK IT COMCAST
Comcast is so evil!
@(Unverified) I know! They're on the same level as google to me (evilness)
They just sent me a new price list for their services. Starting 2010 they are raising their prices for services, citing bad economy and crap??? WTF!
@One Love
I love these monopolistic empires
"Times are tough, so we're raising our rates"
Everyone else in the free market
"Times are tough, we have to lower our prices to compete."
Ha! Comcast will now *uck us ALL in the ass. They have been doing that to Seattle for years. Hooray for us!
Maybe it'll limit you to only be able to watch 250 hrs per month...
@SNP
-1 Worst News today, +1 best comment
I hate Comcrap. So many issues with bills, and apply charges. It's like they make it up. Thank God I switched to FiOS.
Ohh this is not good... why couldent they buy CBS... nobody likes CBS as it is...
@DeFlanko
Thats not true! :) it's just the everyone who likes CBS is too old to use the internet :)
@Yibrushn
LOL
@DeFlanko
What do you mean? Isn't NBC like the lowest rated network while CBS is one of the top ones?
Other then Sunday Night Football, there ain't jack on NBC. I hope the buy it and shut it down. :-)
Big Bang Theory
@Dorf
Good point, I forget about that, CSI series was on CBS... (why did i think that was fox...) /shrug
I wonder how the Sheinhardt Wig Company feels about this.
Blerg!!!
Meanwhile Kenneth is freaking out that Comcast might end the pages program.
This is so bad in so many levels. This is probably worse than when Clear Channel was allowed to swallow radio/tv stations left and right after deregulation was set amok in the 90s. Considering the huge conflict of interest between Comcast, a cable carrier, owning a tv network is of no benefit to viewers. Comcast will find some way to raise rates on competitors to carry NBC signals on their networks. Comcast will more than likely find some way to cripple Hulu and similar online free services, which have driven a lot of viewers to abandon cable tv.
Again, knowing Comcast's track of terrible anti-consumer practices, I see nothing good coming out of this. GE made a huge mistake by agreeing to that $2b refund gamble. They should've made Comcast take the risk instead.
@Roberini
Exactly. Comcast has a habit of anti-competitive behavior and total disregard for their customers. The last thing I want to see is them getting bigger and controlling NBC (I hate to imagine what will happen to Hulu).
@Roberini
you forgot one thing their monopoly on apartments who wont let you use any service other than comcast, where i live if you have an apartment you basically have to use them and there really is no other form of internet/tv services that you can use with out breaking your lease.
i want Verizon's fiber optic so bad...
bad idea is bad.
@(Unverified)
M-O-N-O-P-O-L-Y, accept without the play money. This is huge.
The Not-so Broadcasting-across-the Country channel in 2010.
You know, would it kill all these conglomerates to actually compete against each other (with better programs, even!) instead of removing competition by buying them out? What ever happened to "may the best (insert your answer here) win?" When did it get replaced by "may the deepest pockets win?"
You know what's going to happen when we have all these idiots merge together into one? We'll have just a few grand channels of crap with nobody watching and mass piracy. Oh, wait, we have that already.
@Sanskrit
No, competition means less money for them.
@chewbacha Yeah, but in the long run so does removing your competition. Oftentimes, they're the only thing that keeps you going.
@Sanskrit
Price fixing and shoving product down the consumers throat is all they know.
The issue for them is not business sense, it's lack of creativity.
Comcast should become just a broadband company and we should then be able to download/stream our content from the content providers. It seems like a huge conflict of interest if the broadband company also owns one content provider.
@Onazuka
As opposed to a broadband company owning all content providers?
I assume the first order of business would be to get rid of Hulu.
@(Unverified)
They wont be getting rid of Hulu. In fact you will probably only be able to use Hulu. If you want streaming content from anywhere else (like youtube), there is an extra fee for that.
@(Unverified) I'm betting the first order of business will be to raise the rebroadcast rates for the other service providers.
We're boned.
/Bender