Comcast inches closer to buying NBC

It's been over a month since we last heard anything about the rumored Comcast takeover of NBC, but things are slowly starting to move forward: Bloomberg says that NBC parent company GE has bought out Vivendi's 20 percent stake in the broadcaster for $5.8b, with up to a $2b refund due back if the Comcast deal isn't done by the end of 2010. That's no small gamble -- Comcast will have to clear a "gauntlet" of federal regulators from the FCC and FTC, who will scrutinize everything from the transfer of TV broadcast licenses in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles to the effects on competitors like Dish Network and Verizon, who will still want access to NBC's huge stable of content and programming. Big challenges, to be sure, but we get the feeling this deal is going down one way or another -- get ready for a rocky 2010.

[ryaninc Posted Dec 1st 2009 2:38PM]

I'm just curious about what's going to happen to the theme parks. If Comcast gets the whole NBC/Universal conglomerate, I'm assuming they'll control the theme parks too. Is it going to become Comcast Studios? If so, I will probably stop going. :-)

[Ivand Posted Dec 1st 2009 3:04PM]

@ryaninc did Universal Studios became GE Studios when GE bought it?

[DefPoet Posted Dec 1st 2009 3:02PM]

VIVA LA TORRENTS !!!! for comcast controlled stations at lease

[Ryujin Posted Dec 1st 2009 3:07PM]

@DefPoet
or just stop watching comcast owned channels. If they don't have an audience their risk becomes a loss.

[buckaroo Posted Dec 1st 2009 3:05PM]

Fox sports has suffered since it's become Comcast sports and I'm sure this will be the same. Isn't there a law about keeping content and distribution separate?

[tarik Posted Dec 1st 2009 3:10PM]

now u know how we feel here in the UK. We have Sky who own Sky Sports/movies etc etc and they also run the satellite/broadband/phone services and then there is virgin media who have to buy all the content from their competitor

[tehzaw Posted Dec 1st 2009 3:17PM]

oh noez

[Xoy Posted Dec 1st 2009 3:18PM]

Damn Vivendi was the last hope thanks for fucking everybody over.

[gerrrg Posted Dec 1st 2009 3:25PM]

Seeing how Comcast is giving only paying subscribers the online streaming content action, I can see how NBC will eventually go the same way, especially their sports network. Nothing will be free, as Comcast will charge people up the yahooooo to recoup their purchase price.

[NoOneSpecific Posted Dec 1st 2009 3:57PM]

You guys act like anyone watches NBC anymore. Seriously. Anytime they get a half-way decent show, they cancel it!

I stopped watching anything from NBC years ago to save myself the disappointment.

Move along. Nothing to see here!

[willymcd Posted Dec 1st 2009 4:15PM]

Corporate good is not public good.

anyone who thinks regulation is bad for business has it backwards, just look at what deregulation has done to this country.
Corporations only do what is good for them and congress lets them get away with it. And this is only for profit of the board members and wall street, it doesn't benefit any of the workers or consumers. It is like all the deregulation of all USA industry, congress allowed company's to outsource, the benefits of which was an increase of stock profits and board member profit, in exchange for a lose in competition (those who did not go abroad died) loss of middle classes jobs, wages, loss of anything being built in the US, and a decrease in quality of product since everything is made in china now.
If this goes through it will show just how corrupt our government is and how little they care about the people and how much they care about wall street and corporations.

[chestnu1 Posted Dec 1st 2009 4:16PM]

I have faith that comcast has pissed off enough regulators with poor customer service calls and poor cable service so that this wont go through. I also cite that in the 50's or 60's the government intervened when studios like paramount an universal made movies and then distributed them mostly to the theaters that they owned. So I don think that this will go through it is just too much of a conflict of interests.

[streammaster Posted Dec 1st 2009 4:49PM]

Ok so Comcast puts a cap of 250GB to its customers and rakes in millions of dollars from this they don't have money to upgrade there network but have money to make an even bigger monopoly well kiss HULU goodbye Oh and when they buy NBC your cap will be cut to 100GB per month. Someone needs to give Comcast a good kick in there greedy A**.

[NetNewsercom Posted Dec 1st 2009 4:56PM]

At least no one watches nbc anymore. Pretty amazing. Over the past 4 years they've dropped from 1st/2nd place in every time slot, all the way down to a distant #4. One of the big three TV networks, in 4th place in every time slot. They say Comcast would become one of the largest entertainment companies in the world. Disney/Pixar/ABC/ESPN is much, much larger. Oh, well. Just bring on the final season of LOST. (Feb 2, 2010) 4 8 15 16 23 42

[MickBurke Posted Dec 1st 2009 5:21PM]

Hopefully Comcast won't be obamas b1tch like NBC currently is, and just treat him like they treat the rest of us.

[Zorque Posted Dec 1st 2009 5:52PM]

They should buy ABC instead, then gut it and take it off the air.

[jammastercd Posted Dec 2nd 2009 1:39PM]

Another example of how the 'free' market is better...yea, right?! I'm no fan of over-aggressive regulation, but this level of vertical integration scares me.