Groups Urge FCC To Block NBC-Comcast Merger

GovTechGuy writes "A coalition of media companies, labor groups and privacy advocates have combined to urge the FCC to block the proposed merger of NBC Universal and cable giant Comcast. In a letter sent to the FCC Monday (PDF), the groups argue the new $30 billion entity would have unprecedented control over the media landscape, raising antitrust concerns. Among the threats listed are the potential for the new media giant to violate net neutrality and favor its own content both on television and online."

Re:I'm not worried

[Que914]

Many people who are customer of Comast are out of necessity, not choice. All the same, it has a couple of implications for non-customers with an overriding theme of big media maintaining their control on culture distribution.

Prior to the Internet broadcast video content had something of a natural monopoly simply by the limited bandwidth over the airwaves. The Internet has a lot of potential to change that because it doesn't suffer from the same limitation. I consume a great deal of "TV Show" like content that's not on TV so my Internet connection is essentially competing with the TV Networks.

To demonstrate, hypothetically say I'm a recent film student grad who has a great idea for a TV show (and for the sake of argument lets pretend it is good). I've enough money to produce it myself, but I have no notoriety and have zero chance of getting a network to distribute it. Alternatively, I could put it up on the web, try and get some ad revenue, or maybe if good enough charge users to download. But now, I'm competing with Comcast/NBC and since Comcast/NBC is in both content and distribution, they may well 'traffic shape' in such a way that interferes with traffic of competing products, so out of the gate my potential audience is reduced by 30% (or whatever Comcast's market share is).

That's the problem with this, and what's more important, that why they want to merge.

Agree with the FCC

[DaMattster]

Given Comcast's strong anti-net neutrality stance and propsensity towards censorship, I agree with the FCC. The merger should be blocked because it does not serve a really good purpose. It just creates a giant media conglomerate with far reaching arms into government. Comcast and NBC Universal should remain separate entities.

Re:Let it happen

[yeshuawatso]

This is partially true for Natural Monopolies (e.g. electrical companies), but not so much when there's competition. NBC's biggest competition is the web. Hulu is probably their most valuable asset for viewer retention, but because they didn't have the balls to go in it alone, they have to share their earnings with Disney, Turner/Time Warner, and others.

NBC's content is not out of touch with their viewers (excluding the NBC broadcast network), it's their delivery system that's out of touch. The future most likely has TVs that are connected to the internet and movies/shows/video content is moving to an on-demand model that goes with the viewer (e.g. mobile phones), not static. The big media fought tooth and nail against their content on the internet; however, Hulu is proof that people are willing to sit through a few ads and watch video legitimately than download it off some file sharing site/protocol. CBS is the only network that wants to go against the current and it's why they're shows are the most pirated. Movies will forever remain a problem because of the way Big Media is persistent on distributing content internationally. But I would still prefer to pay a flat fee per month for all I could eat (netflix), or a small fee for instant gratification (Amazon On-Demand, Red Box). I refuse to pay $5 to return a movie within one day by 6:00 PM at a location out of the way. Theatrical releases are different. I go to theatrical releases because I don't have a 70 foot screen at home and a surround sound system that kicks like a theater, but I do have $10 to spare for that experience. Even then it's on movies I think will entertain me. Avatar was the last movie I saw without knowing what I was in for and viewing any trailer, glad that turned out great for my eyes.

Re:Agree with the FCC

[Just Some Guy]

The merger should be blocked because it does not serve a really good purpose.

Erm, what? I think the merger should be blocked, too, but not because "it does not serve a really good purpose". People and corporations do a lot of things that seem rather dumb to me, but I find the idea of stopping them on that reason alone to be pretty scary.

Same has happened here in Quebec

[Hamsterdan]

Quebecor, one of the largest media company owns Many papers, about 90% of all stand magazines, a TV network and the largest cable company in the province (Videotron). So when the owner's girlfriend has a new show, it's on cell phones, in all the media, on TV, on the ISP's home page, so on. They can control the information. All the news come from the same source, their own press agency. Even worse, about every of their companies have been/are/will be in a lock-out. Of course, since they own about every media you don't really hear about it.

And to make matters worse, Brian Mulroney (ex canadian PM) sits on the board so lobbying is not too difficult, as if cornering all the media wasn't enough.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebecor