He's not kidding
Senator Al Franken is seriously worried about the Comcast-NBC merger. It sure does sound like a bad deal for consumers, and a bit scary from the standpoint of control over the nation's access to a free flow of information.
| Posted at 1:47 PM | Permalink |
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Comments (13)
Hardly matters any more. The "free flow of information" was lost when they caved to the carriers over net neutrality.
Posted by Jon | January 13, 2011 3:02 PM
I have only one reason why I'm not worried about the merger, and that's the incredible ability for NBC Universal to screw it all up. I honestly give the merger five years, and Comcast will be as crippled as Sony was when it bought up Columbia/TriStar twenty years ago.
Posted by Texas Triffid Ranch | January 13, 2011 3:05 PM
Honestly, the content model is shifting to things like Hulu/Netflix (yes, ComCast is screwing NetFlix) so I don't even know if NBC has much swing.
In about a year or two, I'm going to unplug TV and hopefully have a high-speed IP connection (and hopefully NOT ComCast.)
If they could figure someway to get competition in delivering the Internet to homes, that'd help a lot.
Posted by Steve | January 13, 2011 4:41 PM
Or could it be that Franken is one of the few remaining people in congress not corrupted be corporat interests and still trying to represent those of actual people?
Posted by Allan L. | January 13, 2011 4:42 PM
He's a little late to the ballgame isn't he?
Posted by Bluecollar Libertarian | January 13, 2011 6:34 PM
Franken is a better senator than he was a comedian. Unfortunately, he was a very bad comedian.
Posted by The Original Bob W | January 13, 2011 8:54 PM
He's right about this issue.
Posted by Jack Bog | January 13, 2011 9:01 PM
The 'deal' ought to fail to get too big.
Posted by Tenskwatawa | January 13, 2011 11:22 PM
If they could figure someway to get competition in delivering the Internet to homes, that'd help a lot.
Here's one way that's been figured out on a small scale. I used it two weeks ago when I visited there, and it worked just fine.
Posted by John Rettig | January 14, 2011 12:29 AM
Marrying content production with content delivery on this scale should *not* happen. Especially when Comcast has been known to use arrangements of this nature in the past to totally screw competitors and customers alike.
Sure, the "free market" defense will come in here, but you must remember that cable television is not a free market. I can't get Comcast - the local municipality sold the cable television franchise rights to Time Warner. If Comcast snatches up NBC and decides to do what they did when they bought the sports channel Versus, Time Warner is forced to pay through the nose to continue carrying NBC, or lose customers because they don't. Like watching the Monday Night Football? Too bad, because Comcast is greedy.
This is exactly what laws like the Sherman Act are supposed to prevent, but the argument is that "NBC doesn't have a monopoly on television production" even though no one else has rebroadcast rights for NBC content except NBC.
Posted by MachineShedFred | January 14, 2011 5:44 AM
Al's usually a point man for someone. I'd like to see a copy of his office visitors log.
Posted by David E Gilmore | January 14, 2011 6:55 AM
Or could it be that Franken is one of the few remaining people in congress not corrupted be corporat interests and still trying to represent those of actual people?
Sure, Allan, could be.
If you say so.
Posted by cc | January 14, 2011 1:47 PM
cc, as flattering as it is to have you suggest that what I say matters, let's just consider together whether the hypothesis I put up fits the facts. I suppose the alternate narrative is that Franken through venality or ineptitude has stumbled onto a position that serves the public interest. Still it looks to me more like you seek to deprecate Franken's efforts, probably because you favor the fascist approach of corporate control of the media and content.
Posted by Allan L. | January 15, 2011 10:47 AM