Comcast is negotiating with NBC to assume 51% ownership of the TV giant, with holdings including the broadcast channel NBC, USA Network, E!, and a number of other cable and local stations. They would also be the owner of Universal, the movie studio, and its subsidiaries.
Stockholders didn’t seem too pleased with the plan , as shares dropped on the news of the talks. That would probably have something to do with the unsuccessful Time Warner merger and the fact that NBC has been slipping in the ratings and ad revenue game as of late.
However, Comcast’s acquisition of a major content deliverer is right in line with the idea that that the cable companies may be the only eventual strongholds of copyright management. If Comcast owns the copyright of content and they also can control how much bandwidth you can access- and potentially manage that bandwidth through their own proprietary content access points, there’s more chance content can be monetized significantly online, at least until there is broadband access that is significantly competitive to cable/FIOS.
How you feel about this will depend somewhat on your ratio of desire to make money with content (especially existing content) vs. your desire to access things online for free.
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