G.E. Gives Up Comcast to NBC
via NYT
Oh boy, it has finally happened. Your wildest nightmares are about to come true. After what seems like eons of deliberations, General Electric has given up some of it’s share of NBC to Comcast. Journalists everywhere can finally stop their nonstop pacing and nail-biting and can get cracking on those suicide notes.
The New York Times cites the deal valued NBC at about $30 billion, and will create a joint venture for Comcast and G.E., giving each company stakes of 51% and 49%, respectively. Comcast will be sharing it’s slew of cable channels with G.E., as well as paying them an additional $6.5 billion in cash, adding up to a total value of $13.75 billion the Times reports.
The deal had been at a standstill for a while due to negotiations between G.E. and Vivendi, but Vivendi finally caved and will be getting $5.8 billion for it’s stake.
The deal has not been finalized just yet, and it is estimated that it will take roughly 18 months to get through “regulatory muster”, as there are hearings on Capitol Hill planned to discuss the deal in detail.
So what makes this such a huge deal, you ask? Well, it puts one of the nation’s largest cable distributors in charge of one of the nation’s largest content providers. There are many who believe that this is not only a violation of the Anti-Trust laws, but also puts Comcast/NBC at an unfair advantage over other not only other networks and cable channels but also other cable distributors. Some feel that Comcast might start to unfairly favor it’s own channels in terms of picture quality and bandwidth, similar to the “net neutrality” arguments.
For now, it remains to be seen what this deal is really going to mean for the consumer, so you may want to put your nooses back in the closet for the time being.
