Comcast seeks NBC-U [Telecom]

The saga continues...

It looks like Comcast isn't the > All 4 major networks; ABC,CBS,NBC and FOX also own production > companies for TV, movies. Allowing Comcast would make it worse > and drive up costs.

Every company that currently owns, or wants to own, a piece of NBCU already owns production companies: GE:

Neal McLain

NBCU is a TV production company, a movie production company, a movie distributor, and most interestingly an archive of intellectual property that is worth big money.

The TV and film sides of the house don't seem to talk to one another at all, either.

My assumption is that anyone buying NBCU is buying it for their archives and not their current production facilities, and that they probably have the intention of gutting those archives for short-term gain. I hope I am wrong, though.

--scott

NBC is in the process of moving it West Coast Production from Burbank to Universal City, just as CBS moved to Studio City a few years ago.

This thread got me thinking about something.

Local television stations are hurting financially. Much like newspapers their ad revenue is down. There are more advertising boulevards out there and TV has to compete against more businesses for fewer dollars. Local stations also have to compete against cable and satellite channels for eyeballs. How soon will be before an NBC or CBS decides they're going cable/satellite/Internet only and allow local affiliates to die?

John

Quite possibly. This reminds me of Ted Turner's purchase of the old MGM studio a few years ago. Pundits thought he was crazy for "overpaying" for a motion picture production company. But he wasn't buying the production company; he was buying the master negatives in MGM's vault. Those films have been feeding TBS Superstation, TNT, and Turner Classic Movies ever since.

Neal McLain

Don't forget DVD/BluRay sales - just have a think about how much it costs to manufacture one of these and then think of the worldwide sales (and profits...) of just one moderately popular old movie. Then multiply it out over the many titles each of these places holds copyright on.

Money for jam.......

-- Regards, David.

David Clayton Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Knowledge is a measure of how many answers you have, intelligence is a measure of how many questions you have.

Bingo, but it's not about Comcast buying NBC and letting affiliates die. It's about Comcast selling off NBC owned station spectrum for reuse. It's a brilliant strategy.

I wrote:

C> Neal, no offense, but I think you're missing something.

I didn't say that local TV stations are needed. I said (or was trying to say) that the National Association of Broadcasters has convinced Congress that local TV stations are needed.

What bottleneck? As long as the NAB gets its way, local TV stations will continue to be carried by cable TV retailers, and they will continue to enj oy favored treatment vis-a-vis non-broadcast programmers.

A local TV station doesn't have to provide a usable signal to all viewers within its DMA. Simply by virtue of operating a broadcast transmitter within its DMA, a broadcast TV station licensee has preferential access to cable TV distribution networks:

- Mandatory carriage by either must-carry or retransmission consent rules.

- Mandatory access to the basic tier.

- Exclusive geographic territory based on half-century-old market definitions.

If you're saying that many programmers will bypass broadcast stations and deliver their programming directly to cable TV retailers, I agree. They've been doing just that since 1977. But that hasn't killed broadcast stations.

Which elected officials? Congress, the puppet of the NAB? Or your Local Franchising Authority, forever addicted to that 5.26% franchise fee?

What kind of "cheaper solution" do you have in mind, if not "Comcrap et al"?

I think you're a generation behind. The generation that came of age in the 90s was already used to cable TV.

That didn't kill local broadcast stations. It did, however, largely erase the perceptual distinction between broadcast and non-broadcast programming. In the minds of members of that generation today, cable TV is just television. Beyond the fact that some channels may be more likely to have local news, they simply don't perceive a distinction.

Perhaps so. But never underestimate the power of the NAB.

I submit that video distributi> AFAIK, no TV station currently streams its signals. But I doubt

That would be me. You're right.

Broadcast stati> However profitable TV stations are, they are also serving as

That argument ignores the fact that broadcast stations have preferential access to satellite and cable TV retail distribution networks.

"Network brass" folks already understand that they can reach "something like 80% of their current audience" without paying local stations "carry" (properly known as "compensation") fees. Indeed, if they distribute their programming directly to cable and satellite retailers, they can actually *charge* for it instead of paying compensation.

But they also understand that if they try to bypass local stations and sell their wares directly to cable and satellite retailers, they lose their government-mandated access. Their programming becomes just one more video stream in an already-crowded field. The retailers decide what programming they carry, not the federal government.

Neal McLain