Antitrust Review Planned of Comcast’s Purchase of NBC

[babsbunny]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/07/business/media/07comcast.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&src=ig

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: January 6, 2010

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department says it will review Comcast’s proposed acquisition of NBC Universal’s broadcast network, cable channels and movie studios.


The deal, announced late last year, will also be reviewed by the Federal Communications Commission.

Even though federal regulators are expected to approve the combination, many analysts and watchdogs expect them to attach significant conditions to ensure that rivals in the subscription TV market can still get access to popular programming owned by the merged company. Regulators are also likely to attach obligations to prevent Comcast from dropping smaller, independent channels from its lineup.

[Sebastian Doyle]

1. Ironically, most Comcast markets are already favoring NBC's competition.

Fucking bastards recently scrambled all the formerly "basic" channels that could be picked up with any digital QAM tuner. Then less than a week later they start shilling for this "great deal" on a lower tier digital channel package for $19.95/month for a year.

It includes a few channels which might be useful, like Comedy Central, the Cartoon Network, and AMC, among others. But the news channels included are CNN and FAUX. No MSNBC.

What a damn rip off. Less than two years ago I was paying $46 a month for cable internet AND 70+ channels of TV (though I might have ever watched 25 of them and less than 15 on any semi regular basis.

Now I'm paying $60 for just the internet and the local affiliate channels that my QAM tuner will still pick up. How do these greedy corporatist pigs get away with this shit?