Wednesday, January 19, 2011

FCC Approves Comcast Takeover of NBC Universal


The FCC has given final approval to a $30 billion dollar takeover by the nation’s largest cable television company, Comcast, of the television and movie giant NBC Universal. The merger gives Comcast control of the NBC network, the Spanish-language Telemundo, cable channels including MSNBC, dozens of local television stations and the Universal film studio. The FCC vote was four to one, with commissioner Michael Copps casting the lone dissent vote. Media democracy advocates have widely criticized the merger. Josh Silver of the group Free Press spoke to Democracy Now! on Tuesday.
Josh Silver: "The Comcast-NBC merger is going to increase prices for consumers, it’s going to make independent voices even more scare on commercial television dials and it’s going to cut out independent programming even further from the commercial dial. Yesterday’s announcement of this merger flies in the face of Obama’s stated commitment to oppose media consolidation when he was on the campaign trail and it bodes terribly for the future of the Internet. We expect to see higher costs for access, for cable programming for Internet access. And, at the end of the day, less choices for consumers and higher prices."

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