Comcast Prepares To Get Even Larger With Sky, Fox Acquisitions
from the what-could-go-wrong dept
The cable company Americans love to hate is about to go supernova. Comcast acquired NBC Universal back in 2011, giving the company unprecedented control of not only the conduit into the house, but also the information and news being sent over those wires. And while regulators affixed some flimsy conditions to the deal, Comcast managed to ignore many of them, a major reason why regulators moved to block Comcast's acquisition of Time Warner Cable a few years ago.
Because we're unwilling to learn much of anything from history, Comcast's now on the verge of growing significantly larger. The company recently unveiled a $30 billion plan to acquire European pay TV giant Sky. And this week, reports began to bubble up indicating that if regulators approve AT&T's $86 billion acquisition of Time Warner, Comcast plans to make its own, massive $60 billion bid for the lion's share of 21st Century Fox assets:
"Comcast Chief Executive Brian Roberts only plans to proceed with the bid if a federal judge allows AT&T Inc’s planned $85 billion acquisition of Time Warner Inc to proceed, the sources said. The U.S. Department of Justice has opposed the AT&T-Time Warner deal over antitrust concerns, and a decision from U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon is expected in June."
By all accounts, AT&T is likely to defeat the DOJ in court, meaning Comcast's latest megamerger is likely to move forward. The bid is an effort to undermine a similar bid for Fox from Disney, a company Comcast has had an adversarial relationship with ever since executives rebuffed Comcast's $54 billion Disney acquisition offer back in 2004. And while this deal wouldn't include the Fox broadcast network or Fox News, it would include Fox's 30% ownership stake in Hulu (Comcast also owns 30%), it would include numerous U.S. and global operations as well as the lion's share of Fox's film properties.
That said, there's still cause for worry here. Comcast's conditions affixed to its NBC Universal merger just expired, giving it newfound freedom to do things like meddle with Hulu's competitive potential. Should Comcast also nab Disney's 30% stake in Hulu, the company will have full authority to try and hamstring Hulu's ability to disrupt Comcast's own streaming or traditional video services, which is a shame given that Hulu just figured out that it should aspire to something greater than being a glorified ad for traditional cable TV.
Comcast's explosive growth spurt comes as the company has not only successfully lobbied to kill net neutrality and consumer privacy protections, but is quietly securing a massive monopoly over broadband in many markets. At the same time, industry BFF Ajit Pai at the FCC is happily gutting decades-old media consolidation rules designed to protect smaller media outlets from exactly this type of rampant consolidation. For good measure, we're also watching as lobbyists dismantle both the FCC's and FTC's ability to hold Comcast accountable when it engages in anti-competitive behavior.
This provides the cable giant with ample leeway to use its combined domination of both content and broadband to hamstring competitors in an absolute ocean of creative new ways. If you thought the country was having any real conversation about the possible anti-competitive implications of this perfect storm of consolidation, monopoly dysfunction, and dismantled government oversight of telecom monopolies, you'd be wrong.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: antitrust, competition, consolidation
Companies: 20th century fox, comcast, sky
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Rinse. Repeat a few decades down the road.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
State Actor
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: State Actor
more like "government blessed"
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: State Actor
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: State Actor
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: State Actor
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
First came the acquisitions. Then came the consolidation with one brand after the other being eliminated.
Then came the micro brewery craze as the people could not stand the MBAed crap bear being produced.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
This is why a free market is necessary, but the pro regulation folks are not able to understand that. Even now, with free-market more than destroyed they continue to blame it for their woes.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
While free-market is the ideal, there are obviously going to be certain regulations that will be handy in helping keep it that way. Right now we have totally destroyed the free-market so that not even a company with the financial means like Google can enter the market to provide any competition. It is literally taking local governments to start that and even a few of those are failing because of regulation.
Before we allow a politician to regulate anything we must first make sure they understand "HOW" we want them to regulate and what must absolutely be off limits for them. Until then, all calls for regulation are really just heard as calls for a power grab by politicians and code for businesses to stop caring about the consumer and instead... care about the regulator.
If you were in business, would yo go to the powerless consumer or the powerful politician to keep your business alive? If you can "buy" the politician into creating pro-incumbent regulations behind closed doors while publicly hating that regulation as unwanted controls, why would you not do it? You get a win win! Not only do you get the people to "want" that regulation, you also get them to give the power to an easy to buy politician.
"Just look at China's pollution issue or the pollution we had in the 60s-70s."
The ones that China generally ignored and also mostly got an exception too for still being a "developing" nation? They still have nasty smog problems, BUT China is already catching up and nearly getting ahead of America in renewables and tech as well and is going to outright BUY America out from under us soon enough. These regulations have only served to do more harm than good to America and China is laughing all the way to the bank. The regulatory zeal is being clearly used against us now and its not even a secret.
"There are other regulations that should be focused on that prevents startups and protect big business."
Definitely agree with you there, but those efforts are stigmatized as "de-regulatory" and immediately earns a non-Grata from certain political groups.
Just the idea of regulation has already been politicized to the point were as you have alrady proven, not being pro-regulation is considered being as "completely anti regulation"
Anything can be far worse, the problem here is that people are trying to cure a problem that cannot be cured. Instead we only need to make remedy "available" NOT "force it or control it" as regulation will tend to do.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
I can fully understand that. A drink made from bears must taste dreadful! ;)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
Controls the US, perhaps. But they're having the opposite effect in the rest of the world. If there's one thing Fox and Trump will be known for, it's eliminating US soft power.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Been singing this tune since the mid 90's
Would remove Facebook from their walled garden of 3rd world connections.
Would remove Comcast from owning NBC Universal, MSNBC et
Would block Disney from creating their walled garden and blocking media on "rival" networks.
Would allow openings for connection only providers that do much better at pricing and connection speeds.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Been singing this tune since the mid 90's
Unfortunately government is Pro-trust. Businesses are easier to control when they are large and lumbering.
This is NEVER going to happen. I do mean that literally, too many people and politicians want these monopolies, not in their words mind you, but in action they do!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
Dick, Dick, Dick?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]