![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
So one of the biggest cable TV companies wants to buy one of the other biggest cable TV companies. This would give Comcast, renowned for lousy customer service (but then again, so is TW), huge leverage against content creators and TV channels for pricing content. And with a court recently throwing out the FCC's regulation of network neutrality where internet providers cannot charge premium prices for some services or block other services entirely, think 'Hey, Netflix, be a shame if something happened to your transfer speeds....', this could be a major game changer.
Comcast acquiesced to a voluntary neutrality ruling when they bought NBC Universal a few years ago and regardless of the court invalidating the FCC's rule, they're bound to it. However, that ruling expires in a few years, and unless Congress does something about it (yah, and monkeys might fly out of my butt) they will be free to extort or block content that they don't care for.
http://www.wired.com/business/2014/02/comcasts-45bn-time-warner-buy-change-everything/
Another group that's probably not too happy to see this merger are the cord cutters. The CCs have internet access, but no cable/satellite TV: they get all of their television from Hulu, Netflix, iTunes, etc. through Roku devices and their like. They're going to get stung because Comcast prices their base internet access and base cable TV very close together, so Cutters aren't going to save as much money as they have in the past.
If the link should go dead, since it's on the NY Times web site and thus paywalled, search for "Comcast vs the Cord Cutters".
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/16/business/media/comcast-vs-the-cord-cutters.html?_r=0
Comcast acquiesced to a voluntary neutrality ruling when they bought NBC Universal a few years ago and regardless of the court invalidating the FCC's rule, they're bound to it. However, that ruling expires in a few years, and unless Congress does something about it (yah, and monkeys might fly out of my butt) they will be free to extort or block content that they don't care for.
http://www.wired.com/business/2014/02/comcasts-45bn-time-warner-buy-change-everything/
Another group that's probably not too happy to see this merger are the cord cutters. The CCs have internet access, but no cable/satellite TV: they get all of their television from Hulu, Netflix, iTunes, etc. through Roku devices and their like. They're going to get stung because Comcast prices their base internet access and base cable TV very close together, so Cutters aren't going to save as much money as they have in the past.
If the link should go dead, since it's on the NY Times web site and thus paywalled, search for "Comcast vs the Cord Cutters".
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/16/business/media/comcast-vs-the-cord-cutters.html?_r=0
