Well, the rumored deal has become fact.  A few short days after GE cleared the last hurdle by buying out minority partner Vivendi, the parent company of NBC Universal has sold a majority of its stake in NBCU to the nation’s largest cable television provider, Comcast.  The deal will initially be a 51/49 split, with the idea being that Comcast will slowly raise its stake in NBC Universal over the coming years.   The deal turns the already dominant Comcast into an even more significant player in the cable television field, but it’s not all bad (thought it probably is pretty bad).  After all, TV Squad points out 5 changes that Comcast could make to NBC that would make the network a better property.

That’s the one good thing about network change-overs.  When you move stuff around at the top, the new executive can pretty much do whatever he or she wants.  Then again, change-overs in the Comedy Central/Sci-Fi Channel top brass caused my favorite show of all time, Mystery Science Theater 3000, to be cancelled repeatedly.  So it’s not all good.  But in this case, it could be.

Case in point: all I’ve ever wanted is a 24-hour, uncensored horror channel.  Comcast property FearNet does this, on-demand style.  NBCU’s Chiller is a horror channel, but it isn’t uncensored and features a lot of old TV shows.  If they could somehow work more FearNet content into Chiller, then I’d finally get my dream.   I doubt the soul-sucking corporate vamptopus will do anything that awesome, though.

Image: Boing Boing

Tags: mergers, television, cable television, broadcast television, NBC Universal, Comcast, NBCU, General Electric, GE, Comcast buys NBC

I’ve never had a problem eating food from a gas station.  Just two weeks ago, I ate a couple of hot dogs purchased from a gas station.  They were delicious.  That’s not the first time I’ve eaten gas station food, and I doubt it will be the last.  There’s nothing like a fun food novelty. […]

Commissioner Roger Goodell gathered 32 NFL owners for one big question.  One of the league’s most wanderlust-stricken franchises is looking to move again.  The Oakland-Los Angeles-Oakland Raiders, tired of gutting it out in a run-down stadium, were once again looking for greener pastures.  Only the Miami Dolphins refused to cooperate.  With a vote of 31-1, […]

In 2006, an injury to Dallas Cowboys starting quarterback Drew Bledsoe opened the door for an undrafted free agent by the name of Tony Romo to take the helm of America’s Team and lead the Dallas Cowboys to an early playoff exit.  Bledsoe went from starter to afterthought in a season.  Now, the circle continues […]

For 89 years, Oscars has never had a major mistake.  The last few Oscars might have had a few flubs, but at least they never got the most important category of the night wrong.  Well, that’s now changed, all thanks to OG Bonnie and Clyde legends Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway.  When Faye Dunaway called […]

Tom Brady has been wildly successful, if controversial.  He’s the first quarterback ever to win five Super Bowls and only the second player to do so after Charles Haley.  Unlike Haley, Brady won all his Super Bowls with the same team, the New England Patriots.  The only thing that seems to be able to stop […]

Ben Affleck, no matter what you might think of him, is a talented actor and director.  He’s got the goods, but he’s smart enough to know when he’s in over his head.  All along, since he took on the mantle of Batman, he’s had his eyes on writing, directing, and starring as the Caped Crusader. […]

In May, students for the for-profit American College of Education were running into some problems.  Their access to email accounts and course information was locked down by Google, who had disabled their accounts.  The reason why?  A fired IT worker for the American College of Education locked the school out of their Google cloud account. […]