Good-bye progressives on MSNBC?

[LaPera]

Scroll and read the posts of this Huffington Post article/column, the members posts tell it all, especially the many Comcast subscribers posts!

Too Big to Block? Why Obama Must Stop the Comcast-NBC Merger

By next week, cable giant Comcast is expected to announce a deal to buy NBC-Universal, the biggest proposed media merger in recent memory. Comcast, the largest cable company and the No. 1 Internet service provider in the nation, would take over the NBC empire: a television network, Universal Studios, MSNBC, CNBC, USA Network, Telemundo, the Weather Channel, Hulu.com, 27 television stations and a host of other properties. The merger could be announced as early as Sunday.

This train wreck of a deal will hurt all over. It will mean increased costs for cable television service; currently free online NBC content locked behind a pay wall; less opportunity for the distribution of independent media; even fewer choices and less programming diversity. On average, nearly one quarter of all channels offered to cable subscribers will be owned by the bloated Comcast.

The Comcast-NBC deal is black and white: It would create a company with too much market power, and it would further starve Americans of the diversity already missing from our media marketplace. It raises the most basic antitrust issues for an administration that has declared both the importance of media diversity and an intention to be far more vigilant against anticompetitive conduct and abuses of market power.

(Article & posts)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/josh-silver/too-big-to-block-why-obam_b_356826.html

[Hubert Flottz]

1. Deregulation strikes again.

Pretty soon the truth will be a thing of the past like it is in China or North Korea or Iran. Or 1939 Germany.

[chimpymustgo]

2. What you said. Does OUR FCC have the balls to stand up to the corporations?

[deutsey]

3. No. n/t

[Hubert Flottz]

7. Shiftless, truth-less, ruthless and toothless...

The Reich Wingers are determined to totally undermine freedom and liberty. The neoCons gutted any real regulatory power that the US government watchdog agencies ever had.(the watchdogs have no teeth) Congress has no teeth...

[appal_jack]

4. Well,

I agree, Hubert, except that I'm pretty sure that "Pretty soon..." happened around 1994. What separates us from China, NK and 1939 Deutschland is that we pay for the propaganda they feed us, and the remaining illusion of freedom is more robust than in those other times and places.

-app

[Hubert Flottz]

8. I'm pretty sure you're right.

We have been sliding down a "slippery slope" and the bottom is in sight.

[Mari333]

5. oh great, will all the newspeople be from India?

[Bitwit1234]

6. Comcast has already been stopped from blocking

content of emails. What do you think they will do when the take control of these channels and all the rest. The newswaves will be controlled by the conservatives and that's all the news we will get. And that's all the content we will get is what they allow us to see.

[voteearlyvoteoften]

9. I hope this is not true

Comcast is a poor company...we don't need them in charge. Very serious if true.

[rvablue]

10. I don't know about that. Just look at the interview Oprah did this week for proof.

In TV, ratings and money rule the day.

If MSNBC take Keith, Rachel and Ed off the air their ratings will PLUMMET.

These people are still in the business of making money. Can't see how they'd put their cash cows out to pasture, but also don't think that it's an utter impossibility.

With that said, having all of these media outlets all owned by but a few corporations is not good for the American people.

[tritsofme]

11. Yes, because it would make sense for them to shut down their highest rated programs.

Sigh.