I guess the whole "Leno at 10pm" thing didn't work out so well for NBC, huh?

GET YER FILTHY ISP HANDS OFF MY INTERNET!!!

In the past Comcast moved MSNBC to a higher paying plan, lowering its viewership. I just wonder what will happen to NBC after they own it.

This is just believable.

I suppose this is part of Comcast's plan to do whatever they can to make money off of NBC shows, considering they charge $.99 an episode for NBC shows through "On Demand", even though those same NBC shows can be had on Hulu or NBC.com for nothing.

It's COMCASTIC!

Watch 30 Rock!

Thursdays at sometime between 6pm and 10pm!

@classic10: Absolutely nothing, as NBC isn't on cable.

@Smashville_makes his own comments at home:

Comcast CSR: How may I help you?

Me: I've been waiting six hours for 30 Rock to air, and it still hasn't.

Comcast CSR: We tried to air it at 6:03pm but you weren't home.

Me: What!? Yes I was!

Comcast CSR: We can reschedule an airing on Saturday two weeks from now between 11am and 10:30pm.

Ugh, just when I was starting to enjoy Hulu + Internet = 25/month cable bill.

I'm sure they'll add an internet tv package, only 59.99 a month, 79.99 for HD! And 10.99 for the proprietary Hulu box and mandatory PowerBlast 5000 Internet plan you must sign up for to get Hulu, only 69.99!

Does this mean we'll get commercials for shows saying they'll be on between 8:00 and 8:30, but then the shows never actually come on at that time and later claim they were on your TV, but you just never turned it on?

if this makes it through, i wonder if comcast will start charging DirecTV, Dish Network, Verizon, etc premiums for NBC programming.

So Comcast is the Sheinhardt Wig Company?

I'm skeptical, I was working for them when they tried to buy Disney, that never happened.

How does this affect Morty Sheinhardt?

@Al Swearengen: not for long!

@sleze69: Other than, say, 30 Rock, I'm not sure much has been working out so well for NBC lately.

And by "lately" I mean "ever since Seinfeld and Friends ended."

So they will take a horrible network and make it worse! It's comcraptic!

[darthno.ytmnd.com]

@coss3n:
Not sure if you're joking...Sheinhardt Wig company is a joke pertaining to 30 Rock. In 30 Rock the Sheinhardt Wig company owns GE which owns NBC.

@coss3n: The picture proves it.

Any further concentration of media ownership ought to be illegal. In fact, it ought to be illegal for cable companies to to own programing suppliers, whether broadcast networks or cable channels. The cable companies raise rates claiming they are being charged more by the programming suppliers, but of course they own the programming suppliers, too. Where is anti-trust enforcement and the FCC when we need them?

@reservoir_dog: Seriously though, it's hard to imagine them screwing everything up right away, but I cannot fathom this being a good thing for NBC. I doubt our favorite shows would be very affected, since nobody would want to mess with the best hour of comedy on TV, but my experiences with Comcast make me think this would be very bad.

"A deal will play to investors' worst fears about Comcast's capital allocation." Yep. Might not really be a good call for anyone.

@Chris Walters:
@Smashville_makes his own comments at home:
You guys just made my day.

@Chris Walters: You forgot the surcharge for a missed airing, and the surcharge for rescheduling an airing.

@Chris Walters: Two weeks later:

Comcast CSR: How may I help you?

Me: I was supposed to have a 30 Rock airing today, but I was given a Joey rerun instead.

Comcast CSR: Let me pull up your account here...okay, according to our records, 30 Rock is not compatible with your area. Therefore, you were given the equivalent service.

Me: The equivalent of 30 Rock in my area is Joey reruns?

Comcast CSR: For an extra $5.99 a month, I can upgrade you to Inside Schwartz reruns.

@coss3n: No...just a subsidiary.

Just because there are in talks about buying it, doesn't mean anything, they don't own it yet, and if they did, so what.
NBC needs to do something, the only good shows on there are 30 Rock and SNL.
But on the other hand, look what they did to Tech TV.

So, they somehow have money to spend billions on this, yet at the same time claim they have to raise subscriber fees 2-3 times a year and claim they're not gouging us. Hah.

"Uhhh Comcast? Yeah, all my channels are highly pixellated except for the local NBC affiliate and CNBC. Even MSNBC seems to have the problem."

"Let me schedule a person to be at your house- you'll need to be home from the 4th to the 10th from 8am to 11pm."

@coss3n:
Comcast: "Not Poisoning Rivers Since 1997."

@HRHKingFridayXX: This is my primary concern as well. Comcast will do dirty, dirty things to hulu.

@Woodside Park Bob: You can thank Clintonian neoliberalism. Deregulation in 1996 made potential moves like this one possible.

Providers of content and owners of the communication lines really should not be part of the same company, but there's very little that's illegal anymore.

[www.pbs.org]

Since broadcast TV is dying I wonder if this is such a great idea UNLESS they are playing to turn NBC into pay-TV with lots of Comcast plugs.

@HRHKingFridayXX:
where are you that the internet only costs $25 a month, comcast charges me $63 a month for just internet because i don't have cable, i can get basic and the total cost would be $55 a month, but that's bull. i had the drop it to 33 for the next six months. but cable internet should be no more than 30 or 40 a month.

@Woodside Park Bob:

"The cable companies raise rates claiming they are being charged more by the programming suppliers, but of course they own the programming suppliers, too."

Actually, they don't. Very few cable channels are owned by distributors. The only ones of any significance are Versus and E! (owned by Comcast) and AMC (owned by Cablevision). All the rest are owned by companies that don't own cable or satellite operations. Big change from a few years ago, when News Corp (which owns Fox, Fox News, FX, etc etc) controlled DirecTV, and Time Warner (HBO, TNT, etc etc) owned Time Warner Cable.

DO. NOT. WANT.

@logicalnoise: Yeah. I'm sure if this happens, all shows associated with the company will be removed from Hulu and anything like it.

Isn't Comedy Central owned by NBC? That would mean no more free Daily Show or South Park online either.

@nullrout: I think that was the point of coss3n's post...

@Colonel Jack O'Neill: HOLY crap Tech TV!!

@squinko - needs one more heart click, come on!: comedy central is a Viacom property

WSJ is quoting analysists as saying the deal "would help protect the cable company from the grave threat of online video."

It's pretty obvious that Comcast is actually interested in owning either one, or both of NBC's corporate holdings:

* Winnipeg Iron Works
-- and/or --
* The Ahp Chanagi Party Meats Corporation of Pyongyang, North Korea (makers of the Whoopi Goldberg Meat Machine)

@sleze69: Actually even if Leno at 10pm doesn't work well it did cut their expenses significantly. Even if Leno is last in the time slot the cost of the show is so much lower than the 5 hours of drama/comedies that it took the place of.

@coss3n: Oh, no. No. You see, GE owns Kitchen-All of Colorado, which, in turn, owns JMI of Stamford, Connecticut, which is a majority shareholder of PokerFastLane.com, which [in 2006] acquired the Sheinhardt Wig Company, which owns NBC, outright. NBC owns Winnipeg Iron Works, which owns the Ahp Chanagi Party Meats Corporation of Pyongyang, North Korea.

It's all explained in the landmark docu-drama, The Rural Juror [en.wikipedia.org]

Just what we need.

@Papercutninja: Ahh, TechTv... also know as Kevin Rose's awkward phase and when Martin Sargent wasn't being mistaken for Geof from Ace of Cakes.

Hulu, I hardly knew ye.

@Veeber: And that's the sole reason why it will take NBC a long time to yank Leno's new show off the air. They'll have to replace it with five new shows.

Actually, the ratings have been acceptable and the local stations are, on average, pleased with it so far. The viewership drop off from the first few nights was not unexpected. But I'm not convinced it's anything more special than the old show at 11:35. If anything, Conan's ratings will suffer because of this.

@edosan: Uh, scroll up a bit. You were about two minutes late to the game. :-)