Official: Comcast to Acquire 51% Stake in NBC

News
By Jane McEntegart
published

It's a story that has been heavily reported all week and now it's official: Comcast and General Electric have announced that Comcast will acquire a stake in GE's NBC Universal.

Bloomberg today reports that in a deal valued at $37 billion, Comcast, the country's largest cable television company, will start a joint venture with NBC Universal, strengthening its push into programming.

Comcast will contribute cable channels worth over $7 billion and acquire a 51 percent stake in NBC, which means it will gain control of the USA, CNBC, MSNBC and Bravo cable channels, NBC’s broadcast networks and stations, a film studio as well as some amusement parks. On top of all that, Comcast also pay GE $6.5 billion in cash.

TechCrunch reports that the new venture will operate with three directors nominated by Comcast and two from GE. The business' head quarters will remain in New York.

Read more about the deal on Bloomberg.

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Jane McEntegart
38 Comments Comment from the forums
  • fulle
    This news makes me sad.
    Reply
  • deadlockedworld
    Stay tuned for the NBC special on the evils of net neutrality.

    And at 11pm--Why are the the horrible nerds using up all your porn bandwidth?
    Reply
  • this is great news for the world to hear. just one step closer to global domination. oh and watch the new old dogs movie! it's hilarious!!!
    Reply
  • ravewulf
    Not sure I like this at all. I'm still very wary after they tried to buy Disney.

    NO ONE messes with my Disney. *glares at Comcast*
    Reply
  • maigo
    They should make Monopoly with corporations
    Reply
  • billin30
    Bye bye free Hulu
    Reply
  • mustwarnothers
    "It all boils down to them shit-soaked pigs

    The pigs, the pigs, the dregs of what y'all aim for
    The gluttonous muddy stomachs under the pudgy cakehole
    Two-track braniacs using the food and payroll
    To chew up and consume every cookie, crumb, and peso

    And place a cloven hoof on the lucrative when convenient
    As the bourbon-odor smokers' coughs smolder off the Cohiba

    If Noah had the benefit of hindsight on his ship
    He could've snatched two unicorns and left behind the motherf$@king Pigs.
    Reply
  • tayb
    Gee. I wonder how Comcast has enough $$ to pull off a purchase such as this. If we believe all the BS coming from these giants they are just losing money right and left... poor them. But, miraculously, they still managed to have some 37 billion in the pockets just in case they wanted to buy a majority share of NBC!

    Hey, it's cool. No need to update your internet lines to provide more bandwidth. Not like the rest of the world has faster internet speed than we do in the US. You keep spending billions of dollars at a time and simultaneously complaining that "downloaders" are hurting your bottom line.

    It doesn't hurt the lips to talk about of separate sides of the mouth?
    Reply
  • skora
    Theres some of us that are still pissed that Comcast, who owns Versus, and Direct TV couldn't come to a deal so DirectTV users don't get Vs. Guess what, now they probably won't get NBC stations either. DirectTV will have to buy ABC and Dish will have to buy Fox, so you'll have to have 3 providers and none of them will have overlapping stations except for QVC. We'll never get rid of that one.
    Reply
  • Great. Now NBC's prime time lineup will not only suck, but you won't be able to stream the episodes because their bandwidth is capped :P
    Reply