Cable and Content Get Married

Television stars are said to be “larger than life.”  As if mimicking the stars, media industries are competing to become bigger and bigger.

On Tuesday, the Department of Justice and the Federal Communications Commission both approved the merger of Comcast Corporation, the nation’s largest cable and internet service provider, with NBC Universal, one of the country’s largest and oldest content companies.

What you watch and your means of watching it will be controlled by the same company.

According to Corie Wright of Free Press, “If you read the FCC’s order approving the merger, you will search in vain for anything that says that the Comcast-NBC merger itself will result in more competition, lower prices, or more diversity. That’s because it won’t. Neither will our media system be better for this deal having gone through. Indeed, all signs point to the exact opposite outcome.”

Mergers typically result in layoffs, not new positions. However, with a merger of this gigantic proportion, there will be new positions created, new third party supplier relationships created and destroyed, and lots of people looking for new positions. In the local markets in which they operate and in media industry cities such as New York, this will certainly cause some interesting hiring movement.

What effect will this huge merger have on the economy?  What effect will it have on how our media-driven culture operates?