Newswise — The announced deal between General Electric Corp. and Comcast Corp., giving the cable provider majority ownership of NBC-Universal, raises many intriguing questions for the new partners, competitors and consumers. Saint Joseph's University (Philadelphia) professors Claire Simmers, Ph.D., and Jim Caccamo, Ph.D., see multiple layers of promise and pitfalls from the acquisition.
Simmers, professor and chair of management at SJU, calls the move “brilliant” for Comcast, but worries about the potential difficulties competitors will experience when licensing content from NBC. “Comcast will have the right to charge huge amounts of money to companies like Verizon, Netflix and Blockbuster to have their content available through those services,” she says. “Content providers are going to be left with the decision of whether to pay the fees or leave NBC programming out of their offerings altogether. Meanwhile, how does the competition keep up? Does Disney have to find a way to partner with Verizon?”
Simmers also says that, while the deal could mean major convenience for current Comcast subscribers, the potential lack of competition may put other consumers in a tight spot. “If you already use Comcast, there’s a possibility that you will be able to see a lot of new content on demand or available for download through Comcast’s Internet service,” she says. “Why would you want to leave home? At the same time, though, Comcast is known for poor customer relations, and if they decide to become the exclusive providers of some content, your alternatives will be limited.”
Social ethicist Caccamo, an assistant professor of theology, warns of another danger of potential exclusivity. “Comcast would have several news content creators in its stable, and would be under little obligation to provide alternative [news] networks on its system,” he says. “Will loss of some subscribers be enough of an incentive to keep alternative voices in place?”
He also worries that the new partnership may give Comcast more muscle to resist technologies that make content available to more people. “In the past, Comcast has strongly worked against ‘the little guy’-- keeping small vendors out of the cable marketplace, testifying against net neutrality, and opposing the development of the ‘wireless Philadelphia’ initiative,” he notes. “Their lack of interest in thinking creatively about the future of digital media suggests that they will not contribute to efforts to revise our aging copyright and intellectual property laws, so that our laws and business models fit the contemporary American context and sense of justice.”
Simmers and Caccamo are available to comment on the Comcast-NBC deal.
RSS