Comcast & NBC-U

Comcast and NBC-U...the speculation is on and perhaps another tectonic shift in media begins to gather energy for a release that shakes the market. Comcast, and especially Brian Roberts, have been on the hunt for a combination with a major content player with studio productions units--the rebuffed offers to Disney a few years ago showed how the future could look. Bringing together the cable and studio production holdings of NBC-U with Comcast's distribution and programming assets would be a power indeed, and with the growing viewership of Hulu and Fancast (interesting competition issues there) a combined Comcast-NBCU makes content "king" in a new way.

An interesting possibility with such a merger is what happens with the O&Os and the broadcast network. With the continuing pressures on broadcast, and perhaps as a way to ease the regulatory reviews, might the broadcast side be split off and sold? While the broadcast stations and affiliates have great value as distribution platforms, especially in the advent of digital broadcast, if content is the key and with Comcast's distribution, the future of the broadcast assets may be the most interesting component of this kind speculative combination.

This is why the industry remains so much fun.