Actually I'll go one further. The affiliates of NBC are screwed. Let's use Denver and Atlanta as good examples of this. Gannett operates the NBC affils (K*USA and WXIA). The major cable co. is Comcast.
Comcast suddenly has no incentive to negotiate with Gannett in either situation for retrans. Gannett tries to make Comcast pay for its signal, Comcast says nope, we'll just take your programming to one of our cable channels. This poses I don't know how many questions about the viability of NBC as a service anymore. -----Original Message----- From: Tom Wolper [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Wednesday, December 02, 2009 11:24 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [TV orNotTV] Will NBC actually surrender? On Tue, Dec 1, 2009 at 8:51 AM, Wesley McGee <[email protected]> wrote: > Many have joked about how the actual flagship network of NBC Universal > was the cable network USA while NBC was simply a cable network with an > odd distribution system involving the use of numerous radio towers. > Diane Mermigas is the first person who I have read to suggest that NBC > U consider (at who knows what level of seriousness) packing up the > peacock and sending it off to cable. > > http://industry.bnet.com/media/10005152/nbc-tv-network-could-convert-t > o-cable-under-comcast-ownership/ I don't understand how anybody can write an article about this topic and not mention the affiliates at all. The future of Hulu is marginal compared to the impact of dropping hundreds of affiliate stations as well as all over-the-air access. Last year in Pittsburgh Comcast moved MSNBC to the digital tier. So if NBC/Comcast went through with this, Brian Williams and the NBC Nightly News would go from a major news broadcast (such as it is) to a niche show on digital cable. And when this recession finally ends and advertisers start buying commercial time again, NBC will have lost its place at the table for good. Tom -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en
