After months of rumors and speculation, Comcast is officially taking over NBC Universal, effectively giving life to a media gargantuan that could potentially dominate broadcast and digital media like no other force presently in existence.
The $30 billion deal, however, will likely spark a regulatory battle born of the natural concern that too much “power” now lies with one company.
A critical component of the “power” alluded to is the enormous presence that Comcast and NBC will now have in the world of digital entertainment. With both NBC Universal and Comcast stepping up efforts over the last year to accelerate mobile content distribution, officials for Comcast have repeatedly expressed their desire to keep NBC and Universal entertainment reaching the biggest audience possible.
That’s a favorable sign of things to come for both mobile content distribution and the mobile marketing industry.
According to Steven Pearlstein at the Washington Post, “The logic of the Comcast-NBC merger is that by having a strong position in both content and distribution, it won’t matter how all this plays out. For both Comcast and NBC, vertical integration is a hedging strategy that will ensure each emerges from the current competitive chaos as a survivor, no matter where on the value chain the profits and power end up.”
