Posts Tagged ‘tv’
exploring the comcast nbc universal deal
02 Dec, 2009 • posts i've written • 2 comments
Yesterday it was announced that Comcast will seek to own 51% of NBC Universal, formerly majority owned by GE – who will be retaining a 49% stake in the company. Before the deal was announced, GE had secured the remaining ownership of the company from Vivendi (for $5.8 billion).
Of course, the deal still has to be approved by regulators, but the implications for such a deal are interesting to consider.
It would seem that GE believes broadcast television to be a riskier investment today than it was in 2004. In fact, NBC Universal reported an earnings drop of 45% in Q1 of this year.
GE is hedging their bet with the offering provided by Comcast; which makes absolute sense because our consumption of media isn’t falling, but our delivery methods are diversifying.
A Comcast + NBC Universal company would certainly be an entertainment juggernaut.
NBC Universal owns and operates two television networks, numerous cable networks, local stations, motion picture companies (including Universal Studios), a number of television production companies, and multiple theme parks.
Comcast is the largest cable operator in the United States, providing cable television (serving around 25 million subscribers), broadband Internet (around 15 million subscribers), and telephone service to both residential and commercial customers.
Content production and delivery under one roof, with delivery given the steering wheel, as it were. Comcast could offer Hollywood films direct releases to its millions of cable TV or internet subscribers the same day a movie hit theaters (or before, or instead of releasing it to theaters).
Comcast could package television content and sell it through its own service (most likely a paid tier of Hulu).
And Comcast could certainly challenge the streaming services of Netflix and provide tiered subscription services to its cable customers with access to television and film content on-demand.
We’ll have to wait and see how this deal passes through regulators, but there’s certainly a great deal of opportunity ahead for such a business.
mcconaughey
05 Sep, 2008 • posts i've written • 1 comment
I’ve been nursing a new concept for television situational comedy. It’s a vehicle for one of the greatest actors of our generation, and surely our most prolific nude bongo player; his prowess in netting the hottest of Hollywood’s starlets precedes him, and he, like Madonna, Prince and Mr. T, need only be known by one name: McConaughey.
The gist: Three’s Company meets Dharma & Greg meets Joey meets Growing Pains meets Two and a Half Men.
While living in Portland, Matt (Mathew McConaughey) experiments with new ways of living, like being vegan (ewww), riding a bicycle everywhere (weird!) and wearing only organic clothes. (as if!) While Matt struggles, hilariously, with his new lifestyle, he also begins to fall in love with his Aunt and Uncle’s next door neighbor, Alice the high school principal (Josie Davis, aka Sarah Powell from Charles in Charge — what a comeback!) and becomes a mentor to the neighborhood hooligan, Jimmy (Haley Joe Osment).
Although Matt feels a deeper connection with Alice and Jimmy, he still gets in trouble with his old ways of sleeping with beautiful strangers, drinking and covorting with his famous friends (Lance Armstrong makes an appearance in the pilot), and generally being a shallow but always lovable human being.
I even have the theme song picked out. Here’s a taste:
Replace the low “ma na ma na”s with “McConaughey”
Listen to it and hum it to yourself and see if you can get it out of your head.
Now I need your help to make this over-indulged dream a reality! Pass on this link, Digg this page, Stumble it, send it to all of your TV exec friends, etc, etc.
And Matthew, I’m in no way dimishining your talents by putting you on the small screen. Consider it an option for later in your career, when you get tired of all those amazing movie offers.
