Price Tag for Hulu Continues to Rise

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El Segundo, Calif.-based pay-TV service DirecTV reportedly is one of three suitors waving more than $1 billion at the owners of Hulu, LLC in hopes of wresting away the on-demand streaming video Web site, according to a Bloomberg News report.

Hulu's owners, News Corp., Comcast and Walt Disney Co., may be tempted by the sweetened pot to unload Hulu after their previous IPO and auction efforts came up short. Hulu airs webisodes, trailers, clips and other advertising-bolstered content from movie studios and cable and commercial networks.

The Bloomberg News article noted the other two seven-figure bidders besides DirecTV, the nation's second-largest pay-tv company, have not yet been identified.  Other companies who have tendered offers to acquire Hulu include Time Warner Cable, Inc., Yahoo! Inc. and private equity firm KKR & Co.

Comcast Completes NBC Universal Purchase a Year Early

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Philadelphia-based cable giant Comcast paid Fairfield, Conn.-based General Electric $16.7 billion this week to purchase the remaining 49 percent interest in NBC/Universal, a year ahead of the planned completion of the acquisition (see "TUOL" post 9/2/11), according to accounts by Bloomberg News, Mediabistro.com and others.

The deal, expected to be finalized by the end of March, fattens GE's bank account by $12 billion, includes a $4 billion debt guarantee from Comcast, $700k in preferred stock and another $1.4 billion to acquire real estate, including NBC's 30 Rockefeller Plaza building and CNBC's Englewood Cliffs, N.J., headquarters.

Comcast takes on the NBC broadcast network, cable networks Bravo, USA Network and MSNBC, as well as Universal Studios and the Universal theme parks. According to the Bloomberg News article, NBC Universal's enterprise value has jumped to $39.1 billion from $37.5 billion when Comcast initially gobbled up 51 percent of the entertainment company.

As a Comcast subscriber, "TUOL" may have something further to say about the merger in the future, on a weekday, between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m.

Ex-NBA Great Scottie Pippen Moves Forward with Libel Suit

Image by Getty Images via @daylifeNBA Hall of Fame Forward Scottie Pippen, 46, has filed a defamation suit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois Eastern Division against 10 Web sites, claiming the media defendants falsely alleged he had suffered more than $120 million in financial losses and had filed for bankruptcy, according to the BET (Black Entertainment Television) Web site.

The 17-page Complaint in Scottie Pippen v. Comcast Corp. et al. (Case No. 1:11-cv-08834) alleges defamation, negligence and false light against the defendants and reads as if it were prepared by an avid Chicago Bulls fan, replete as it is with Pippen's noteworthy scoring and rebound achievements. Among the media defendants in the suit are Comcast-owned CNBC, CBS Corp.,  Sportsreport360.com, Evolve Media Corp., Yakezie Network and the University of Tampa Minaret.

The plaintiff alleges he lost out on numerous endorsements and appearance fees because of the purportedly erroneous statements concerning his financial condition.

FCC Judge: Comcast at Fault in Treatment of Tennis Channel

Image via WikipediaIn his 59-page ruling this week, FCC Administrative Law Judge Richard L. Sippel aced Comcast, finding the cable Goliath violated the agency's anti-discrimination carriage rules in its treatment of the Santa Monica, Calif.-based Tennis Channel.

According to articles in The Los Angeles Times and The New York Times, Judge Sippel ordered Comcast to pay a $375,000 fine and cease its discriminatory treatment of the Tennis Channel. His decision is subject to a vote by the FCC before it becomes final and were the five-member Commission to uphold the ruling, would almost certainly be challenged by Comcast in  federal appellate court.

Judge Sippel said Comcast placed the Tennis Channel at a competitive disadvantage by not including it in a basic cable subscription as it did its own GolfChannel and Versus sports network, but rather, added the Tennis Channel to a more expensive collection of stations that have fewer subscribers. Nearly all 22 million Comcast customers receive the basic package, whereas only roughly 2.5 million dole out for the premium subscription that boasts the Tennis Channel, according to the newspapers' accounts.

"Although Comcast Cable claims that it denied Tennis Channel broader carriage based upon a cost-benefit analysis, the record shows that Comcast did not analyze the benefits that would accrue from giving Tennis Channel greater penetration," Judge Sippel wrote in his opinion. The FCC enacted program carriage anti-discrimination rules in 1993.

UPDATE: Federal Judge Okays Comcast NBC Purchase, Retains Oversight

Image via WikipediaIn U.S. v. Comcast (Case No. 11-cv-00106), U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Judge Richard J. Leon this week approved the cable giant's acquisition of NBC Universal, Bloomberg News reports, but the federal court will retain oversight to monitor arbitration actions by video distributors.

In giving the thumbs up to the purchase that the FCC okayed by a 4-1 vote last January (see "TUOL" post 1/18/11), Judge Leon, cognizant of online video distributors' fears that the merger would freeze them out of NBC content and concerned the proposed arbitration process would squelch appeals, plans to convene annual hearings for at least two years at which Justice Department attorneys will present data on the number of arbitration requests by video distributors and whether the requests were approved or refused. Judge Leon also wants information on how many arbitration denials wind up before the FCC. Neutral arbitrators would oversee any such distributor dispute.

The Court's final judgment is set to expire in seven years.

FCC Cmr. Baker Takes the Cake in New Role as Comcast Veep

Image by Getty Images via @daylifeMeredith Atwell Baker, one of two Republican commissioners on the FCC who voted in the 4-1 majority to allow Comcast to purchase NBC Universal (see "TUOL" post 1/18/11), is leaving the regulatory agency at the end of June to become senior vice president for government affairs for Comcast, The Washington Post reported today.

Baker, who served in the Commerce Dept. during the Bush Administration, will be barred forever from lobbying any executive agency, including the FCC, which was one of the conditions for approval of the Comcast/NBC union. Likewise, having signed the Obama Administration's ethics pledge in 2009, she had already agreed not to lobby any FCC personnel for two years after she left the agency.

She can, however, immediately on assuming her new position, focus her efforts on lobbying members of Congress--the best and the brightest public officials money can buy--on the cable giant's behalf. The rules permit regulatory federal government agency members to go to work for companies in industries in which their former agencies are supposed to serve as watchdogs, which is why true reform in Washington, D.C., like the reception Comcast subscribers in certain parts of the country experience, is hard to come by.

UPDATE: FCC Blesses Comcast & NBC Universal Marriage

Image via CrunchBaseThe FCC today voted 4-1 to approve cable giant Comcast's purchase of NBC Universal from General Electric, which is expected to be finalized later this month, marking the first time a broadcast network will be cable owned (see "TUOL" post 12/04/09).

The combined media conglomerate will boast more than 16.5 million  broadband subscribers, 23 million cable viewers and a bevy of familiar cable channels, including Bravo, MSNBC and USA, according to a story in today's Washington Post.

Although the FCC found the purchase to be in the "public interest," it did impose certain requirements on the new media monolith. Comcast/NBC was allowed to retain its stake in Hulu, which Walt Disney Co. owns, along with NBC  and News Corp.  Comcast, however, will have to offer its content on the Internet to online video distributors at the same rate and under the same conditions as offered to cable and satellite providers, and must also boost its diversity programming for Spanish-speaking viewers, among other conditions.

Drowning NBC Grabs Hold of Cable

Comcast Corp., the larguest cable operator in the U.S., this week reached agreement to purchase NBC Universal from General Electric.

The deal results in a joint venture in which the Philadelphia-based Comcast owns 51 percent and GE 49 percent. GE will receive roughly $6.5 billion from Comcast, which also is providing cable channels to the venture, including E!, the Golf Channel and Versus.  NBC's cable channels, including SyFy, Bravo, USA, MSNBC and CNBC, are what sparked Comcast's interest in the acquisition. NBC Universal honcho Jeff Zucker keeps his job, but will report to Comcast bigwig Steve Burke.

"The Biggest Loser," is not only one of NBC's few hit shows, but also an apt description of the faltering network, which ranks fourth in viewers among ABC, CBS and Fox.