Comcast Roundup: Antitrust reviews begin of NBC deal, carrying ESPN 3d and More

Every Thursday morning at 8:30 a.m. EST, find all the stories you need to know about your friendly telecommunications giant in the Comcast Roundup. Get an e-mail subscription for our Comcast news updates.

• The Washington Post reports that the Justice Department will begin an antitrust review of the Comcast-NBC merger.
• The Post also reports that a Senate Judiciary subcommittee and a host of other House and Senate panels want to review the deal.
• The Silicon Alley Insider reports that Comcast is in talks to carry ESPN’s announced 3d sports channel.

Below, the power of Comcast’s top attorney, the Tennis Channel is pissed and More.

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Comcast Roundup: Who saved the NBC deal, enemy of Google and More

Every Thursday morning at 8:30 a.m. EST, find all the stories you need to know about your friendly telecommunications giant in the Comcast Roundup. Get an e-mail subscription for our Comcast news updates.

Yo, the Comcast news isn’t going to stop, even for Christmas Eve.

DEFINITE READS

The Inquirer’s Bob Fernandez revives the storyline on how the Comcast-NBC Universal merger happened, beginning at the Four Seasons on the Ben Franklin Parkway and tying to Comcast’s CFO Michael Angelakis.

Reuters reports that Comcast may have shrewdly structured its deal with GE to allow for a cost-effective purchase of the remaining 49 percent of NBC by the middle of next decade.

Below, buying ice from the Spectrum and Google on net neutrality.

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Comcast Roundup: Competing with ESPN, greatest Comcast photo ever and More

Every Thursday morning at 8:30 a.m. EST, find all the stories you need to know about your friendly telecommunications giant in the Comcast Roundup. Get an e-mail subscription for our Comcast news updates.

• Yo, Happy Thanksgiving. Comcast is celebrating, first by bringing the Yule log to OnDemand in HD, and in more ways below.

• Forbes reports that this Thanksgiving, employees of Comcast, General Electric, NBC and Vivendi should all pray that the deal to give Comcast a majority stake in NBC goes through. If the deal fails, Forbes suggests, all those involved will be hurt.
• New York Times Media Decoder blog reports that Upper Darby princess and now NBC star Tina Fey hosted an Ad Council event and liberally joked about the possible Comcast-NBC merger. “It leaves me wondering,” she reportedly said, “will I have to change the name of my show from ‘30 Rock’ to ‘Industrial Park Along the Schuylkill River’?”

After the jump, Chicago Tribune video on becoming a Comcast customer service agent and the photo we hope will someday be on the currency of the global nation state that Comcast creates after it outlasts Google and Facebook in a universal war of empires. We assume this will happen in 2012.

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[UPDATED] Comcast Roundup: NBC deal awaits Vivendi approval, Cohen called most powerful Philadelphian and More

Updated: 11/12/09 @ 11:19 p.m.: Vivendi no comment on NBC deal

Every Thursday morning at 8:30 a.m. EST, find all the stories you need to know about your friendly telecommunications giant in the Comcast Roundup. Get an e-mail subscription for our Comcast news updates.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Comcast and General Electric have agreed to value NBC Universal in the neighborhood of $30 billion, one of the final details of their impending deal. As the Inquirer’s Bob Fernandez reports, whether or not French cable company Vivendi—with a 20 percent stake in NBC—will exercise its ability to veto the deal, may be announced today during its third-quarter earnings call. The Inquirer reports that Vivendi executives gave no comment during the call.

But Bloomberg reports that Vivendi has little reason to move on the deal and may hold out to get a better deal.

The LA Times entertainment blog reports that “no major regulatory hurdles” need to be jumped for the Comcast-GE deal to happen.

After the jump, the most powerful man in Philadelphia, rivaling ESPN and more.

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