nbc

Two members of Congress are having some doubts about the proposed merger between Comcast and NBC Universal.

Representatives Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Edward Markey (D-Mass.) wrote letters to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski, citing potential issues that could affect competition in the television market, as well as with how consumers are presented with content.

The Washington Post first reported on the letters.

"The proposed Comcast-NBCU transaction would allow Comcast to acquire an unprecedented concentration of national programming assets," Congressman Markey wrote to the FCC. "The joint venture would give Comcast the power, should it choose to … Read more

Hulu Plus is trying to become a better bargain.

The video portal backed by Disney, Fox, and NBC Universal said today that it has trimmed the monthly price of its subscription to $7.99, an obvious sign that the service is struggling to acquire customers.

In June, when Hulu first began charging for a premium service, the cost was $9.99. Then Hulu Plus met with considerable criticism from users. Much of the content was also available at Netflix, and while that Web video service charged the same price, it didn't force subscribers to also sit through ads like … Read more

NBC, CBS, and ABC had already said no to Google TV, and today Fox Broadcasting made it unanimous.

News Corp.-owned Fox became the last of the broadcast networks to block full episodes of its shows from appearing on the software platform that enables users to view Web content and video on their home TVs, according to multiple sources with knowledge of Fox's move.

A Fox spokeswoman declined to comment.

Fox executives didn't reject the offering as soon as the other networks because it was evaluating the platform, the sources said. Now that the evaluation is over, the … Read more

Costs from its pending acquisition of NBC Universal and lower subscriber growth took a bite out of Comcast's third-quarter earnings.

For the quarter ended September 30, the cable company reported net income of $867 million, an 8.2 percent decline from $944 million in the year-ago quarter. Net income per share was 31 cents for the quarter just ended, compared with 33 cents a year ago. Earnings were impacted by the $66 million in total expenses that Comcast was forced to take in relation to its NBCU transaction. But the third-quarter profits were also hit by a 3.5 … Read more

Links from Friday's episode of Loaded:

The HP Slate is available now and we have an in-depth look at it

Google TV seems to be blocked by ABC, NBC, and our parent company CBS

The Barnes and Noble Nook will go on sale at Wal-Mart this weekend

FaceTime for Mac may jeopardize your passwords

Google TV has the network television industry's attention.

Certain television shows on the Web sites of broadcast networks CBS and ABC are currently being blocked when Google TV users try to access those sites. The Wall Street Journal also reported that NBC confirmed it was blocking streams to Google TV users, although CNET was able to view shows on NBC.com using Google TV. (CBS.com is published by CBS Interactive, which also publishes CNET.)

The decision to block the programs only seems to affect full-length episodes available on the Web sites of those companies, and it began in … Read more

NBC Universal has ended a two-year-old arrangement with Google that allowed the Internet giant to sell ad space on several NBC cable channels, according to a report.

The Los Angeles Times reported today that the network has called off the deal, whereby Google sold ad space on NBC's Syfy, Oxygen, MSNBC, Sleuth, and Chiller channels by way of its Google TV Ads online marketplace. The marketplace lets companies get help in creating commercials; choose networks, programs, and time slots for showing them; and monitor--through data recorded by set-top boxes--how many household TVs are tuned to a commercial when it … Read more

Hulu, the video portal that is one of the most successful Web properties created by so-called old media, is planning to raise as much as $300 million from a public offering according to a story published today by Reuters.

The "clown company" has made good. That's how YouTube employees referred to the service before it launched in 2007. But there's nothing silly about a company with a $2 billion valuation. Hulu has emerged as legitimate competitor to the Web video leader, Google's YouTube.

But the race in online video has increasingly turned away from user-generated … Read more

Don't expect Time Warner content on the Apple TV anytime soon.

Speaking at the Royal Television Conference in London this week, Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes said that 99-cent rentals of his company's television shows makes no sense as far as the bottom line goes.

"How can you justify renting your first-run TV shows individually for 99 cents an episode," Bewkes said, according to the Hollywood Reporter. He added that doing so could "jeopardize the sale of the same shows as a series to branded networks that pay hundreds of millions of dollars and make … Read more