Stupid Cupid?

Ta Da! As ya'll might have already heard-GE announced a joint venture with cable giant, Comcast: a $37.25 billion deal that will give the cable company 51% ownership of NBCU and 49% owned by GE. Looks like Cupid might need a little more practice before Valentine's Day comes along...

I honestly don't know what to think about this move. I understand NBCU might be considered the "ugly duckling" of GE, an "odd" unit among the company's core competencies including energy, capital, and healthcare-profiting this conglomerate in these bad economic times. But has GE forgotten the stable foundation on which NBCU is still on? Remember the Friends era? What about Seinfield and Cheers? Perhaps also take a look into the results of the Time Warner/AOL merger...happy ending? Maybe not so much...

Sure, the media unit might be suffering more than the others, but I believe NBCU is what makes GE diverse and full of fun, profitable potentials. In these economic times, why decide to give up a potentially still profitable opportunity? Shouldn't we be keeping our options open? Why not take advantage of other competitors shrinking, and start turning around the unit? Are we forgetting that the ugly duckling still matures as a beautiful swan and lives happily ever after in the end?

And then there are the consumers. What happens to us? Isn't our buying power shrinking enough in this industry? Of course I don't have cable in my apartment, so I'm not so worried about possible rising cable bills, but what about our beloved Hulu.com? The popular online video streaming partnership with ABC and Fox has given NBC content more availability to consumers, generating huge buzz for shows like 30 Rock and The Office. So what if NBC decides to charge for its content again? Consumers are already used to watching their favorite shows for free online, wouldn't charging for content just turn consumers away to cheaper alternatives?

It will be interesting to see how this all plays out in Washington. Hopefully someone will notice the seriousness on the rise of Internet video content. Regulations seriously need to be put into play before cyberspace takes over the media industry because this merger will possibly create one of the largest media conglomerates in history. Hopefully this will challenge NBC and create more unique opportunities that NBC might not have with GE. I suppose it will also be interesting to see how Comcast choses to play its cards.

I understand the media industry has rough playground rules, but does this mean GE absolutely needs to pull out?