A free-market cable regulator is named chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, setting tongues wagging on Wall Street that a much-needed deal will be made.
One of the world’s largest media organizations is dramatically changing its business model, separating its cable programming from the rest of its company to settle for several deals.
Coincidence? Not even close, according to telecom bankers and lawyers assessing this week’s developments on Wall Street and in Washington.
FCC Commish Brendan Carr is poised to head the agency and enact market-friendly changes to the ailing media business as giant media conglomerate Comcast announced it will split into two different companies.
Yes, there’s little debating that Comcast’s new business model — highlighting cable properties like MSNBC, CNBC, etc. — is the result of a more deal-friendly administration taking over the sprawling administrative state in D.C., industry insiders tell On The Money.
A much broader dispute, according to these sources, is whether Comcast’s new cable company — and the overall reorganization of the business — makes the entity either a buyer or a seller of assets in the major media consolidation that network executives believe is underway. it’s coming
Media executives, along with those bankers and lawyers who specialize in deal work, are making both cases. With the rise of 5G, it’s not just Comcast’s cable operations that could see profit margins shrink in the future (the latter, of course, from cord-cutting).
Comcast’s balance sheet will come under additional pressure because it will charge fewer people to use its traditional cable lines for connections.
Throw in the heavy leftist bias of programming (MSNBC at the top of the list, followed by all those crappy virtue-signaling movies from Universal in the other half of the company) that most consumers find repulsive, and both parts of this company may have to sell items to survive long term.
In my view, the bull case for Comcast in its new form is equally compelling. Separating the cable material will give it a chance to grow. MSNBC and CNBC are still quite profitable, and the new company, SpinCo, can use those profits to gain market share.
He could become the last man standing as most other cable networks disappear or develop a digital strategy similar to what CNN is trying to do.
Yes, 5G is supposed to be the future, but we’ve been predicting the future for a long time, and Comcast’s cable pipes still generate significant revenue.
In the deal scheme of things, it almost doesn’t matter because Joe Biden’s FCC combined with his leftist DOJ antitrust division and Lina Khan’s deal-hating Federal Trade Commission are ready to be kicked out.
Trump has installed the much more deal-friendly Carr, as well as like-minded people in other regulatory agencies.
That’s why media industry insiders tell me they can’t wait for the deal to begin.
#Trumps #FCC #Pick #Comcasts #Spinoff #Plans #Coincidence
Image Source : nypost.com