Why Big Media Won’t Stand Up To Comcast

Buzzfeed's Peter Lauria makes the observation that while a lot of people attended Comcast's Senate panel on Wednesday, representatives from rival big media companies were notably absent. Which is a pretty good indication of the power Comcast welds, even before the TWC merger is approved.

Not CBS or Viacom, both controlled by billionaire mogul Sumner Redstone. Not 21st Century Fox, owned by billionaire mogul Rupert Murdoch (Sensing a theme here?) Not Time Warner. Not Disney. Not Discovery. None of these companies had anything to say about a merger that will hand Comcast control of roughly 30% of the nation’s television homes and 19 of top 20 markets. We already knew NBC Universal wouldn’t have an opinion about the merger since Comcast already owns that company. But the silence of the other companies, which collectively are worth $360.2 billion, said more than any of their testimony ever could.

And what the collective said boils down to this: Don’t bite the hand that pays you.

Comcast’s single biggest expense is on programming, for which it paid out $9.1 billion last year. The bulk of that money went to the six companies who suddenly lost their tongues.