Comcast merging with NBC Universal isn't just the source of comedy on last season of 30Rock; it's apparently also bad for America itself. Or, at least, that's what Media Access Project policy director Andrew Jay Schwartzman thinks.
Schwartzman wrote a post on Deadline Hollywood arguing why the Comcast/NBC Universal deal would be bad for America, Hollywood and the future of the internet, amongst other things. It may sound over the top, but he makes a persuasive case:
Even if you don’t care about the future of democratic discourse in the age of the internet, if you’re reading this, you will probably care about the industry. And this transaction would have lasting and dangerous effect on Hollywood. It will further solidify cable’s bottleneck on the video distribution of TV and features and enable cable to pay less for such content. And, perhaps most importantly, it will kill off the emerging market for “over the top” distribution via the Internet, depriving producers of the opportunity to develop direct relationships with competing distributors and even with individual consumers.
Simply put, cable owns the customers, and it wants to keep it that way.