Sen. Franken the Stick in the Spokes for NBC-Comcast Merger?

Image from source, ARS Technica

Full disclosure: I'm a regular Franken Fan. I'm a big fan of Al Franken's books, his radio show, his writing on Saturday Night Live and his short-lived sitcom, LateLine (which really should have had a longer run). So I'm pretty happy that he's already becoming sort of an ass-kicker in the Senate. Oh, wait, Jon Stewart reminded me about over-exaggerated blogging. I just mean that for a comedian, he's really taking the job seriously, and is fairly vocal about it. And he drives right-wingers to distraction. Love that.

Trust-busting and monopoly prevention I always thought had their roots in conservatism. But I guess since Jimmy Carter busted up AT&T in the 70s (which seems today to be re-conglomerating like Terminator 2 into bigger clumps), conservatives don't really mind merger madness. That's the way it seems anyway, with major mergers becoming commonplace during the Bush era. Wait, you mean it's not a good idea to have nearly every major casino in Las Vegas owned by two companies? That circumstance (MGM/Mirage and Harrah's are the two) happened in recent years, seemingly with no resistance whatsoever. It seemed to happen a lot.

Now I'm just a humble home blogger, so these could just be my impressions. Maybe statistics don't show the issue to be partisan at all. But I'm still glad that Franken isn't letting the big NBCUniversal (already merged) marriage to Comcast occur without at least making them sweat a little.

[Excerpt]

Sen. Franken to Comcast, NBC execs: merger no laughing matter

Comcast and NBC Universal didn't get a whole lot of love at Thursday's emotional Senate and House hearings on their proposed merger. But company representatives did get plenty of questions. At the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Wisconsin Democrat Herb Kohl cracked no smiles as he ran through four "principal areas of concern" about the deal: potential programming price hikes, loss of free over-the-air TV content, hobbling independent programmers, and weakening Internet TV. . .

Read more at: ARS Technica