NBC Universal JV

Comcast Interactive Capital, the venture capital arm of the nation's largest cable operator, said that it will provide seed funding for five minority businesses through a partnership with DreamIt Ventures.

Seattle-based ivi TV, the live streaming television company enmeshed in a protracted legal battle with broadcast TV companies, has filed a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain all correspondence, files, records and e-mails of Federal Communications Commission member Meredith Attwell Baker and her staff which relate in any way to ivi Inc. and its brand, ivi TV.

NBC would receive “around 50%” of its affiliates’ retransmission consent revenue as part of the still-tentative arrangement under which NBC would hold the proxies of affiliates and negotiate retransmission deals with cable and satellite operators on their behalf, according to Brian Lawlor, chairman of the NBC affiliate board and head of the E.W. Scripps TV group.

NBC and its affiliates have worked out the framework of an arrangement that would see the network handle retransmission consent negotiations with subscription-TV providers on behalf of its partner stations.

While there's nothing illegal about a Federal Communications Commission member taking a job with a company whose multibillion-dollar merger she recently voted to approve, it probably wouldn't pass a consumers' sniff test.

House members in both parties are concerned about the decision by Federal Communications Commission Commissioner Meredith Attwell Baker to leave the agency for Comcast/NBC Universal.

Federal Communications Commissioner Meredith Atwell Baker will reportedly depart the agency in June to occupy a corner office at Comcast-NBC -- the company whose multi-billion mega-merger she approved just months ago. In so doing she joins a long line of "public servants" who have spun government jobs into gold at the expense of the American people they're supposed to represent.

Even as Jeff Bewkes oversaw the separation of Time Warner and Time Warner Cable, he said that Comcast combining its cable business with NBC Universal is a similar maneuver.

Attorney General Eric Holder told Rep Maxine Waters (D-CA), at a House Judiciary Committee oversight hearing, that the Justice Department was not trying to regulate by consent decree in its merger review process, that its Comcast/NBCU merger review was "appropriately aggressive," and that the White House's courting of GE CEO Jeff Immelt did not and should not have played any part in that decision-making process.

As he eases into the role of chief of Comcast's NBCU, Steve Burke is doubling down on an idea that's fallen out of favor in the media business: synergy. While other media companies are breaking apart to streamline, Burke is fixated on strengthening ties between assets as diverse as theme parks and cable channels like CNBC to pump up interest in NBCU's franchises.

Last week, Comcast announced that it is creating a new position in the company called “Executive Director of Diversity and Inclusion” and appointed Maria G. Arias to take on its responsibilities.

A Comcast regional sports network will assume sports coverage for an NBC TV station in northern California, the first case of the cable company's sports content replacing a traditional sports report at an NBC broadcast affiliate.

Cross-channel promotion is nothing new in the still-strong cable and satellite TV distribution world. But channel-carriage promotion is another story.

Comcast has asked the Federal Communications Commission to put a “top secret” stamp on its deal with Hulu.