Comcast/NBCU: Who answers Fox News?

It's really not Comcast's fault alone that we're plunging towards an era in which local cable monopolies have extraordinary market power over both information and connections.

Comcast sees an opening - "why not let pipes own content? we've done it before" - and is taking advantage of a politely confused lull in public attention to information policy. It is alarming, however, that public policy actors appear to be poised to let the Comcast/NBCU merger go through. It is, of course, in Comcast's interest to make this seem inevitable.

Here's an undeniable problem: What happens to MSNBC post-merger? Right now, it's providing the only response to Fox News. Comcast won't want to irritate Fox - you can't be a pay-TV distributor without Fox News, in the same way that you can't be a pay-TV distributor without ESPN. Fox News is a truck running downhill. It's a huge player. Comcast has already shown that it will fire reporters that irritate Fox. Just think how easy it will be - slowly, over years, imperceptibly - to dull the edge of MSNBC once it is owned by Comcast. In an era in which the only investigative reporting around is arguably being provided by ComedyCentral, that has to be a problem.