Malone: Content Consolidation Coming

Liberty Media chairman John Malone said that he sees consolidation of content companies as inevitable. Malone said that scale economics can apply to content companies as well as distribution firms. “It's all about global scale. If you want to be a meaningful player in most of any of these media communication businesses, you have to think about it," Malone said. Malone told said that other deals are ahead, possibly even including his own assets. “"Whether it makes sense or whether they want to do it? Who knows?" he said.

Malone also praised Netflix CEO Reed Hastings for creating what he called the “random-access” environment for content. While that will drive the need for more programming going forward, Malone added it won’t hurt cable companies like Charter, who sell the needed broadband connections to access that content. “The fact that we have high-speed connection, having something like Netflix is good,” Malone said. “From the video business point of view he's taken a share of viewership, and that might not be good."