Pulse2 Technology and Social Media News » General Electric Co

FCC To Allow Comcast-NBC Merger If Show Exclusivity Stops On Hulu

Amit Chowdhry — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 22:35:31 +0000

In December 2009 Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ:CMCSA) made a deal to acquire NBC from General Electric. This deal is facing scrutiny from the government. The FCC said that one of the proposed conditions if they allow the deal to take place is that NBC would no longer have the exclusive rights to their shows on the Internet. This means that Hulu would not be the only web video service that has the rights to stream NBC shows. The three owners in Hulu are NBC, ABC, and FOX. [AllThingsD]

GE Buys Out Opal Software

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 17:44:22 +0000

General Electric Company (NYSE:GE) has acquired Opal Software, a company that designs engineering software for electric, gas, and water utilities. Opal’s software can quickly migrate data between multiple platforms. GE software can also be integrated into non-GE systems using Opal’s software.

Opal is based in Australia and will be rolled into GE’s Digital Energy business in the Asia-Pacific region. “Opal Software’s products and project management services are integral to the delivery of GE Energy projects,” stated GE general manager Matt McKenzie. “[They] will help secure GE as a smart grid technology leader and meet the needs of the fast-growing Asia-Pacific region.”

[TechCrunch]

Vivendi Sells 20% NBC Stake To GE For $2 Billion

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 02:16:31 +0000

French media company Vivendi has sold its stake in NBC to G.E. for $2 billion. Vivendi had owned 20% of the broadcasting company. After Comcast completes its acquisition of NBC, Vivendi will sell the remaining 12.34% it owns to G.E. for $3.8 billion. Vivendi CEO Jean-Bernard Levy said that the company can use the sale of NBC to buy 100% of telecommunications operator company SFR. Vivendi owns 56% of SFR. [NYT]

GE Buying $325 Million Worth Of Ads From NBC Over Next 5 Years

Amit Chowdhry — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 07:34:13 +0000

Comcast may be the new majority shareholder in NBC, but General Electric has promised to buy about $345 million worth of ads from the TV network over the next 5 years. About $59 million will be spent each year, adding up to the $345 million. GE will also buy $50 million worth of 2012 Olympic Games ads. NBC owns the rights to the 2012 Olympic Games broadcast. The financial details of this transaction was revealed on an SEC filing.

Last year, GE spent $1.2 billion for advertising and most of that went towards marketing NBC Universal movies. The filing also revealed that Comcast cannot sell its stake for at least four years and GE cannot sell its stake for at least 3.5 years. After that period of time, Comcast will have the right to buy out NBC completely.

Comcast agreed to pay $6.5 billion in cash along with $7.25 billion in assets to gain control of NBC. The whole deal was valued at about $30 billion.

General Electric Selling Control of NBC To Comcast, Deal Valued At $30 Billion

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 23:23:47 +0000

Comcast Corporation and General Electric has entered an agreement that would give Comcast the controlling interest in NBC Universal Inc. Comcast is paying $6.5 billion in cash and the cable company agreed NBC to maintain its editorial independence for NBC News. Comcast is also currently negotiating buying NBC Universal as a whole. To appease shareholders further, Comcast agreed to pay the annual cash dividend to 40% which is almost $0.38 per share next year.

Comcast said that the merger makes them “strategically complete.” Comcast said that the reason why for buying NBC was because the network owned highly profitable TV channels such as USA, CNBC, MSNBC, Bravo, and Syfy. Comcast will own 51% of NBC. The deal values NBC at about $30 billion.

“This deal is a perfect fit for us,” stated Comcast CEO Brian Roberts. “We are honored that under this agreement Comcast would take over stewardship of this important collection of assets and are absolutely committed to investing in NBCU and ensuring that it is a vibrant, financially strong company able to thrive in a rapidly evolving marketplace by delivering innovative programming.”

“This deal is a perfect fit for us,” Roberts said in a statement released shortly after 6 a.m. “We are honored that under this agreement Comcast would take over stewardship of this important collection of assets and are absolutely committed to investing in NBCU and ensuring that it is a vibrant, financially strong company able to thrive in a rapidly evolving marketplace by delivering innovative programming.

Hulu Gets Better & Better! Now They Have RSS Feeds

Amit Chowdhry — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 01:52:03 +0000

Hulu is proving more and more everyday that they are not Clown Co. Hulu has just made a solid move for catering to those that prefer having RSS aggregation websites as their browser homepage.

Now Hulu has a way to add RSS feeds for several categories of videos on their site including: Recently Added Videos, Recently Added Shows, Highest Rated Videos, Most Popular Videos, Most Popular Videos This Week, Most Popular Videos This Month, Most Popular Videos All Time, Soon-To-Expire Videos.Â Personally I’m going to take every one of these RSS feeds and add them to a separate tab on my current homepage, Netvibes.

There is also an Add Video check box that allows Hulu to embed the video within the RSS feed aggregation box.Â This feature is not quite supported yet, but I’m sure it’s a work-in-progress.

What makes these RSS feeds interesting is that Feedburner powers them.Â Feedburner is owned by Google and Google owns YouTube, a Hulu competitor. Oh, the irony.Â No matter what you do on the web, it somehow connects to Google in some sort of degree.Â Just like all of us are six degrees from Kevin Bacon, every Google competitor is 2 degrees away from Google.

Another interesting feature of Hulu is the ability to embed videos into social networks.Â This will surely drive additional hits to Hulu.Â Hulu is currently ranked 3,000 or so on Alexa and growing.Â Below is a screen shot of Hulu in my Netvibes.

Great feature, keep it up Hulu team.

Hulu’s content is provided by Time Warner Inc. (NYSE:TWX) through NBC and warner Bros., General Electric Company (NYSE:GE) through NBC, MGM Mirage (NYSE:MGM), Sony Corporation (NYSE:SNE), and Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. (NYSE:LGF),