Comcast drops $125 million on a looong list of emails

SDH Comcast dug into its deep pockets, not to purchase a newspaper or smaller cable company, they dropped some cash on Dailycandy.com, a shopping newsletter for the shopping female to fluff up its Comcast Interactive offerings. Comcast CEO Brian Roberts no doubt ran this by the wife and got positive feed back. However the real winner in this is Bob Pittman, the man who played a huge roll in the dumbest merger in the history of American business. Pittman paid $3.5 million for the newsletter and now he and his partners at the Pilot Group are walking away with that and much much more. We're shocked to hear that Viacom was also in the running to acquire the site but was out bided by Comcast. Viacom sure does have a bad rep of being out bided don't they. Wonder if Viacom Prexy Phil Dauman will lose his job over this latest miss? Look for some kind of tie up with Comcast’s The Style Network and E! Entertainment Television programming.

Looking back at some of our look backs

We don't like to stir up bad memories...OK who are we kidding? We live for this shit! Anyway, remember this Businessweek cover story featuring one of the main architects of the worst merger in the history of American business? Well many say this was the cover that led to the near death of Time Warner. Ok we said it! We did a look back on the good old times of Jerry Levin when he was on top of the media world as CEO of pre-merger Time Warner. What is now called old media was all the rage back then, cable, print, you name it. Time Warner was king. Until.....well you know! Some of you may not remember but there was a time not too long ago when Comcast CEO Brian Roberts thought he was actually going to buy Disney. He believed so much that he even did a "Bob Pittman" by doing a premature Businessweek cover. People will do anything to sell an idea won't they? Seriously, where would Disney be today if this deal did happen?

The cable guy wants to be the phone guy too

-SDH For Brian Roberts, CEO of mega Cable company Comcast, and the man who wanted to buy Disney, the battles go on and on. He along with counterparts like Time Warner Cable’s Glenn Brit are facing a cap off by the FCC which will stunt the growth of their companies. But this isn’t the only battle Brian Roberts faces. See in addition to being the biggest cable provider in America, he may end up being the fourth-largest residential phone company if all goes to plan. But of course in business nothing ever if rarely goes to plan. Roberts is facing a showdown with companies like AT&T, and Verizon who aren’t liking the fact that he is about to trespass on their turf. In a Q&A with Portfolio.com Fortune.com, Roberts answers questions regarding these and other challenges he faces as he pushes Comcast into new directions. Comcast CEO: Investors are wrong about us [Fortune.com]

Looking Back: Where in the world would Disney be today if they did get swallowed by Comcast?

-Shomari Hines Remember back in 2004? The media industry thought it was going to have to digest yet another mega merger between cable giant Comcast and Entertainment giant Disney. The media blitz that always surrounds such rumored mergers was already in full swing with cover stories and none stop coverage in newspapers and on business TV shows. But it never happened? Was it because plans to merge got out too quick? Did Comcast CEO Brian Roberts do a Bob Pittman and do the cliche Businessweek cover? Or did Mike Eisner realize he was out of his mind? To be honest we have no idea why this was even thought about at all. A company like Disney should never sell out. Disney is truly an American institution that should be preserved and luckily a CEO is in place that is doing just that. Mike Eisner must have been really desperate, then again if we remember correctly, at that point we don't think Eisner had much choice as Roberts reportedly went over his head. We just had to touch back on this because we were wondering where would a Disney Comcast marriage be today. Comcast was only in it for the content and the content only. So where would that have left Disney? Would the Disney name even exist today? Below is a link to the Businessweek cover story that accompanied Brian Robert’s premature cover shot. Go back in time when we all thought Walt would come back from the dead only to die again, this time from terminal disappointment Mega Media Mergers: How Dangerous? [BusinessWeek Feb 2004 Issue]