For the longest time NBCUniversal and its parent company, Comcast, did not take cord cutting seriously. Now it seems as though Comcast has decided to take cord cutting seriously and cash in on the movement.
Over the last few days NBC has made a few changes that will allow it to make more money from cord cutting.
First it has decided to cash in on commercials for cord cutters. In what always seemed like a weird decision NBCUniversal-owned channels decided not to advertise on services such as Sling TV, PlayStation Vue, and DIRECTV NOW. Instead of seeing commercials between show segments you just got a “we will be right back” on channels such as MSNBC and even the Golf Channel.
This always seemed like a missed opportunity as NBCUniversal was giving up ad revenue it could have been making with these commercial breaks. Now it has had a change of heart and is now happy to make some additional revenue from cord cutters.
Second NBCUniversal has struck a deal with its independently owned and operated local NBC TV stations to sell streaming rights as a group. That means no longer will Sling TV, PlayStation Vue, and DIRECTV NOW have to make deals with each NBC station in every market but can now just make one large deal and get rights to stream all NBC locals.
This won’t be happening overnight because services such as Sling TV, PlayStation Vue, and DIRECTV NOW all need to strike new deals and pay more for rights to all the locals. Although you may start seeing your local NBC affiliate appear faster than you would under the old system.
So why is this such a big deal? For years now NBC has put its toe in the cord cutting waters but has not made a serious effort to reach out to cord cutters. Now it seems like it is doubling down on cord cutting and that can only lead to good things for cord cutters.
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