World Cup helps ESPN's expansion plans

NEW YORK ESPN marketers will fan out to bars in ethnic enclaves during World Cup matches to pass out schedules and posters, just one way the sports network is using the quadrennial event to build new audiences in both the U.S. and internationally.The network’s large presence of 300 staff members in South Africa for the soccer tournament could also be seen as a dry run to help a future Olympics bid.

Either ESPN, ESPN2 or corporate sister ABC is televising every one of the 64 scheduled matches in the first year the company has the American television rights to the tournament. ESPN leased rights to televise some games in 2006, covering some of the matches with announcing teams based in a Connecticut studio.

“We think it’s a chance to advance the notion that we are a global entity,” said John Skipper, the network’s executive vice president for content.One way to do that is to start at home. ESPN will promote itself heavily in areas where the network’s emphasis on American sports makes it less interesting to residents. The Greek enclave in Queens, N.Y., San Francisco’s Italian section, Boston’s Portuguese neighborhoods and Los Angeles’ Korean communities – all with fans keen on rooting on ancestral homelands – are among the areas that will get special attention.

Besides sending people to gathering places where the games are being watched, ESPN commissioned a South African artist to make posters honoring each of the participating countries, mixing historical and soccer themes. The U.S. poster, for example, commemorates George Washington crossing the Delaware, with soccer players standing in for his troops.

The network has equipped food trucks with a giant TV on the roof, passing out specialty foods from some of the participating countries in New York and Los Angeles, said Seth Ader, the network’s sports marketing senior director.Online and on ESPN Radio, the company will give fans the option of hearing broadcasts in different languages, including Chinese, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Korean and Portuguese.

In the U.S., Univision has the rights to Spanish-language broadcasts of the matches. Although ESPN can’t offer Spanish-language broadcasts of the matches, it is moving into the territory by offering 10 hours a day of studio-based Spanish content on its ESPN Deportes network.

Getting an identification as a destination for soccer fans “is a long-term business proposition for us,” Ader said. Showing the World Cup telecast can drum up interest in U.S.-based professional soccer, which ESPN has rights to televise. World Cup soccer is also expected to be a draw for ESPN’s mobile business, too.

Soccer is also key to ESPN’s efforts to expand in international markets. The network made a big move last year by purchasing the rights to show some games in England’s Barclays Premier League.”In order to get a foothold in a number of international markets, they need to get soccer content,” said David Joyce, an analyst for Miller Tabak & Co.

Having a home team helps ESPN but isn’t vital to success, the network’s executives believe. ESPN’s experience covering the European championship in 2008 was instructive: There was no U.S. team for which to root, but ethnic pockets of fans helped the network draw a strong audience, Ader said.

For ESPN, there’s another important audience that will be watching. Following NBC’s coverage of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, rights to future games are up for grabs, and ESPN is expected to be interested. A strong performance at the World Cup could show doubting Olympics officials that ESPN would be up to covering a large, multifaceted event.

“I never think of this as a dress rehearsal,” ESPN’s Skipper said. “We think this entity is special enough as itself to merit this sort of attention. If there were no such thing as the Olympics, we would do the same thing. Having said that, we do believe this will demonstrate to people what we can do with a big quadrennial event. That’s an ancillary benefit.” (AP)

BP say capturing more oil from blown is out well

Energy giant BP Plc said on Tuesday it had sharply increased the amount of oil it was capturing from its blown-out Gulf of Mexico well, but U.S. officials want to know exactly how much oil is still gushing out.The London-based company’s share price fell 6 percent in London trading after U.S. President Barack Obama said he wanted to know “whose ass to kick” over the massive spill.He told NBC News’ “Today” show that if BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward worked for him, he would have fired him by now over his response to the 50-day-old spill, the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history.

BP already faces a criminal investigation and lawsuits over the April 20 explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon oil rig that killed 11 workers and triggered the massive spill. Some 120 miles of U.S. coastline have been soiled in the disaster that threatens the Gulf Coast’s lucrative fishing industry.

The company said on Tuesday it had collected 14,800 barrels of oil on Monday, 33 percent higher than the amount collected on Sunday and the highest capture rate since it installed a new system to contain the oil spill last week.The latest attempt involves a containment cap placed on top of the gushing pipe on the ocean floor. The total amount of oil collected over four days was about 42,500 barrels, BP said.

“We continue to optimize production and make sure we can take much oil out of that stream as we can,” said Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, the top U.S. official overseeing the cleanup effort, speaking at a briefing in Washington.Allen said on Monday neither BP nor the government knew just how much oil was gushing out of the well in the first place. “That’s the big unknown right now,” he told a White House briefing on Monday.

BP has given conservative estimates of the oil flow that have been ridiculed by scientists and U.S. lawmakers. Even the government’s much higher estimates of 12,000-19,000 barrels a day seemed on the low side after Allen said the company planned to double its collection of oil from the well to 20,000 bpd (840,000 gallons/3.18 million liters).BP and government officials have said a definitive solution will not come until August when a relief well is drilled.

OBAMA HITS BACK AT CRITICS

The spill has fouled wildlife refuges in Louisiana and barrier islands in Mississippi and Alabama and also sent tar balls ashore on northwest beaches of Florida, where the $60 billion-a-year tourism industry accounts for nearly 1 million jobs.One-third of the Gulf’s federal waters, or 78,000 square miles (200,000 square km), remains closed to fishing, and the toll of dead and injured birds and marine animals is climbing.U.S. weather forecasters gave their first confirmation that some of the oil leaking from BP’s well has lingered beneath the surface rather than rising to the surface. Undersea oil depletes the water’s oxygen content and threatens marine life like mussels, clams, crabs, eels, jellyfish and shrimp.

Jane Lubchenco, administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said at the Washington briefing: “NOAA is confirming the presence of very low concentrations of subsurface oil.”Obama, who faces growing criticism that he has appeared detached from the economic and ecological catastrophe hitting four U.S. Gulf states, sharpened his criticism of BP in the NBC interview and hit back at his critics.”I was down there a month ago, before most of these talking heads were even paying attention to the Gulf,” he said.

“And I don’t sit around just talking to experts because this is a college seminar; we talk to these folks because they potentially have the best answers, so I know whose ass to kick,” he added.Fadel Gheit, an analyst at Oppenheimer and Co, said it was “not a coincidence” that BP’s shares were down after Obama’s “kick ass” comment.

The European oils sector was down overall, however, on the back of lower oil prices due to economic worries. BP shares were trading down about 5 percent, against a drop of 2.13 percent in the STOXX Europe 600 Oil and Gas index at 1600 GMT.In New York, the company’s American depositary shares were down nearly 5 percent. BP shares have lost about a third of their value since the crisis erupted.

Away from the action in the Gulf, the political heat remained intense in Washington with yet another congressional hearing to bring BP and its peers under renewed scrutiny.The Senate Judiciary Committee was holding a hearing titled: “The Risky Business of Big Oil: Have Recent Court Decisions and Liability Caps Encouraged Irresponsible Corporate Behavior?”Democrats in Congress have been looking at lifting such caps.

The Senate hearing follows one in Chalmette, Louisiana, where two women who lost their husbands in the explosion that unleashed the crisis urged members of Congress to hold BP accountable.”I am asking you to please consider harsh punishments on companies who choose to ignore safety standards before other families are destroyed,” said Courtney Kemp, whose husband, Wyatt, was killed in the explosion.(Reuters)

Feds may sue over Arizona immigration law

Washington Attorney General Eric Holder said Sunday that the Justice Department was considering a federal lawsuit against Arizona’s new immigration law. “We are considering all of our options. One possibility is filing a lawsuit,” Holder told NBC’s “Meet the Press.” Possible grounds for the lawsuit would be whether the Arizona law could lead to civil rights violations, he said. The recently enacted Arizona law initially allowed police to ask anyone for proof of legal U.S. residency, based solely on a police officer’s suspicion that the person might be in the country illegally.

Arizona lawmakers soon amended the law so that officers could check a person’s status only if the person had been stopped or arrested for another reason. Critics say the law will lead to racial profiling, while supporters say it involves no racial profiling and is needed to crack down on increasing crime involving illegal immigrants. In Arizona , the city councils of Tucson and Flagstaff have decided to challenge the new immigration law in court. Holder told ABC’s “This Week” program that one concern about the Arizona law is that “you’ll end up in a situation where people are racially profiled, and that could lead to a wedge drawn between certain communities and law enforcement, which leads to the problem of people in those communities not willing to interact with people in law enforcement, not willing to share information, not willing to be witnesses where law enforcement needs them.”

“I think we could potentially get on a slippery slope where people will be picked on because of how they look as opposed to what they have done, and that is, I think, something that we have to try to avoid at all costs,” Holder added. Holder said comprehensive federal immigration reform is the best approach for the problem of illegal immigrants crossing U.S. borders. His stance echoed the approach favored by President Obama, who last week criticized the Arizona law and said he wants Congress to work on the issue this year.

Comprehensive immigration reform would include continuing government efforts to secure borders from illegal immigrants, as well as steps to crack down on businesses that employ them, Obama said at a Cinco de Mayo celebration at the White House. In addition, he said, those living illegally in the United States would have to pay a penalty and any taxes they owe, learn English and “make themselves right with the law” before starting the process of gaining U.S. citizenship.(CNN)

citizen of the United States Threatens to blow up Delta Air Aircraft with the Bomb

Boston A citizen of the United States (U.S.) on a flight from Paris to Atlanta threatened to blow up a plane he was traveling. He also claimed to have false passports and carrying explosives in his luggage. Effect of act of such passengers, the aircraft diverted to the nearest airport.As reported by NBC, Wednesday (28/04/2010), U.S. federal officials to identify passengers who was named acting Derek Stansberry (26). He is a Florida home contractor who was traveling alone. However, upon investigation, which is owned by Stanberry passport is genuine.

Shortly after the claims will bomb the aircraft, he was immediately drawn to the rear of the plane by a flight attendant for further questioning on the statement.Delta Air Lines plane carrying Stanberry is the Airbus A330 with 235 passengers and eight crew. “The plane eventually landed safely at Bangor International Airport,” said Delta spokeswoman Susan Elliott.Arriving at the Bangor Airport, a suitcase belonging Stansberry eventually admitted there were explosives searched. After review, there were no suspicious or dangerous items found.

WASHINGTON The chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee says domestic terrorism is a real and growing danger Sen. Joe Lieberman

WASHINGTON The chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee says domestic terrorism is a real and growing danger Sen. Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut independent, says the political discourse in the U.S. turns extreme and incendiary at times, and that can lead some people to take radical actions.Federal authorities report an uptick in the activities of domestic extremist groups in the last year.Noting the recent bombings in Moscow, Lieberman says more must be done to protect trains, subways and buses in the U.S.Lieberman appeared Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”(AP)

NATO airstrike in southern Afganistan killed at least 21 civilians

KABUL A NATO airstrike in southern Afganistan killed at least 21 civilians, the Afghan Interior Ministry said Monday, in an incident that could inflame already heightened sensitivities over noncombatant casualties.NATO forces confirmed in a statement that its planes fired Sunday on what it believed was a group of insurgents in southern Uruzgan province on their way to attack a joint NATO-Afghan patrol, but later discovered that women and children were hurt. The injured were transported to medical facilities.

The Afghan government and NATO have launched an investigation.Interior Ministry spokesman Zemeri Bashary said the Sunday morning airstrike hit three minibuses traveling on a major road near Uruzgan’s border with central Day Kundi province. There were 42 people in the vehicles, all civilians, Bashary said.The NATO statement did not say how many people died or whether all the occupants of the vehicles were civilians.

Afghan investigators on the ground have collected 21 bodies and two people are missing. Fourteen others were wounded, he said.”We are extremely saddened by the tragic loss of innocent lives,” NATO commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal said in the statement. “I have made it clear to our forces that we are here to protect the Afghan people and inadvertently killing or injuring civilians undermines their trust and confidence in our mission. We will redouble our effort to regain that trust.”

McChrystal apologized to President Hamid Karzai for the incident on Sunday, NATO said.On Saturday, Karzai had admonished NATO troops for not doing enough to protect civilian lives. During a speech to the opening session of the Afghan parliament, Karzai had called for extra caution on the part of NATO, which is currently conducting a massive offensive on the southern Taliban stronghold of Marjah in neighboring Helmand province.

“We need to reach the point where there are no civilian casualties,” Karzai had said. “Our effort and our criticism will continue until we reach that goal.”NATO has gone to great lengths in recent months to reduce civilian casualties — primarily through reducing airstrikes and tightening rules of engagement   as part of a new strategy to focus on protecting the Afghan people to win their loyalty over from the Taliban.

This is the largest joint NATO-Afghan operation since the Taliban regime was ousted from power in 2001. It’s also the first major ground operation since President Barack Obama ordered 30,000 reinforcements to Afghanistan.But mistakes have continued. In the ongoing offensive against Marjah, two NATO rockets killed 12 people in one home and others have gotten caught in the crossfire. At least 16 civilians have been killed so far during the offensive, NATO has said, though human rights groups claim the number is at least 19.

Last Thursday, an airstrike in northern Kunduz province missed targeted insurgents and killed seven policemen.Gen. David Petraeus, who oversees the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, said on NBC’s “Meet The Press” that Marjah was the opening salvo in a campaign to turn back the Taliban that could last 12 to 18 months.But the continued toll of civilian lives will only make it harder for NATO in its goal to win over the support of local Afghans against Taliban militants in the south.

The newly appointed civilian chief for Marjah arrived Monday to begin the task of restoring government authority after years of Taliban rule even though NATO troops are still battling insurgents in the area.District leader Abdul Zahir Aryan will be flying into Marjah for the first time since the massive NATO offensive began Feb. 13. He plans to meet with community leaders and townspeople about security, health care and reconstruction, he said in a phone interview Sunday.”The Marines have told us that the situation is better. It’s OK. It’s good,” Aryan said. “I’m not scared because it is my home. I have come to serve the people.”

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano concedes airline security system failed

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab

WASHINGTON Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano conceded Monday that the aviation security system failed when a young man on a watchlist with a U.S. visa in his pocket and a powerful explosive hidden on his body was allowed to board a fight from Amsterdam to Detroit.The Obama administration has ordered investigations into the two areas of aviation security – how travelers are placed on watch lists and how passengers are screened – as critics questioned how the 23-year-old Nigerian man charged in the airliner attack was allowed to board the Dec. 25 flight.A day after saying the system worked, Napolitano backtracked, saying her words had been taken out of context.”Our system did not work in this instance,” she said on NBC’s “Today” show. “No one is happy or satisfied with that. An extensive review is under way.”The White House press office, traveling with President Barack Obama in Hawaii, said early Monday that the president would make a statement from the Kaneoho Marine Base in the morning. White House spokesman Bill Burton did not elaborate.Billions of dollars have been spent on aviation security since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, when commercial airliners were hijacked and used as weapons. Much of that money has gone toward training and equipment that some security experts say could have detected the explosive device that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is accused of hiding on his body on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit.On Sunday, Napolitano said, “One thing I’d like to point out is that the system worked.” On Monday, she said she was referring to the system of notifying other flights as well as law enforcement on the ground about the incident soon after it happened.

The top Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee took issue with Napolitano’s initial assessment.Airport security “failed in every respect,” Rep. Peter King of New York said Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “It’s not reassuring when the secretary of Homeland Security says the system worked.”Investigators are piecing together Abdulmutallab’s brazen attempt to bring down Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Dec. 25. Law enforcement officials say he tucked below his waist a small bag holding his potentially deadly concoction of liquid and powder explosive material.

Harold Demuren, the head of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, says Abdulmutallab’s ticket came from a KLM office in Accra, Ghana. Demuren said Monday that Abdulmutallab bought the $2,831 round-trip ticket from Lagos, Nigeria, to Detroit via Amsterdam on Dec. 16.

Demuren declined to comment about Abdulmutallab’s travels in the days before he boarded his Dec. 24 flight from Lagos to Detroit via Amsterdam, saying FBI agents and Nigerian officials view the information as “sensitive.” He says Abdulmutallab checked into his flight with only a small carryon bag.Abdulmutallab had been placed in a U.S. database of people suspected of terrorist ties in November, but there was not enough information about his activity that would place him on a watch list that could have kept him from flying.

However, British officials placed Abdulmutallab’s name on a U.K. watch list after he was refused a student visa in May.Home Secretary Alan Johnson added that police and security services are looking at whether Abdulmutallab was radicalized in Britain.

Abdulmutallab received a degree in engineering and business finance from University College London last year and later applied to re-enter Britain to study at another institution. Johnson said Monday he was refused entry because officials suspected the school was not genuine and they then put his name on the list.

Johnson says that people on the list can transit through the U.K. but cannot enter the country.Officials said he came to the attention of U.S. intelligence last month when his father, Alhaji Umar Mutallab, a prominent Nigerian banker, reported to the American Embassy in Nigeria about his son’s increasingly extremist religious views. In a statement released Monday morning, Abdulmutallab’s family in Nigeria said that after his “disappearance and stoppage of communications while schooling abroad,” his father reached out to Nigerian security agencies two months ago. The statement says the father then approached foreign security agencies for “their assistance to find and return him home.”

The family says: “It was while we were waiting for the outcome of their investigation that we arose to the shocking news of that day.”

The statement did not offer any specifics on where Abdulmutallab had been.

Abdulmutallab’s success in smuggling and partially igniting the material on Friday’s flight prompted the Obama administration to promise a sweeping review of aviation security, even as the Homeland Security secretary defended the current system.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the government will investigate its systems for placing suspicious travelers on watch lists and for detecting explosives before passengers board flights.

Both lines of defense were breached in an improbable series of events Christmas Day that spanned three continents and culminated in a struggle and fire aboard a Northwest jet shortly before its safe landing in Detroit. Law enforcement officials believed the suspect tried to ignite a two-part concoction of the high explosive PETN and possibly a glycol-based liquid explosive, setting off popping, smoke and some fire but no deadly detonation.

An apparent malfunction in a device designed to detonate the PETN may have been all that saved the 278 passengers and the crew aboard Northwest Flight 253. No undercover air marshal was on board and passengers and crew subdued the suspect when he tried to set off the explosion. He succeeded only in starting a fire on himself.

Security experts said airport “puffer” machines that blow air on a passenger to collect and analyze residues would probably have detected the powder, as would bomb-sniffing dogs or a hands-on search using a swab. Most passengers in airports only go through magnetometers, which detect metal rather than explosives.

Abdulmutallab was treated for burns and was released Sunday to a prison 50 miles outside of Detroit.

Stiffer boarding measures have met passengers at gates since Friday and authorities warned travelers to expect extra delays returning home from holidays.

Adding to the airborne jitters, authorities detained a man, also from Nigeria, who locked himself in the bathroom on Sunday’s Northwest flight 253 from Amsterdam as it was about to land in Detroit. Investigators concluded he posed no threat. Despite the government’s decision after the attempted Friday attack to mobilize more air marshals, none was on the Sunday flight from Amsterdam.

Democratic health care deals 'sleazy'

Barack Obama

WASHINGTON A Republican senator who has opposed President Barack Obama’s health overhaul effort said Tuesday that the deals Democratic leaders have cut to round up the votes they need to push the measure through the Senate have been “sleazy.“Speaking Tuesday on NBC’s “Today” show, GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina cited concessions won by Nebraska Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson, whose support gave Democrats the 60th and final vote they need. Among other things, Nelson won an agreement that the federal government will pay to expand Medicaid services in Nebraska.

Said Graham: “That’s not change you can believe in. That’s sleazy.”Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa defended the concessions, saying: “The one that’s being talked about for Nebraska, it also benefits other states. It’s not just Nebraska.”

He also said he would vote for the package even if it didn’t contain concessions for Iowa. “The principle of this bill overrides everything,” Harkin told CBS’ “Early Show.”

Graham rejected criticism leveled by some Democrats that GOP opposition to Obama’s health care effort is being driven by extremists.”I’m not a member of a militia, I’m not a birther,” he said, referring to those who have questioned, inaccurately, whether Obama is an American citizen. “I’m a senator who wants to reform health care, but I’m not going to allow my country to become a socialized nation when it comes to health care.”

Harkin described the debate as “a demarcation line.He explained: “On one side is health care as a privilege. On the other side is health care as a right. With these votes, with the vote that we’ll take before Christmas, we will cross that line finally and say that health care is a right of all Americans.”The Senate had procedural votes Tuesday morning on the overhaul bill and Democrats are pushing for final passage before Christmas.

Comcast Corp. announced Thursday it plans to buy a majority stake in NBC

NBC

PHILADELPHIA – Comcast Corp. announced Thursday it plans to buy a majority stake in NBC Universal for $13.75 billion, giving the nation’s largest cable TV operator control of the Peacock network, an array of cable channels and a major movie studio.

Although the deal could mean that movies could reach cable more quickly after showing in theaters, and that TV shows could appear faster on cell phones and other devices, it was already raising concerns that Comcast would wield too much power over entertainment.

Indeed, if the deal clears regulatory and other hurdles, Comcast would rival the heft of The Walt Disney Co. – which Comcast CEO Brian Roberts already tried to buy.

Comcast, which already serves a quarter of all U.S. households that pay for TV, would gain control of the NBC broadcast network, the Spanish-language Telemundo and about two dozen cable channels, including USA, Syfy and The Weather Channel. It also would get regional sports networks, Universal Pictures and theme parks.

In agreeing to buy 51 percent of NBC Universal from General Electric Co., which has controlled NBC since 1986, Comcast hopes to succeed in marrying distribution and content in a way Time Warner Inc. could not. AOL and Time Warner are undoing their ill-fated marriage Dec. 9. Time Warner has already shed its cable TV operations.

Comcast’s Roberts and GE CEO Jeff Immelt have been discussing the deal for months, and the final weeks came down to GE’s persuading French conglomerate Vivendi SA to first sell its minority stake.

Comcast made the deal because it is eager to diversify its holdings. It faces encroaching threats from online video and more aggressive competition from satellite and phone companies that offer subscription TV services.

For entertainment viewers, the deal means Universal Pictures movies could get to cable faster.

TV shows could appear on mobile phones and other devices faster as part of Comcast’s plans to let viewers watch programs wherever they want. Comcast already is letting subscribers watch cable TV shows online in trials, with a nationwide launch in December.

On Thursday, Comcast pledged that NBC Universal shows that now cost money over its cable video-on-demand service would be free for three years after the deal closes.

Comcast also said it would maintain free, over-the-air TV on NBC stations – a business model that is eroding because of falling advertising revenue. Comcast also pledged to improve public interest programming. And it said it would not let its business interests affect NBC News.

But consumer advocates worry about the deal, saying people could end up paying more for TV.

Under Comcast, subscription-TV operators such as DirecTV Group Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc.’s FiOS service would be negotiating with a direct rival on how much they have to pay to carry NBC Universal’s cable and broadcast channels.

An NBC Universal under Comcast might be less willing to budge than one under GE. Consumer groups worry that as a result, fees that are already creeping up could rise even faster, with the costs passed to customers in their monthly pay-TV bills.

NBC Universal is profitable, with operating earnings of $1.7 billion on revenue of $11.2 billion in the first three quarters of 2009, despite weakness in the fourth-place NBC broadcast network and Universal Pictures, ranked sixth in North American box office gross this year by Rentrak Corp./Hollywood.com.

Comcast wants the company largely for its lucrative cable channels. It is seeking more programming to beef up its video-on-demand offerings and rely less on cable revenue as the company loses subscribers to rival providers – such as phone companies that are offering TV services – or the Internet.

Meanwhile, GE needs cash to prop up its financing unit, GE Capital, which was devastated in last year’s financial meltdown.

Under the deal, expected to close in a year if regulators and shareholders of both companies approve, GE would buy Vivendi SA’s 20 percent stake in NBC Universal for $5.8 billion – with $2 billion payable in September 2010 if the deal hasn’t closed by then, and the remaining $3.8 billion at closing. NBC Universal is to be separated into a new joint venture.

Comcast would buy a 51 percent stake of the new company by paying $6.5 billion in cash and contributing $7.25 billion worth of cable channels it owns, including E!, Style and Golf Channel.

GE would retain a 49 percent stake, with the option of unloading half its stake in 3 1/2 years and all of it in seven years. The new company or Comcast could buy out GE. The new NBC Universal would borrow $9.1 billion that would partially go toward covering the money GE owes Vivendi.

Comcast would get to name three people to the board and GE two, and Comcast would manage the joint venture. Jeff Zucker would remain NBC Universal’s CEO and report to Comcast Chief Operating Officer Steve Burke. NBC Universal’s headquarters are expected to stay in New York.

Consumer groups fear that a Comcast-NBC combination would be so threatening that rivals would strike similar deals just to compete – a sentiment echoed by DirecTV Chairman John Malone in a recent interview with The Associated Press.

And if media ownership were further concentrated, consumers would see higher prices and fewer choices, said Andrew Jay Schwartzman, chief executive of the Media Access Project. He warned that online video and other new forms of competition could be squashed “before they can gain a toehold in the market.”

Satellite TV rival Dish Networks Corp., meanwhile, worries that Comcast would be in a stronger position to withhold channels from competitors. CEO Charles Ergen has complained that a regulatory loophole lets Comcast bar his company from carrying Philadelphia sports games shown on Comcast’s regional sports network. Comcast did not respond to requests for comment.

The Comcast-NBC deal is widely seen as a test of the Obama administration’s resolve to fight media consolidation, but consumer groups aren’t confident regulators will find a legal means to block the transaction.

Comcast would likely have to agree to some restrictions, such as treating rival cable, satellite TV and phone companies equally in programming talks instead of favoring its own cable operations.

Shareholders haven’t been happy, either, at what they see as a renewed attempt at empire building after Comcast’s failed $54 billion hostile bid for Disney in 2004.

Many investors sold off the stock at the first whiff of a possible deal with GE, afraid that Comcast would make an acquisition it couldn’t handle and tie up money for dividends and stock buybacks that could boost Comcast’s shares. Shares in Comcast, which is headquartered in Philadelphia, have fallen 11 percent, vaporizing about $5 billion in market value, since word of the deal leaked Sept. 30.

In an effort to please investors, Comcast said Thursday it would increase its annual dividend by 40 percent, to 37.8 cents per share, and confirmed it would still buy back stock.

If the deal wins approval, Comcast would still have to make it work. It’s betting that it could do a better job than Time Warner, which couldn’t find a way to make its cable, AOL and content businesses operate well together.

Comcast said Burke, its chief operating officer, has plenty of experience in content given his former role as an ABC executive. But Time Warner, too, had a suite full of entertainment executives.

One problem at Time Warner was the conflicting interests between the cable and content sides. Time Warner’s cable TV unit, before it was spun off into a separate company this year, considered bringing Warner Bros. movies to cable viewers earlier, for instance. But favoring one cable TV provider over another would have hurt the movie studio – and Comcast could face similar challenges.

Comcast also would inherit NBC Universal’s weaker units. Its NBC network has had trouble developing hit shows. Universal Pictures has been socked with some notable flops including “Land of the Lost.” And theme park attendance is down in the recession.

For now, Comcast has a lot to prove – and only years later would it be clear whether buying NBC was smart.

“These kinds of big mergers always have a `crapshoot’ element to them,” said Peter Fader, marketing professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. “You can never predict with certain success or failure. You can always see it with 20-20 hindsight. This one will be no different.”

From Twitter to advertising treasure

The Twitter phenomenon, in which anybody can tell his or her followers anything — in 140 characters or less — now has a payoff that can go beyond the thrill of self-publishing.A handful of companies are offering to pay Twitterers to gain access to their followers — so they can send them Tweets containing ads. The more followers you have, the more money you make.Dr. Drew Pinsky cut a deal with one such company, Ad.ly, of Beverly Hills, California, which describes itself as “an instream advertising platform that connects top-tier Twitter publishers with top-tier brands.”Pinsky is a television and radio personality, an internist and an addiction specialist, but Ad.ly considers him a publisher.The lone advertisement that Ad.ly sent to Pinsky’s 1.5 million Twitter followers was for the NBC program “Community,” a comedy about a lawyer who has lost his license and is trying to get his life together at a community college. Chevy Chase and Joel McHale star.

“I’m delighted to support the show; Joel McHale is a friend of mine,” Pinsky said.”If someone wants to offer me some money to talk about something that I feel strongly about on Twitter — and I don’t feel it’s diminishing in any way my messages — I don’t see why not,” he said.But Pinsky said he was not sure he would do it again. “It’s treacherous,” he told CNN in a telephone interview. “I don’t want people to think I’m exploiting my followers.”Concern about a possible backlash from those followers has led him to reject suggestions for other ads, Pinsky said. “It’s something I would only do very, very occasionally and really has to be something that I already feel I would support.”He cited advertisements about vaccinations or certain screening programs as possibly acceptable, but said even then he would be concerned about turning off his followers. “On the one hand, I have got to send my kids to college; on the other hand, I don’t want to damage my relationship with my audience,” said the father of teenage triplets.

CEO Sean Rad, 23, founded the company that sold Pinsky on the idea in May. “We were basically looking at Twitter early on and we’ve watched it grow from this place where people were kind of playing with content creation to this very powerful platform where people are using Twitter as their main platform for content creation and content discovery,” he told CNN in a telephone interview.”We view every Tweet as valuable content,” he said. “It takes time and thought to produce. Everywhere else, where you generate content you get compensated. Same for a lot of these celebrities on Twitter. Their time is money, yet they’re not getting compensated. We’re answering a demand we saw with all these publishers.”All he needs to monetize Twitter posts is to match the publisher with an advertiser and everybody wins, Rad said. “The advertiser gets as close as possible to an audience and that publisher gets compensated.”

The company launched its service in late September, and Rad said it has already signed up eight of the approximately 50 individual twitterers who have more than 1 million followers.In addition to Dr. Drew, Ad.ly’s clients include Kim Kardashian, Nicole Richie and Joel McHale, he said.But it’s not just for celebrities. “We have thousands of mid-tier and top-tier publishers; we’re growing rapidly,” he said. Anyone can sign on and, depending on how many followers they have, start approving ads and earning income, he said.Advertisers include Universal Pictures, Dell, Maserati, Hilton Hotels and “a bunch” of other national brands, he said.Though Pinsky said he did not know how much his one deal netted him, and Rad would not divulge it, the tech entrepreneur did say a single Tweet could net the publisher a sum in the five figures.

Rad downplayed Pinsky’s concern that his followers could feel exploited. “If I’m Dr. Drew and getting paid for activity on Twitter, I’m going to take it more seriously,” he said. “So the audience gains because, when you pay somebody to do something, they typically do a better job — higher quality content. The artist now can justify the time on Twitter.”Each publisher is limited to one Tweeted advertisement per day, he said.Rad said Ad.ly’s model — or Ad.ly itself — could help Twitter cash in on its own success. He said his company’s model would be one way for Twitter to monetize. “Obviously, an acquisition from Twitter would be awesome,” he said.

But that wouldn’t be the only way. “I would pay for a premium stream that had no ads in it,” said Francine Hardaway, a marketing specialist and partner in Stealthmode Partners.”Maybe that’s Twitter’s own monetization model,” she said in a posting on scobleizer.com, a blog. “And I also like content providers to be paid. But the more indirectly the better.”Twitter Director of Media Partnerships Chloe Sladden told CNN in an e-mail, “We generally aren’t commenting on our monetization plans at the moment.”