Related: Discovery Reports 10% Increase in 3Q Earnings
Discovery Communications CEO David Zaslav again expressed concerns over the power a combination of Comcast and Time Warner Cable would have in the marketplace.
Speaking on Discovery’s earnings call with analysts Tuesday, Zaslav acknowledged that Discovery’s distribution deal with Comcast is up next year. Some analysts have noted that Discovery signed a favorable deal with Time Warner Cable last year and that when the two operators combine, Discovery might wind up with less favorable terms when it negotiates with a bigger Comcast.
“All the content players in the industry, as well as the broadband players, should be looking at this very carefully,” said Zaslav, who has been among the more vocal programming executives challenging the proposed acquisition of Time Warner Cable by Comcast. “There’s real issues this raises.”
As for next year’s negotiations with Comcast, he said “we’ll see how it goes.”
But Zaslav noted that in countries where “there’s a dominant monopsony power, it creates real challenges for consumers and in many cases, in almost all cases, there’s a retraction of investment in content.”
