Hollywood's New Power Players

Hollywood is on the “cusp of a new chapter,” writes Sharon Waxman, “in which a smaller group of major entertainment companies, fortified by bigger libraries and deeper distribution channels, will hold a larger concentration of power.” With Comcast set to acquire NBC-Universal and Time Warner and News Corp. fighting over MGM, power is being consolidated. Comcast, for example, will have the largest cable subscriber base in the country, plus control of a movie studio, a broadcast TV network, and several cable networks. “The combined power of content and distribution,” Waxman writes, “creates a new kind of player.”