Netflix’s Growing Political Clout Impacts Media Deals

New York Times: Whatever the outcome of the latest proposed mergers and acquisitions in the media industry, a clear winner has already emerged, and it’s not even a party to any of the deals: Netflix, the streaming television pioneer. To many in the cable and broadband businesses, the invisible hand of Netflix has been apparent in the failed Comcast-Time Warner Cable combination; in likely restrictions on the merger between AT&T and DirecTV; and in the Obama administration’s embrace of net neutrality. Indeed, the corporate philosophy of Netflix now seems so pervasive that the Federal Communications Commission, or FCC, is being referred to by some media executives — half-jokingly and half-enviously — as the “NCC.”