Comcast and NBC

[Commentary] Television is undergoing a wrenching change. Companies like Netflix and Google TV are lining up to offer movies and TV online. Cable systems are developing online bundles as they add broadband customers but lose TV subscribers. Broadcast networks are still figuring out how to sell their shows online, and charging cable systems more as ad money moves to the Internet. Amid this change, Comcast, the biggest cable system in the country, proposed last year to buy NBC Universal, which controls Universal Studios, cable channels like Bravo and USA, and the NBC and Telemundo broadcast networks. It is eager to get approval from the Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Justice’s antitrust division this year. Regulators do not need to rush. The combined company would have the ability, and the incentive, to hamstring online innovation. The FCC and the Justice Department must carefully assess potential threats to the new competition and put precise conditions on a merger to prevent the new media goliath from stamping it out.