Comcast, the nation's largest cable company, and General Electric, the giant industrial conglomerate, are finalizing an agreement that would create a new media titan anchored by NBC Universal. The deal would instantly remake the entertainment industry landscape. Negotiations are "moving in the right direction" but are not complete, sources close to the deal tell DailyFinance. Sunday was the first day of Vivendi's annual window -- from Nov. 15 to Dec. 10 each year -- to exercise its option to sell its 20% stake in NBC Universal.

Teams of lawyers and bankers huddled over the weekend. An announcement isn't likely on Monday, but it could come by week's end, according to knowledgeable sources. However, it's clear that the bankers and lawyers will make the deal happen -- it's what they're paid to do -- and they're looking to do it soon.

Boxee CEO Avner Ronen put up a slide at the NewTeeVee confab in San Francisco Thursday that showed a startling trend: There will be more Apple (AAPL) iTunes subscribers than Comcast (CMSCA) subscribers within a few years, Ronen contended. Them's fighting words for cable and programming giant Comcast, which is putting up a lively fight to keep control of customers in the face of incursions both from tech giants like Apple, with its Apple TV product, and upstarts like Boxee, which offers a browser that acts like a TV guide for video content available online.

To this end, Comcast is on the brink of rolling out a video-on-demand service to most of its customers that would let them watch programming paid for under their Comcast subscription on any device and over any type of reasonably fast connection. Called Fancast, this untethered access would compete directly with Apple, as well as Netflix (NFLX), Verizon (VZ) and Qualcomm (QCOM).

Wireless network operator Clearwire (CLWR) is pinning its fortunes on the booming mobile data market. But while wireless data usage grows at a blistering pace, investors should take a look a close look at how Clearwire's technology stacks up to the coming technologies from much larger rivals such as Verizon (VZ) and AT&T (T) before getting on board.

"If ever there was a rising tide that is lifting all boats, this is it," Clearwire CEO William Morrow told investors after the company reported third quarter earnings on Tuesday. Adjusted earnings losses narrowed to 43 cents per share from 45 cents per share, while revenue was up 13% to $68.8 million.

Is a deal with Satan the kind of thing you're required to disclose in a proxy statement? If so, I'll be very curious to see the one filed after Comcast (CMCSA) completes its takeover of NBC Universal (GE).

It's hard to imagine what else could account for the continuing employment of Jeff Zucker as the head of one of the world's premier media conglomerates -- even as it becomes increasingly clear how unfit he is for the job. Now it looks like not even the sale of his company will put an end to Zucker's reign of error: Reuters reports that Comcast has agreed to keep him on as the CEO of the joint venture created by the acquisition, if and when it comes to fruition. This despite the availability of former News Corp. (NWS) president Peter Chernin, a media executive with a substantially better track record than Zucker's. Chernin is advising Comcast in the deal.

MBIA (MBI) shares dropped over 13% ahead of the bell after the bond insurer reported Monday heavier losses in its insurance business than expected. The company recorded a massive loss of $727.8 million, or $3.50 a share, which is still slightly better than last year's.

Tyco International (TYC) posted a 53% drop in quarterly net profit to $205 million, or 43 cents per share, as soft economic conditions lowered demand for its construction and control products. Because of lower costs, however, results beat estimates. Revenue fell 16% to $4.4 billion, also above estimates of $4.3 billion.

Comcast (CMCSA), the nation's largest cable company, and GE (GE), the giant industrial conglomerate, are nearing agreement on a deal that would value NBC Universal, the huge entertainment company, at around $30 billion, sources familiar with the matter tell DailyFinance. If successful, the pact would pave the way for a distribution and content behemoth sure to attract attention from regulators. The new entity would dramatically alter the competitive landscape of a media world already wracked by Internet-driven disruption and the ever-increasing penetration of high-speed broadband service.

Comcast, already a corporate giant, clearly sees the long-lusted-after golden chalice of a unified content and distribution system within its grasp.

Kraft Foods Inc. (KFT) has made a 9.8 billion pound ($16.4 billion) cash-and-stock offer for Cadbury PLC (CBY). Unable to seal a friendly deal and as the deadline for Kraft to make an offer was today, the bid has been expected to turn hostile. Kraft indeed went directly to shareholders with a lower offer than its previous rebuffed approach, but many of the shareholders are hedge funds with perhaps different interests. Cadbury advised its shareholders to reject the offer, saying it is "derisory" and represents a worse deal than when Kraft made its original approach in September. CBY shares traded over 1% higher in premarket trading.

Comcast (CMCSA) and GE (GE) have reportedly agreed on the worth of NBC Universal, thus clearing another hurdle. The value is reportedly around $30 billion. CMCSA shares were 2% higher, GE's nearly 3% higher ahead of the bell.

Comcast (CMCSA), the nation's largest cable TV company, reported a 22.5 percent rise in third-quarter earnings, beating expectations, but didn't offer any details about its possible purchase of a majority stake in media giant NBC Universal. Negotiations to create a content and distribution juggernaut are proceeding apace, according to multiple reports, with a deal to be announced as early as this week.

Comcast's strong numbers illustrate the stickiness of cable TV service -- despite a drop in subscriber growth -- at a time when consumers are cutting back on spending during the worst recession since the Great Depression.

Viacom (VIA), the parent company of MTV, Comedy Central and Paramount, offered an early Christmas present to investors, with a healthy quarterly earnings report driven by increasing advertising revenue and improving profit margins. The media giant reported a 15 percent increase in profit, thanks in part to its third quarter of sequential ad revenue gains.

Viacom's sunny report comes as arch-rival NBC Universal and Comcast (CMCSA) are nearing agreement on a deal that would create a media and distribution juggernaut at a time of wrenching technological change in the media business. Viacom's report kicks off a spate of media company earnings, which should serve as a barometer for the battered industry.

Goldman Sachs Group (GS) makes executives wealthy when it handles their companies' initial public offerings or when it advises them on mergers and acquisitions. Then it often signs them up to manage that wealth. So the folks at Goldman have plenty of strategies for maximizing these clients' wealth. Yesterday I had lunch with a Goldman partner who explained six ideas for such well-to-do families. But you don't have to be rich to glean some useful insights from these ideas. In fact, the average investor can approximate three of them.

Before getting into the details of these investment ideas, I thought it was interesting that the partner spent time discussing the differences in how Goldman manages some internal operations and how it accounts for its balance sheet in comparison to some of its competitors.

Ford Motor Co. (F) is no doubt this morning's story. The automaker, the only one of the Big Three American car manufacturers that didn't take a direct government bailout and stayed out of bankruptcy protection, reported a surprising $1 billion profit Monday morning. Ford reported net income of $997 million, or 29 cents per share. On an adjusted basis, Ford reported a quarterly pretax profit of $1.1 billion, or 26 cents a share, compared with a year-earlier loss of $3 billion or $1.32. This handily beat analyst estimates ranging from 12 to 20 cents loss per share. Ford still faces obstacles in its turnaround, but so far proved to be able to weather the storm and, in fact raised its own forecast from a break-even or better 2011 to "solidly profitable" 2011. Shares of Ford shot up over 8 percent in pre-market trading.

Tom Shales, the famously cranky TV critic at The Washington Post, is predicting that Jay Leno's new show may not survive if Comcast Corp. (CMCSA) takes over NBC Universal.

"Among the first items of business [following a Comcast takeover] might be the undoing of another deal: the pact NBC made with Jay Leno, giving him the last hour of prime time Monday through Friday all year," Shales wrote. "So far, 'The Jay Leno Show' has been a ratings weakling with a strong negative effect on the rest of the NBC prime-time schedule."

There was no immediate comment from NBC brass on Shales' story, which seems entirely plausible. GE executives said today they were pleased with the show's launch. But as today's earnings announcement from General Electric Co. (GE) underscores, NBC Universal's importance to GE is vastly overstated by the press. Call it the power of show business. While NBC Universal is a huge company by most measures, it is surrounded by scores of other GE businesses that are much, much bigger.

There's been a lot of talk recently about the Federal Communications Commission's newly proposed broadband rules. But one little matter seems to have been lost in the hubbub: the pending litigation between Comcast (CMCSA), the nation's largest cable company, and the FCC over the commission's decision last year to sanction the cable giant for violating net neutrality. That's the principle that broadband companies shouldn't block any content on their networks in favor of their own offerings.

But Monday, attention returned to the case, as several pro-net neutrality groups and academics filed amicus briefs supporting the FCC's ruling that Comcast violated net neutrality by interfering with Bit Torrent file-sharing traffic on its network. Bit Torrent, of course, is a peer-to-peer file sharing service that lets users swap files -- including MP3 songs -- much to the irritation of the recording industry. Comcast had appealed last year, arguing that the commission lacked the authority to enforce the federal policies.

It sure has been a tough year for media companies, thanks to advertisers slashing budgets and consumers cutting back on spending. But just how bad has it been? According to Advertising Age, 2009 is on track to show the first-ever decline in media company sales since 1981, when the trade publication began a survey tracking the industry's top 100 companies.

The tumble in ad sales has actually helped one company move up in the AdAge ranking of media companies: Comcast Corp. (CMCSA). The cable operator comes out on top in the latest survey, helped by its steady growth in cable-service subscriptions. Comcast is now the biggest U.S. media company after Time Warner (TWX), which spun off its cable division and saw its ad sales plunge 15% in the first half of 2009. Time Warner had held the survey's top spot since 1995, the publication reports.

Shamu, the first female orca ever captured, has been dead for 38 years. Isn't it time the world's most famous performing killer whale got her own wax figure? With private-equity firm Blackstone Group, which owns Madame Tussauds wax museums, reportedly in talks to buy SeaWorld and Busch Gardens parks from brewer Anheuser-Busch InBev (BUD) for up to $3 billion, a Shamu immortalized in wax may no longer be out of the question. If this private-equity deal is completed, it would be the biggest in 2009 and one of the largest since the economic crisis began in 2008, The Wall Street Journal reports.

The takeover could be announced as early as next week, but talks are continuing, and the deal could sink, The New York Times and The Journal say, both citing people familiar with the situation. Calls to both companies seeking comment on Saturday were not immediately returned.