So as we all know, about two thirds of AOL Time Warner is buckling like a toothpick sculpture supporting a Buick.  Time has fallen on hard times, and AOL just laid off about two thirds of its work force.  Only Warner’s not looking too bad these days, and even then it’s a bit of a surprise.

But looking to take its place like a phoenix out of the ashes–or maybe just a corpse walking again in truest Romero fashion–is Comcast Apple NBC.

With the Comcast deal to buy NBC off of GE pretty much a done one except for Congressional approval to make quite certain it’s not a monopoly, everything at this point hinges on Apple’s next move.  And if it should join the Comcast-NBC hegemony, it will effectively be a controller of both content and distribution, which will make it a force to be reckoned with when it comes to providing content for home theaters like ours.

This might be a worrisome development, folks…though admittedly so was AOL Time Warner, and it didn’t turn out that bad.  Let’s keep a close eye on this one–it might be worse than we think.