Comcast's purchase of Time Warner Cable, announced last week, would create a behemoth that "could touch off a once-in-a-generation frenzy of deal-making," among cable networks and other cable operators, writes David Gelles. Among the possibilities discussed here: Disney buying Discovery, Viacom "consumed into a larger entity,” according to an analyst, and other cable operators like Charter, Cox and Cablevision consolidating.

While its brand is synonymous with a little block of hardware, GoPro’s greater ambitions are to establish itself as a media giant. “It's got all the hallmarks of a burgeoning media company, which is no panacea, but it's certainly an area that sets the stage for ongoing expansion,” Engadget reports, noting the parallels between GoPro and brand-cum-media maven Red Bull. “At the moment, GoPro curates everything on its channel -- but it's clearly aware of the large, untapped store of media out there.” 

Trying to fortify their wearable tech efforts, Apple and Google are reportedly eying Basis Health Tracker Watch maker Basic Science. “We’ve heard that the company has been shopping itself around over the past few weeks and has spoken to Google, Apple and possibly Samsung and Microsoft about a potential sale,” TechCrunch reports. “The price we’ve heard for any possible activity is ‘sub-hundred million.’” 

"But can cord cutters truly escape the cord? And are they, in fact, saving much money at all?" "No" would seem to be the answer to both these questions, especially in light of last week's announcement that Comcast would be buying Time Warner Cable, writes Farhad Manjoo. "Critics of the... deal argue that it will eventually give Comcast the power to raise prices for its broadband and cable TV services and especially to hold its Internet-only subscription prices so close to its TV-and-Internet prices that few people will see much use in declaring their cable independence."

Yahoo just bought collaborative video interview platform Distill. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but it mostly likely required a little pocket change from Yahoo. Now, “the staff from Distill will be working at Yahoo in mobile advertising,” Computerworld reports. “The Distill staff said they will be drawing on their expertise from their stint at Tapjoy ‘to help build out Yahoo's mobile advertising solutions.’” 

Next week, Pandora is expected to start letting advertisers target listeners based on their perceived political leanings. To do so, “The company matches election results with subscribers' musical preferences by Zip Code,” The Wall Street Journal reports. “Then, it labels individual users based on their musical tastes and whether those artists are more frequently listened to in Democratic or Republican areas.” 

The Week is licensing a Middle East edition of itself with United Arab Emirates publisher Motivate. The company already publishes a U.S. and U.K. version, and shuttered an Australian edition in fall of 2012.

What digital platforms and gadgets are going to survive the test of time? It’s a critical investment question for consumers and marketers alike. The New York Times’ Farhad Manjoo thinks he has the answer. Along with attention to quality, “the point is to minimize the danger of getting locked into any one company’s ecosystem,” he writes. To do so, he strongly suggesting betting on Apple for hardware, Google for digital services and Amazon for content. 

Rather than license TV programming for its own Web-based TV service, Apple is reportedly working with media companies and pay TV distributors on the launch of a branded set-top box. “In the current discussions, which involve at least two big media companies, Apple envisages working with cable companies, rather than competing against them,” The Wall Street Journal reports. “For programming, it would rely on cable providers to acquire programming rights from media companies, rather than acquire them on its own.”

Mattel's iconic doll Barbie will appear in both the edit and ad sections of this year's Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, posing for a feature spread as well as an advertorial centered around the doll's "new '#unapologetic' campaign, which celebrates Barbie’s (sometimes divisive) role in society," writes Emma Bazilian.