In the days leading up to a potential blackout of NBC channels on YouTube TV, NBCUniversal made a seemingly outlandish claim.

“Google, with its $3 trillion market cap, already controls what Americans see online through search and ads—now it wants to control what we watch,” the company said .

While NBC did not elaborate on what exactly that meant, we’ve since learned that Google (which owns YouTube TV) wants to fundamentally change how programmers like NBC distribute video in the streaming age. In addition to carrying NBC’s broadcast and cable channels, Google also wants YouTube TV to serve streaming content from Peacock , NBC’s separate streaming service. (For now, the companies have agreed to a short-term deal extension to avoid a blackout.)

Why is this a big deal? If Google gets i

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