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comcast.com / comcast:
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Comcast
Type Public (NASDAQ: CMCSA)
Founded 1963 in Tupelo, Mississippi, USA
Headquarters Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
Key people Brian L. Roberts
CEO & Chairman
Industry Telecommunications
Products Cablecasting, Broadband Internet, VoIP, Comcast Digital Voice
Revenue $24.966 Billion USD (2006)
Net income $2.533 Billion USD (2006)
Employees 87,000
Website www.comcast.com www.comcast.net
Comcast Corporation, (NASDAQ: CMCSA) based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is
the largest cable company and the second largest Internet service provider
in the United States. Comcast now serves a total of 24.2 million cable
customers, 13.3 million digital cable customers, 12.1 million high-speed
internet customers, and 3.0 million voice customers. They develop broadband
cable networks and are involved in electronic retailing and television
programming content. The company employs over 90,000 people. it also has
corporate offices in Houston, Detroit, and Denver.
Comcast was founded in 1963 by Ralph J. Roberts, Daniel Aaron, Edward Rex
and Julian A. Brodsky in Tupelo, Mississippi. The company was incorporated
in Pennsylvania in 1969, under the name Comcast Corporation from American
Cable Systems. Moving into the area of programming content, Comcast became
majority owner of Comcast-Spectacor, Comcast SportsNet (in Chicago,
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Washington DC/Baltimore, MD, metro Sacramento,
Detroit, and Houston ), E! Entertainment Television, Style Network, G4, The
Golf Channel and Versus (formerly known as Outdoor Life Network) over a
period of years. In 2006, Comcast started a new sports channel in
cooperation with Major League Baseball's New York Mets, SportsNet New York
in the greater New York City region.
Comcast also has a variety network known as CN8, or the Comcast Network,
available exclusively to Comcast and Cablevision subscribers. The channel
shows news, sports, and entertainment and places emphasis in Philadelphia,
New England, and the Baltimore/Washington, D.C. areas, though the channel is
also available in New York, Pittsburgh, and Richmond. In August of 2004
Comcast started a channel called CET (Comcast Entertainment Television). It
is only available to Colorado Comcast subscribers. It focuses on Life in
Colorado. It also carries some NHL & NBA Games when Altitude Sports &
Entertainment is carrying the NBA or NHL. In January of 2006 CET became the
primary channel for Colorado's Emergency Alert System in the Denver Metro
Area.
The UK division was sold to NTL in 1998. After the sale of their cellular
division to SBC Communications of San Antonio and the acquisition of Greater
Philadelphia Cablevision in 1999, Comcast and MediaOne announced a $60
billion merger which did not occur until three years later (as AT&T
Broadband).
In 2002, Comcast paid the University of Maryland $25 million for naming
rights to the new basketball arena built on the College Park campus, named
Comcast Center.
On January 3, 2005, Comcast announced that it would become the anchor tenant
in a new skyscraper in downtown Philadelphia, to be named the Comcast
Center, not to be confused with the Maryland arena mentioned above. The 975
ft skyscraper will be the tallest building in Philadelphia when it is
completed in late 2007.
In December 2005, Comcast announced the creation of Comcast Interactive
Media (CIM), a new division focused on online media.
Acquisitions
Comcast bought 25% of Group W Cable in 1986, doubling their size. Two years
later, they bought a 50% share in Storer Communications, Inc. They bought
the American Cellular Network Corporation the same year before combining
with Metrophone in 1990. Comcast became the third largest cable operator in
1994 following their purchase of Maclean-Hunter's American division. Comcast
owned the majority of the electronic retailer QVC from 1995 to 2004 when its
share was sold to Liberty Media. Following other acquisitions, Microsoft
invested $1 billion in Comcast in 1997.
In 2001, Comcast announced they would acquire the assets of the largest
cable television operator at the time, AT&T Broadband (AT&T's spunoff cable
TV service) for $44.5 Billion USD. In 2002 Comcast acquired all assets of
AT&T Broadband, thus making Comcast the largest cable television company in
the United States with over 22 million subscribers. This also spurred the
start of Comcast Advertising Sales (using AT&T's groundwork) which would
later be renamed Comcast Spotlight.
When it was first announced that AT&T Broadband and Comcast were going to
merge, the chosen name for the new company was "AT&T Comcast." That decision
was changed so as to not confuse current and future investors in the
company, and the merged company retained the Comcast name.
On February 11, 2004, Comcast surprised the media industry by announcing an
unsolicited $66 billion bid for The Walt Disney Company, a deal that would
have made Comcast the largest media conglomerate in the world. After
rejection by Disney and uncertain response from investors, the bid was
abandoned in April. It was later discovered that the deal was mostly for
Comcast to acquire one of Disney's most profitable operations, ESPN, in an
attempt to expand its sports reach. Comcast has since opted to expand OLN's
sports coverage with the Tour de France and the NHL in the short term, while
it is still planning on eventually having a national sports network to rival
that of ESPN and Rupert Murdoch's planned national version of FSN. Comcast's
NHL deal also obligates them to launch a U.S. version of NHL Network by the
summer of 2007. However, if either Comcast or the NHL decides to void the
final year of their three year deal, the planned launch could be cancelled.
Comcast announced on March 25, 2004 that their new gaming-oriented
television network G4 (operated by subsidiary G4 Media, Inc.) would acquire
Vulcan Venture's technology-oriented television network TechTV. The deal was
finalized on May 10, 2004 - and the two networks became G4techTV on May 28,
2004. On January 11, 2005, Comcast announced that it would drop TechTV from
the station's name and again be known as "G4".
On April 8, 2005, a partnership led by Comcast and Sony Pictures
Entertainment finalized a deal to acquire MGM and its affiliate studio,
United Artists, and create an additional outlet to carry MGM/UA's material
for cable and Internet distribution.
On October 31, 2005, Comcast officially announced that it had acquired
Susquehanna Communications (SusCom,) a York, PA-based cable television and
broadband services provider and unit of the former Susquehanna Pfaltzgraff
company, for a net cash investment of approximately $540 million. In this
deal Comcast acquired approximately 230,000 basic cable customers, 71,000
digital cable customers, and 86,000 high-speed internet customers. Comcast
previously owned approximately 30 percent of Susquehanna Communications.
Adelphia Purchase
In April 2005 Comcast and Time Warner announced plans to buy Adelphia Cable.
$17.6 billion was to be paid (partly in stock) in the deal that was
finalized in the second quarter of 2006 — after the FCC completed a
seven-month investigation without raising an objection. Time Warner would
become the second largest cable provider in the U.S., ranking behind
Comcast. As part of the same deal, Time Warner and Comcast would also trade
existing subscribers to create larger clusters of customers for each company
in various geographical areas.
The changes became effective on August 1, 2006. As an example, Comcast's
systems in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex were traded to TWC in exchange
for Time Warner's North Louisiana market, which covers Shreveport and
Monroe.
Also in August 2006, Comcast and Time Warner dissolved a partnership that
controlled the systems in the Houston, Southwest Texas, San Antonio, and
Kansas City markets. After the dissolution, Comcast will obtain the Houston
system, and Time Warner will retain the others. [1]On January 1, 2007,
Comcast officially took control of the Houston system, but continued to
operate under the Time Warner Cable brand in the interim. But as of June 19,
2007, the Time Warner name was officially retired and replaced by Comcast.
Another example of an area where Comcast gains a de-facto monopoly would be
in the Pittsburgh market, where Comcast would acquire the handful of
Adelphia assets in the area to go along with Comcast's already-huge market
share in the area.
Comcast also took over Adelphia systems in the State College, Pennsylvania
area.
In early 2007, Comcast took over Adelphia operations in Palm Beach County,
FL.
thePlatform Purchase
In July 2006, Comcast purchased the Seattle based software company
thePlatform. This represented an entree into a new line of business -
selling software to allow companies to manage their internet (and IP based)
media publishing efforts. Customers of thePlatform include Verizon Wireless,
CNBC, Scripps, CourtTV, Amp'd Mobile, and ABC News.
High Speed Internet Service
Comcast, the largest cable provider in the United States, offers downstream
speeds of 4, 6, or 8 Mbit/s and upstream speeds of 384 kbit/s (48 kB/s), or
768 kbit/s (96 kB/s) for the 8 Mbit/s downstream package, for standard home
connections. In some areas, they are offering 16 Mbit/s downstream and 1
Mbit/s (125 kB/s) upstream as a more expensive, yet speedier alternative; or
to keep customers from switching to Verizon's FiOS. These differing speed
options are made possible by loading a particular configuration file into
the modem. Comcast's PowerBoost technology delivers bursts of 12 to 16 Mbit/s
downstream and 1 to 2 Mbit/s upstream with their 6 and 8 Mbit/s packages,
respectively.
According to the Comcast High Speed Internet terms of service, customers are
provided with dynamic IP addresses[2]. Comcast has a policy of terminating
broadband customers who allegedly use excessive bandwidth. Comcast has
declined to disclose a numerical bandwidth limit, arguing that the limit is
variable on a monthly basis and dependent on the capacity of specific cable
nodes. Comcast claims this policy only affects users whose bandwidth
consumption is among the top one percent of high-speed internet customers.
Statements issued by Comcast in response to press inquiries suggest that
excessive usage is generally defined as several hundred gigabytes per
month.[3][4] However, their terms of service state that a customer's use
should not "represent (in the sole judgment of Comcast) an overly large
burden on the network."[11] In actual practice the amount that is considered
excessive usage varies by location and can be as low as a few hundred GB if
a customer is in a low usage location.
Controversies
After the Washington Nationals baseball team relocated to Washington, D.C.
in 2004, Comcast alienated many fans in the area by refusing to add the
Mid-Atlantic Sports Network (MASN), which airs the team's games, to its
channel lineup. In July 2006, as a condition of its approval of Comcast's
takeover of a portion of Adelphia's assets, the FCC ordered Comcast to enter
into binding arbitration with MASN to settle their dispute. As a result, on
August 4, 2006, it was announced that Comcast would carry MASN programming
starting in September 2006. A price increase was announced as well.
In the Philadelphia region, Comcast uses the FCC's "terrestrial loophole" to
avoid negotiations with satellite television services for delivery of
Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia, which is transmitted via a closed-wired
system instead of satellite (as its predecessor, PRISM, was a local-only
service). This essentially denies competition in the Philadelphia market for
games of the Philadelphia Phillies (baseball), Philadelphia 76ers
(basketball), and Philadelphia Flyers (hockey). Comcast does, however,
supply Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia programming to Verizon for their
competing FIOS video service, even though FIOS is not available to residents
of the city of Philadelphia.
A smaller controversy arose when Comcast and Cox Communications announced
that their systems in Connecticut (outside of Comcast's systems in New
Haven, Danbury, and the Northwest Corner--all areas considered to have a
sizeable number of Mets fans) would not be adding SNY in 2006, if ever, for
varying reasons not fully explained. Though a distant third behind the
dominant Yankees and Red Sox, this came to the anger of Mets fans who would
need to switch to satellite to watch games due to all of the state being in
the Mets' designated territory (thus, games would not be available through
MLB Extra Innings, and most ESPN telecasts would be blacked-out). Comcast's
purchase of Adelphia's systems in the state and Cox's skeptical eye towards
RSN carriage in regards to fan loyalties (also done with YES and NESN in the
past) also could be factors.
Monopoly Effects
Comcast spends millions of dollars annually on government
relationships.[5][6] Regularly Comcast employs the spouses, sons and
daughters of influential mayors, councilmen, commissioners, and other
officials to assure its continued local monopoly and preferred market
allocations, many of which have been questioned as unethical.[7][8][9][10]
Comcast's monopoly on cable television has historically been enforced by
local governments, Comcast maintains over 6000 such defacto monopolies. In
order to provide service to individual homes, a cable provider must place
its cable wiring along and across local streets or other rights-of-way. To
do so the provider must get permission from the local government(s) that own
these streets via rights-of-way permits.
Operational permission comes in the form of a document called a local
franchise agreement. Most of local government(s) chose to grant permission
to only one company, however, recently states have developed broader
franchising laws to drive more investment and competition. Changes in the
federal law in 1992 had forced local governments to grant permission to
other companies to provide service, however the U.S. Government found in
2006 that only 2% of U.S. households had a competitive choice. In some cases
Comcast, with municipal government approval, had entered into market
allocation schemes. By agreeing to not compete head to head, consumers thus
are perpetually locked into a single monopoly cable provider with annual
price escalations reaching 93% in the past decade.[11][12][13][14] [12]
A recent third party survey of citizens in a Comcast franchise area found
approximately 62% of the respondents were very dissatisfied (along with
another 25% who were dissatisfied) with the cost of cable television
service. A majority of the respondents were satisfied with the friendliness
and courtesy of customer service personnel, however, approximately 30% of
the respondents rated the cable company's performance as poor. With regard
to open-ended comments, respondents felt that the cost of the cable service
was too high, a need for cable competition existed and the desire for a
basic cable package offering was desired. Although respondents cited these
critical issues, the local monopoly structure preserves the status quo of
poor customer service, limited product choices, no direct competition and
uncontrollable annual cable TV price increases. Relief for consumers is
being created by state level a multi jurisdictional franchise and service
process that will spur investment and competition; thus driving economic
development sought by state and local government leaders.[15]
Comcast strongly lobbies against federal "family tier" and "a la carte"
bills that would give consumers the option to purchase individual channels
rather than a broad tier of programming. These issues continue to garner
attention from state governments, Congress and FCC Chairman Martin. [13]
Commercials
Comcast's television advertising follows one of several patterns, usually
consisting of a humorous vignette followed by a more direct offer and the
tagline "It's Comcastic!"
Wordplay
Comcast often show something like a cartoon before saying that it's a
Comcast commercial, with slogans that are often metaphors. Examples: A
unicorn race car driver with a pit crew consisting of space aliens and
leprechauns, with the motto "Unbelievably fast". A fisherman catches the
words "Some Favorites" that are acting like a fish (flapping all around),
which he then throws back into the lake, with the motto "Catch all your
favorites." A seemingly popular guy dressed as a superhero, named "Moolah" (moolah
means money) is about to be crushed by a grand piano, but is saved by a man,
with the motto "Save moolah". A rescue helicopter is trying to get some
cabbage (a synonym for money because of green color) out of the ocean, with
the motto "Save some cabbage." During a girl's fifth birthday, when she
blows out four of the candles, four ponies appear. When she then blows out
the fifth candle, her brother turns into a rubber gorilla, with the motto
"Everything you want right away." A crowd is trying to stop a demolition
crew in front of an empty Parking lot, with the motto "Save a lot." Someone
dressed as a clock is in a school gym and runs out when the bell rings, with
the motto "Time is running out." A man is shown flash cards with simple
addition problems. He breezes through each problem by blurting out different
numbers without ever getting one of the cards right. At one point while he
does this, he is able to catch a fly with a set of tweezers, with the motto
"Stupid fast." A lifeguard saves the life of a buck, who was lying on a
beach unconscious, by giving it mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, with the motto
"Save big bucks." A man is in a dim sum restaurant with a waiter asking him
to try out foods. He gives him "kaboodle", and later "kit" to go with it,
with the motto "Get the whole kit and kaboodle".
Slowskys
The Slowskys are a tortoise couple featured in television advertising for
Comcast's HSI cable modem service. The Slowskys use DSL instead of Comcast
because DSL is claimed to be slower, thus implying that Comcast's internet
services are much faster than DSL (i.e, too fast for a tortoise).
Podcasts
Comcast ran a trial series of commercials on the Virginworlds podcast series
about MMORPGs. The trial was not considered successful and did not turn into
a permanent arrangement.
References
1. ^ Time Warner Investment info
2. ^ comcast TOS
3. ^ Article from Boston.com
4. ^ nytimes.com article
5. ^ [1]
6. ^ Nashvillecitypaper.com
7. ^ [2]
8. ^ [3]
9. ^ [4]
10. ^ [5]
11. ^ [6]
12. ^ [7]
13. ^ [8]
14. ^ [9]
15. ^ [10]
* Alex Goldman (2006). Top 22 U.S. ISPs by Subscriber: Q3 2006. Retrieved on
January 9, 2007.
* Comcast Press Room. Retrieved on January 29, 2006.
* Comcast Corporate Overview. Retrieved on December 26, 2006.
* Verizon Signs Agreement With Comcast for Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia.
Retrieved on December 11, 2006.
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