comcast

Comcast Corporation, (NASDAQ: CMCSA) based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is the largest cable company and the largest broadband (second overall) Internet service provider in the United States. In fact, Comcast now serves a total of 23.3 million cable customers, 11 million digital cable customers, 10 million high-speed internet customers, and 1.6 million voice customers. They develop broadband cable networks and are involved in electronic retailing and television programming content. The company employs over 87,000 people.

History

Comcast was founded in 1963 by Ralph J. Roberts, Daniel Aaron, 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, Washington, D.C./Baltimore metro Sacramento, California and Detroit ), E! Entertainment Television, Style Network, G4, The Golf Channel and OLN (formerly known as Outdoor Life Network, soon to change names again to Versus) over a period of years. In 2006, Comcast started a new sports channel in cooperation with Major League Baseball's New York Mets 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 (U.S.) 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 and Pittsburgh. 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.

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 build the Comcast Center. The 975 ft skyscraper will be the tallest building in Philadelphia when it is completed in late 2007.

Comcast is currently outsourced in Canada, though there is no comcast cable in canada as of yet. The center in Southern Alberta is currently the only center which has a parental controls department

Acquisitions

Further information: List of assets owned by Comcast

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 spurned 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 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 May 1, 2006 Comcast officially announced that it had acquired Susquehanna Communications (SusCom,) a York, PA based cable Television and broadband services provider, for a net cash investment of approximately $540 million. In this deal Comcast aquired 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.

Comcast, Time Warner, and Adelphia

In April 2005 Comcast and Time Warner announced plans to buy Adelphia Cable. $17.6 billion will 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 will become the second largest cable provider in the U.S., ranking behind Comcast. As part of the same deal, Time Warner and Comcast will 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. In return, Comcast will get the Greater Houston market, currently held by Time Warner. Also, Time Warner will stay in the Southwest Texas and San Antonio markets. The channel switching will begin on January 1, 2007. Another example that would also give Comcast 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.

Controversies

The company has recently alienated many baseball fans in the Washington, D.C. area by refusing to add the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network (MASN), which airs the Washington Nationals baseball team, 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 will carry MASN programming starting in September 2006 following a settlement between Comcast and MASN. A price increase was announced in consequence.

In the Philadelphia region, Comcast uses the FCC's "terrestrial loophole" to avoid negotiations with satellite television services for carriage of Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia, which is transmitted via a closed-wired system instead of satellite. This essentially denies competition in the Philadelphia market for games of the Philadelphia Phillies (baseball), Philadelphia 76ers (basketball), and Philadelphia Flyers (hockey).

External links

• Comcast.com: Sales, Stock, and Employment
• Comcast.net: For Comcast High-Speed Internet customers
• Yahoo! - Comcast Corporation Company Profile
• Frank Kyle Spain: The Real Reason Ralph J. Roberts Chose Tupelo to Start Comcast Cable?
• Comcast High-Speed Internet Promotions
• Declan McCullough: The Biggest Spammer on the Net? Comcast?
• Site for the cable networks Comcast controls

References

• Comcast Press Room. Retrieved on January 29, 2006.
• Comcast Press Room - Product Fact Sheet. Retrieved on September 14, 2006.