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overview
holdings
chronology
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overview
This profile considers the Comcast cable television group
It covers -
introduction
Comcast is the third-largest US cable television operator,
with revenues in 2000 of US$8.2 billion,
around 30% of US cable viewers and 60,000 employees.
Having
made an unsuccessful US$51 billion bid for Disney in February
2004 it allied with Sony in a takeover of MGM.
As of August 2003 it claimed to
be the largest US cable company, serving over 21 million
customers in 41 states, with -
-
38 million homes passed
- over
6.3 million digital video customers
- over
3.3 million high-speed data customers
- over
1.3 million cable telephone customers
and
being the market leader in eight of the top ten US markets
(with 70% of its subscribers in the top 20 US markets).
In 2006 's assets were acquired by and Comcast and Time
Warner Cable aquired the assets of Adelphia
Communications Corporation, the sixth largest cable tv
group prior to collapse in 2002. The
deal saw Comcast gain 1.7 million additional basic subscribers,
increasing its total base to approximately 23.3 million
owned-&-operated customers, with a further 3.5 million
subscribers through different partnerships. Time Warner
Cable concurrently redeemed Comcast's 17.9% interest in
Time Warner Cable Inc.; Time Warner Entertainment (TWE)
redeemed Comcast's 4.7% interest in TWE.
Its corporate site is here.
evolution of the group
Comcast began - like TCI/Liberty
Media and Cablevision -
in the 1960s with minor cable television operations, initially
in Tupelo Mississippi. It was founded by Daniel Aaron
(1926-2003), Ralph Roberts and Julian Brodsky as American
Cable Systems in 1963, becoming Comcast in 1969.
It has since expanded through acquisition (nothing like
deregulation, cash flow and junk bonds) to embrace subscribers
in the mid-Atlantic region (northern New Jersey to northern
Virginia), Michigan, Tennessee, Florida, Indiana and New
Mexico.
It acquired control of home shopping group QVC (characterised
as "the world's leading electronic retailer"),
built by former Fox Network czar Barry Diller, and currently
expanding into the UK, Germany and Japan. QVC had revenue
in 2000 of around US$3.5 billion and claims to reach over
84 million households. In November 2002 it absorbed AT&T
Broadband in a US$47 billion plus stock deal, selling
QVC to Liberty Media in September
2003 in a deal worth around US$7.9 billion.
Like its competitors the group has been expanding into
content production and packaging. It has stakes in the
'entertainment networks' E! Entertainment and Style, sports
and lifestyle networks such as The Golf Channel and Outdoor
Life Network, and regional television networks such as
the Sunshine Network.
It has a majority stake in the Philadelphia 76ers NBA
team, the Philadelphia Flyers NHL franchise, several minor
league baseball and hockey teams, and Philadelphia's two
major indoor arenas.
Comcast's main connection with Australia is through its
2000 takeover of Lenfest Communications, which had become
involved in Australia's paytv debacle.
A chronology is here.
holdings
An indication of major holdings (most activity outside
the US involves the Cablevision subsidiary) is here.
lenfest
After graduating from Washington & Lee University
(BA 1953) and Columbia Law School (LL.B 1958) Lenfest
practiced law at Davis Polk & Wardwell in New York
before becoming corporate counsel for Walter Annenberg.
In 1970 he became Managing Director of Triangle Publications'
communications division - Seventeen magazine
(subsequently sold to Murdoch's
News) and cable television operations. In 1974 he founded
Lenfest Communications by acquiring two of Annenberg's
cable television networks.
Lenfest Communications built interests in cable networks
and national satellite promotion of cable programming,
digital satellite distribution, and cable advertising
and market promotion before being acquired by TCI, with
control subsequently passing to AT&T and Comcast.
studies
For Aaron see his autobiography Take the Measure of
the Man: An American Success Story (Veritas Press
2001). Barry Diller is centre stage in George Mair's The
Barry Diller Story: The Life & Times of America's Greatest
Entertainment Mogul (New York: Wiley 1997) and Jerome
Tuccille's Barry Diller: The Life and Times of a Media
Mogul (Secaucus: Carol 1998).
The Roberts feature in Comcasted: How Ralph and Brian
Roberts Took Over America's TV, One Deal at a Time
(Philadelphia: Camino 2005) by Joseph DiStefano.
The cable business is discussed in L
J Davis' The Billionaire Shell Game: How Cable Baron
John Malone and Assorted Corporate Titans Invented A Future
Nobody Wanted (New York: Doubleday 1998), Stephen
Keating's Cutthroat:
High Stakes and Killer Moves on the Electronic Frontier
(Boulder: Johnson 1999) and the more persuasive The
Rise of Cable Programming in the United States (Austin:
Uni of Texas Press 2003) by Megan Mullen.
For the wider environment see Richard Caves' cogent Switching
Channels: Organization and Change in TV Broadcasting
(Cambridge: Harvard Uni Press 2005), Reed Hundt's You
Say You Want A Revolution: A Story of Information Age
Politics (New Haven: Yale Uni Press 2000),
Neil Chenoweth's Virtual Murdoch: Reality Wars on the
Information Highway (London: Secker & Warburg 2001),
Road Warriors - Dreams
& Nightmares Along the Information Highway (New York:
Dutton 1995) by Daniel Bursten & David Kline and The
Highwaymen - Warriors of the Information Superhighway
(New York: Random House 1997) by Ken Auletta.
For Lenfest in Australia see Mark Westfield's The Gatekeepers:
The Global Media Battle to control Australia's Pay TV
(Annandale: Pluto Press 2000) and the drier Pay
TV in Australia: Markets & Mergers, a
72
page IPA paper (PDF)
by Cento Veljanovski.
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