Comcast

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a:This page describes the American media company. For the Marvel Comics character formerly known as Commcast, see Black Box (comics).

Comcast Corporation

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	90,000
Website	www.comcast.com

Philadelphia Portal

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. Comcast now serves a total of 24.1 million cable customers, 12.1 million digital cable customers, 11 million high-speed internet customers, and 2.5 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.

1 History
2 Acquisitions
- 2.1 Time Warner and Adelphia
3 Controversies
4 Commercials
- 4.1 Slowskys
- 4.2 Podcasts
5 References
6 External links

[edit] 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, and Sacramento, California), 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 SportsNet New York in cooperation with Major League Baseball's New York Mets and Time Warner 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. 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. Comcast also operates local channels in the Chicago (Comcast Network) and Detroit (Comcast Local) markets.

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 Group announced a $60 billion merger. A month later the deal became scuttled by AT&T Broadband's larger bid of $62 billion [1], [2]. AT&T Broadband's merger with Comcast did not occur until over 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, 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.

[edit] 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 spin-off cable TV service) for $44.5 Billion USD. The deal was a premium deal for Comcast considering that Comcast wanted to pay just over $60 billion dollars alone for the assets of MediaOne Group in 1999, meanwhile the combined assets of AT&T Broadband included MediaOne along with the former assets of TCI as well for less money. In 2002 Comcast successfully 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.

Proposed merger name logo, 2001

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 of that year. This attempt, along with the initial run at MediaOne, exemplifies CEO Brian Roberts's shrewd ability to walk away from a deal that is not worth more money. It was later discovered that the Disney 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 Versus' 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.

[edit] Time Warner and Adelphia

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. [3]

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.

[edit] 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 carriage 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 precludes 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.

Comcast has been subject to criticism for its policy of abruptly 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.[4]

[edit] Commercials

Comcast often shows something like a cartoon before saying that it's a Comcast commercial, with mottos 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" 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, 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 pair of chopsticks, 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 pizza maker is hanging in the air holding on to pizza dough that is hanging off a pole sticking out from second floor of the pizzeria, with the motto "Hang on to your dough."
A man is counting while dancing on a television, with the motto "TV you can count on."
A secretary sitting behind a desk mocks a man waiting to see a boss, moments later a phone rings which she picks up and promply hangs up never answering, and goes back to reading a magazine and loudly chewing bubble gum, with the motto "Bad reception?"
There's a Chinese man in a restaurant serving a customer two pans of cooked food. One says "Kit" while the other says "Kaboodle," with the motto "Get the whole Kit & Kaboodle."

[edit] Slowskys

The Slowskys are a pair of turtles who use DSL instead of Comcast because DSL is claimed to be slower.

[edit] 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 pemanent arrangement.