Comcast Considers Internet Video Push
May Offer Services Outside Its Cable Footprint In Future
By Steve Donohue -- Multichannel News, 6/4/2006 8:00:00 PM
Comcast Corp. is looking to use the Internet to deliver video programming to customers anywhere in the country, the company’s chief operating officer said last week. The move, if pursued, would mean the nation’s largest cable operator would be marketing TV-like services to households served by other cable companies.
Chief operating officer Steve Burke, speaking at a Wall Street Journal conference on digital media last week in Carlsbad, Calif., said the Philadelphia-based company could open up the video services on its Comcast.net Web portal to viewers outside the 35 states in which it currently operates. Currently, multimedia features such as a streaming radio service and video mail are available only to Comcast cable customers.
While any Web surfer worldwide can already access Comcast.net, its premium content — including two-to-three-minute videos and free streams of live National Hockey League games — is only offered to Comcast customers that subscribe to one of its high-speed Internet packages.
Despite the fact that the best Comcast.net content is currently only available to paying customers, the portal was ranked as the 21st most-popular Web site in the United States, reaching 6,110 people for every 1 million Web surfers on average last week, according to Alexa.com.
If Comcast decides to offer the premium content to Web surfers nationwide, that traffic could increase significantly. Burke said Comcast, which counts 21.5 million video customers, sees the Internet as a “gigantic opportunity.”
“We would like to be the Amazon of video on the Internet. We have some assets other companies don’t have,” Burke said at the “D: All Things Digital” conference, according to an online report posted by ZDNet. The Wall Street Journal Online also reported that Burke was considering using Comcast.net as a vehicle to extend video services outside the company’s cable territories.
Comcast’s assets include a stable of basic-cable networks, including E! Entertainment Television, OLN and The Golf Channel, along with joint programming ventures with producers such as Sony Pictures.
Other major cable operators, including Time Warner Cable and Charter Communications Inc., limit access to content on their high-speed portals to subscribers that pay anywhere from $30 to $50 monthly to receive high-speed Internet access.
Time Warner Cable spokesman Keith Cocozza said his company, the No. 2 U.S. cable provider, doesn’t have plans to change its strategy. “We are not looking at offering the Road Runner portal off our network,” Cocozza said last Thursday.
Comcast’s move could see it compete with other cable operators by distributing video via the Internet outside Comcast’s footprint. But Forrester Research analyst Josh Bernoff said he also sees potential for Comcast to team up with other cable operators by allowing their subscribers to access the portal, but not granting access to subscribers from rivals such as Verizon Inc. and AT&T Corp.
“You could have a cable content cabal happen here,” Bernoff said.
Or, Comcast could open the portal to customers of all Internet providers, including the telcos, which would allow it to drive ad revenue, Bernoff said.
“It’s also an admission really that the portal is a great proposition, but not necessarily one that causes people to choose Comcast over another [high-speed] operator. You could get Verizon DSL and look at it [Comcast.net], under what he [Burke] is suggesting,” Bernoff added.
Comcast officials declined further comment on Burke’s remarks. Burke and other Comcast executives were not available for interviews, according to Comcast senior director of corporate communications Vibha Agrawal and director of financial communications Tim Fitzpatrick.
There is no timetable or even a definite plan to open up the video, audio and other multimedia features of Comcast.net to Internet users across the country.
The cable-systems operator also has no current plans for either a subscription-supported or ad-supported Comcast.net portal that might compete with Amazon, Google, Yahoo, Youtube or other purveyors of video to any and all browsers of the Internet.
“We’re exploring different opportunities to make video content available across different devices,” Agrawal said. “We have no specific announcement at this time.”
The company in December created the Comcast Interactive Media division, headed by president Amy Banse, Fitzpatrick noted. The division was formed with the purpose of developing and acquiring content for Comcast services that could run on multiple platforms, including the Web and mobile media platforms.
“We think the PC can become a dashboard for the entertainment experience for our customers,” Banse told Multichannel News in December.
But “the low-hanging fruit is clearly within our footprint,” Banse added.
Comcast has used the premium content on Comcast.net to drive new high-speed data subscriptions. It added 437,000 new customers during the first quarter, expanding its total to 8.96 million.
If the company decides to open the portal to all Web surfers, the main selling point of its high-speed data service would be its speed.
That strategy could also help the company compete with lower-priced high-speed Internet services marketed by rivals such as Verizon and AT&T, which offer DSL services for as low as $14.95 monthly.
Comcast runs videos on Comcast.net through a media player called “The Fan.” It currently contains video ranging from content from Fox Sports, NASCAR.com and Disney content to complete NHL games, thanks to a rights deal Comcast’s OLN struck with the league.
While Comcast hasn’t announced plans to distribute live, 24-hour networks through The Fan, its strategy of steadily bulking up the content on the site allows users to build playlists of video clips and shows that could pull them away from the TV.
Web TV Plans Percolate
02/23/2009Sprint Looking to Replace CEO Forsee
10/05/2007Cable Operators Continue Internet TV Talks
02/20/2009Comcast's Burke: Non-Video Subs to Take Lead
05/31/2006
