Comcast Could Wholesale Online TV Products, Roberts Says
Comcast could offer online TV products to consumers outside its physical footprint through wholesale arrangements with other multichannel video programming distributors, CEO Brian Roberts said on its earnings call Wednesday. Asked whether Comcast would consider introducing new consumer-targeted online video products outside its physical operating footprint, he at first downplayed the idea. “I don’t think there is yet a business model that we have seen that returns to our shareholders where you have relationships with customers in that way outside of our footprint, that we can make money with,” he said.
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With Comcast leading the cable industry in developing some online video and TV Everywhere products, “we might be able to wholesale to others as we have our digital media center in Denver,” Roberts said. “We might be able to do that to other distributors in a way that takes some of this investment and lays it off nationally.” Through NBCUniversal, Comcast has the ability to offer national and even international products, Roberts said. That’s part of what attracted Comcast to invest in NBCUniversal, he said. On the cable side, the focus for now is to push TV Everywhere “where we have the content relationship and the customer relationship and extend that to all devices,” he said. Comcast would enter a crowded field of TV Everywhere technology vendors looking to court smaller cable operators (CD May 16 p11).
The company will continue to invest in turning around NBCUniversal’s broadcast network, but investors shouldn’t expect instant results, said NBCU CEO Steve Burke. “I want to caution everyone. We're in fourth place at NBC … and we've told people that it doesn’t happen in one year,” he said. “It might take three or four.” Though he’s confident the network can be turned around, “I wouldn’t expect any miracles financially or in terms of performance,” Burke said.
In the 18 months since Comcast agreed to buy control of NBCUniversal, the value of TV and video content has increased, Burke said. “Retransmission consent is now a bigger number than it was then,” he said. “The kind of money that online video providers are paying for content is infinitely … greater than it was 18 months ago,” he said. “Content is more valuable, and the outlook, particularly for broadcast television, is much rosier than it was 18 months ago."
Comcast lost 238,000 video customers during the quarter and added 144,000 broadband and 193,000 phone customers. Add that all up and it connected 99,000 new customers, an 18 percent increase from a year earlier. Comcast’s cable sales gained 5.6 percent to $9.3 billion. Sales at NBCUniversal gained 17 percent to $5.2 billion.