Comcast Corporation

Date Founded: 1963

Industry: Media and technology

Corporate Headquarters: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Type: Public

Operating in forty states and the District of Columbia, Comcast Corporation is a media and technology corporation that is headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In 2022 Comcast was the second-largest provider of Internet services in the United States.

Originally a cable television provider, Comcast grew and diversified, adding phone services in 1988, Internet services in 1996, and television and movie content over the years. Through its 2011 purchase of a majority stake in NBCUniversal, it began operating several theme parks; it also had a stake in the Philadelphia Flyers professional hockey team and some sports arenas.

The changing media environment of the early years of the twenty-first century posed a growing threat to the company. Streaming video from providers such as Netflix and Amazon convinced many customers to drop their cable subscriptions. The company also faced rising fees from television networks, on the one hand, and market resistance to an increase in its own fees, on the other. In 2014 Comcast attempted to strengthen itself by merging with Time-Warner Cable, another major provider of cable television and high-speed Internet services. Growing opposition from government regulators forced Comcast to call off the deal in April 2015.

In 2022, Comcast had over 186,000 employees. Ralph Roberts formed Comcast in 1963, and his son Brian Roberts replaced him as president in 1990, as chief executive officer (CEO) in 2002, and as chair in 2004. The elder Roberts died in 2015, and his son remained CEO in 2023.

History

Comcast began in 1963 as American Cable Systems when Ralph Roberts and other investors purchased a cable television provider in Tupelo, Mississippi. Roberts added a franchise that provided Muzak—programmed background music—five years later. In 1969 the company name was changed to Comcast, and three years later, its stock was first offered publicly.

Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, the company grew slowly, expanding both its cable and Muzak businesses. The mid-1980s saw a period of more aggressive growth spurred by the purchase of sizable shares of other cable providers. Comcast also began entering new markets, investing in the new QVC home-shopping network in 1986 and acquiring American Cellular in 1988 to become a telephone service provider.

Growth through acquisition continued in the 1990s: with the purchase of the Metrophone cellular network in 1992 as well as the Maclean Hunter (1994) and Scripps (1995) cable systems, with its investment in the Golf Channel, and with an increased stake in QVC. In 1996 Comcast became a part owner of the Philadelphia Flyers hockey team and the Philadelphia 76ers basketball team. (The basketball team was later sold.)

The next year, Comcast launched its first cable sports channel, Comcast SportsNet, in Philadelphia. Subsequently, it added other regional sports channels based in eight other major cities, including major markets such as Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, and New York.

Comcast continued its expansion, most notably through a 2001 merger with AT&T Broadband cable systems, which gave the corporation more than twenty million customers. This marriage of the two companies came under intense criticism from consumer groups, but the Federal Communications Commission approved the agreement in 2002. The merger gave Comcast a presence in seventeen of the nation’s largest twenty cities.

Just two years later, Comcast attempted to secure rights to a treasure trove of content by making an unsolicited—and ultimately unsuccessful—bid to buy the Walt Disney Company, which would have given Comcast control of the ABC television network.

Meanwhile, the switch from coaxial cables to fiber optic networks allowed Comcast to take advantage of arriving new communications technology. In 2003 it began offering television shows to customers on demand, and in 2005 it launched digital voice services. That year was also the first time that Comcast offered its triple-play services bundle that combined Internet, television, and telephone services. Over time the company launched on-demand video for the Android operating system and for the iPad.

Comcast reached another milestone in 2011 when it bought 51 percent of NBCUniversal in a joint venture with General Electric (GE). Two years later, Comcast purchased GE’s share, gaining full control of NBCUniversal.

Acquisitions and new ventures eventually caused a shift in the corporation’s business mix. Cable subscriptions formed a declining share of overall revenues—from 55 percent in 2009 to only about 30 percent in 2015. During this period, revenue growth was spurred by the growth both in its Internet services, which rose from about $6.4 billion in 2007 to an estimated $14.5 billion in 2015, and in its proprietary content, which soared from about $2 billion in sales in 2007 to more than $26 billion in 2015. Content also accounted for an increasing share of Comcast’s profits—about 36 percent in 2015 compared to 30 percent for the cable business. In 2018, Comcast became the parent company of Sky Group, a European television and media group.

In 2022 the company saw total revenues of more than $121.43 billion. The previous year, Comcast was denied in its request for a petition regarding an ongoing antitrust trial involving Viamedia by the Supreme Court. Comcast, who was sued by Viamedia for allegedly refusing to do business with third parties unless they ended business with Viamedia first, petitioned the Supreme Court to review the case after it was deemed fit for trial by a lower court in February 2020. The Supreme Court rejected the petition upon the recommendation of the Biden Administration, which allowed the trial to proceed.

Impact

Comcast has become a major player in many areas of media and technology, and it placed twenty-eight in the Fortune 500 ranking of US corporations in 2022. With a cable and Internet presence in most large US cities and company-owned television affiliates in many of those cities, it achieved deep penetration. Investors tended to keep a close watch on how the company responded to the changing marketplace.

The company has historically made efforts to meet what it sees as its social responsibilities. Its headquarters was designed to conserve water and energy, and the new Innovation and Technology Center was designed to win the highest level of certification from the US Green Building Council. During Comcast’s annual Comcast Cares Day, employees take part in service projects in the communities the company serves. Black Enterprise magazine rated Comcast as one of the forty best companies for diversity in 2014/2015, citing the diversity of its workforce and new hires, its employee development programs, and the number of African Americans in top executive positions. DiversityInc ranked Comcast as the seventh most inclusive company in the nation in 2022. Despite these efforts, the corporation has been the target of some criticism—for example, for its growth strategies. Its Internet Essentials program, offering high-speed Internet access to low-income households, was criticized both because the service is too slow to qualify as high-speed Internet and because it is not available to enough people. Comcast’s long insistence on collecting a fee from Netflix for that company’s access to its broadband connections into homes also drew much criticism and charges that the company was trying to undermine net neutrality.

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