Comcast Facts
Comcast Corporation is based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is the largest cable company in the United States. They develop broadband cable networks and are involved in electronic retailing and television programming content.
Comcast 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/Baltimore metro and Sacramento, California), E! Entertainment Television, Style Network, G4, The Golf Channel and OLN (formerly known as Outdoor Life Network) over a period of years.
In 2006, Comcast will start a new sports channel in cooperation with Major League Baseball’s New York Mets in the greater New York City region.
Comcast also has a variety network known as cn8, or the Comcast Network, available exclusivey to Comcast and Cablevision subscribers. The channel shows news, sports, and entertainment. Unlike CNN and the Fox News Channel, cn8 is actually very neutral politically.
The channel places emphasis in Philadelphia, New England, and the Baltimore/Washington, D.C. areas, though the channel is also available in New York and Pittsburgh.
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 announced a $60 billion merger which did not occur until three years later.
The company employs over 70,000 people.
In 2002, Comcast paid the University of Maryland an undisclosed amount for naming rights to the new basketball arena built on the College Park campus, named Comcast Center.
Comcast Acquisitions
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 until 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 televesion operator at the time, AT&T Broadband (AT&T’s cable TV service). In 2002 Comcast acquired all assets of AT&T Broadband, thus making Comcast the largest cable television company in the United States.
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. It was later discovered that the 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 OLN’s 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 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 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.
