Comcast

The increase to $2 billion was generated by higher retransmission consent fees, ad revenue as well as money from content licensing.

The move would reclassify all of the cable television operator’s Class A special common stock into Class A common stock, subject to shareholder approval.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Comcast is talking with a number of audience measurement companies and TV networks to license its data to them. The company is looking to harness data from streaming devices and set-top boxes and organize the details into dashboards, which networks and marketers can use to target certain data segments. The talks, which have extended to ESPN, Discovery and Turner and already nabbed NBCUniversal. Subscribers to The Wall Street Journal can read the full story here.

Richard Plepler raps “myopic” distributors, including Comcast, for failing to use HBO Now to drive broadband value.

As of Oct. 1, Comcast customers in a few small markets are now subject to metered data use. Households that use more than 300 gigabytes of data per month will have the choice to pay $10 for an extra 50 gigabytes or $30 per month for unlimited service. The cable giant joins the No. 4 player in the industry, Cox Communications, in offering tiers that vary in price depending on data use. Metered data is good for most consumers and for the Internet. Here’s why.

Comcast is joining Apple and Google in the race to convince customers that they need Internet-connected smart home devices like thermostats, lights and garage door openers. Comcast begins a new program today, Works with Xfinity Home, desinged to give customers the option of controlling all of their smart home devices using a single mobile app and password. As it is, many smart home devices require separate apps and log-ins, creating a headache for consumers.

Comcast has announced a new ad-supported digital video platform focused around independent digital video players, called Watchable. The move had been expected. Media sources have been positioning Watchable as a YouTube competitor. Many digital video providers that Watchable has signed up are also on Google’s video platform.

Comcast Corp. — content to sell cable TV or high-speed Internet to homeowners and small businesses for years — is now targeting Vanguard, Apple, Amazon, General Motors, Coca-Cola, and other big companies for data-transmission services. Seeking new growth after the Time Warner Cable Inc. smackdown this spring, Comcast will challenge AT&T and Verizon in their lucrative businesses serving the telecom needs of Fortune 500 companies.

The cable TV giant is investing in online media outlets like BuzzFeed and Vox that attract young viewers. It’s setting up a streaming TV service for millennials who don’t watch a boob tube. And it’s developing a YouTube-like video app and website.

NBC’s $200 million investment in BuzzFeed and Vox shows the outline of a new media world that may prove life-threatening for big companies. Aside from Comcast, the media companies scrambling to escape disaster and crack the digital code include Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox empire (which comprises Fox studios, the Fox broadcast network, and the FX, National Geographic and Fox News cable channels), Time Warner (Warner Bros., CNN, HBO and the various Turner channels), and the Walt Disney Co. (Disney studios, ABC and ESPN).

Comcast is preparing to launch a major new video platform with content from big-name partners in the coming weeks. The platform is currently called “Watchable,” but there’s a small chance that could change before launch. The partners are said to include Comcast-backed Vox and Buzzfeed, lifestyle, and comedy sites like AwesomenessTV, Refinery29 and The Onion; news sites like Mic and Vice; as well as legacy brands like NBC Sports.

Comcast and Discovery Communications announced today that they have signed a long-term, comprehensive renewal of their distribution agreement. The deal spans 12 Discovery U.S. networks across multiple Comcast distribution platforms.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Comcast Corp.’s NBCUniversal is scouting out several companies in the world of new media for potential deals as the cable giant tries to court young consumers who are watching less traditional television. The company has engaged in preliminary discussions with several online publishers including Vice Media, BuzzFeed and Business Insider, and has discussed increasing its roughly 14% stake in Vox Media, according to people familiar with the matter. WSJ subscribers can read the full story here.

A slight increase in ad revenue and higher retransmission consent fees were offset by lower content licensing revenue, keeping Broadcast Television segment revenue at $1.8 billion.

Sahil Patel looks at Comcast’s announcement on Monday that it will debut a new Web-based option, Stream, and finds it’s a clever test of OTT distribution while actually keeping the bundle intact (the service is available only to Comcast’s Internet subscribers). “As much as the TV business is forced to adapt and change, it’s trying equally hard to keep what it can intact,” he writes.

At first, Comcast’s Stream service will be offered in three cities and include programs from about a dozen networks. The $15-a-month service, which will provide access to live and on-demand programming, reflects a mainstream cable company’s effort to stay relevant as streaming grows in popularity.

Comcast has officially arrived in the city that never sleeps. The iconic “30 Rock” building is now the “Comcast Building” of Manhattan. And it’s for all to see. The building at 30 Rockefeller Plaza — known internationally for its Christmas tree, and more recently as the home of Tina Fey’s television comedy — has officially been renamed.

The campaign, called Symphony, has been opened to outside advertisers. The idea is to use Comcast’s multiplatform range of assets for ad campaigns.

Roberts jumped into the fledgling cable TV industry in 1963 by spending $500,000 to buy American Cable Systems, a company in Tupelo, Miss. He then acquired other cable systems, changed the name of the company to Comcast and ran the company until he was in his 80s.

The largest U.S. cable operator, Comcast Corp., continues to acquired advanced advertising technology companies — now with the purchase of Visible World, one of the bigger platforms and proponents of addressable TV advertising.

Comcast has agreed to purchase Visible World, a New York ad-tech firm that helps marketers tailor commercials to specific audiences and geographies.

FCC and Justice Department officials have spent the past few weeks sifting through allegations that Comcast violated 2011 agreements that enabled the cable giant to buy NBCUniversal.

AT&T is buying satellite TV provider DirecTV so it can offer packages that marry wireless and wired Internet access with traditional and online video. Verizon is buying AOL for technology to improve advertising on mobile devices. And Comcast tried — unsuccessfully — to get bigger, in part to compete better with online video services such as Netflix and Hulu. Here’s a look at what these three companies are doing.

Comcast Corp. long-protected set-top cable subscriber box data — highly desired by many TV research services — is getting another release, this time as NBCUniversal’s new audience/data platform.

Comcast Corp. today named Michael J. Cavanagh senior executive vice president and chief financial officer. He will join Comcast early this summer from The Carlyle Group, a global alternative asset […]

Comcast has more Internet subscribers than it does for cable for the first time, the company said in an earnings call today. As of March, the company had 22.4 million broadband customers.

But excluding Super Bowl and Sochi Olympics, revenue increases 5.5%, powered by ad gains and higher retrans money.

Can Apple’s TV service entice viewers without NBC network or its sister cable channels, including CNBC and USA? The question could be moot, as Comcast’s NBCUniversal may be forced to hand over its programming regardless.

Increased ad sales and retransmission consent money push 4Q revenue up almost 4% to $2.3 billion and full year revenue up 8% to $8.5 billion.  

One major media analyst says its time to pull back on cable stocks — with the advent of a big broadband regulatory push and a continued fleeing of customers. “With stocks having largely achieved our target prices, with cord-cutting risks mounting, and regulation clouding the path forward in broadband, it seems to us to be time to reduce exposure,” says Craig Moffett of MoffettNathanson Research. He downgraded the big three cable stocks — Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Charter — to “neutral.”

AT&T, Comcast and Verizon have donated heavily to incoming members of Congress, cultivating early relationships with the next generation of lawmakers and surpassing the efforts of Internet companies like Google and Facebook, which are just beginning to up their game in Washington. The three wireless and cable giants last election cycle cast a wide net. They targeted many of the 65 newcomers to Capitol Hill along with scores of familiar incumbents as the industry prepares for new legislative battles in 2015 over net neutrality and other communications laws.