Comcast hasn't let a little thing like the failed acquisition of Time Warner Cable keep it down.

Mari Silbey, Senior Editor, Cable/Video

August 19, 2015

3 Min Read
A Peek at What's Behind Comcast's Momentum

Comcast has snagged more than its fair share of headlines over the last several days.

With the failed acquisition of Time Warner Cable Inc. (NYSE: TWC) now in its rear-view mirror, the company has wasted no time investing resources in new projects and gearing up for its continued fight against industry behemoths that range from Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ) and AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) to Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) and Facebook .

In the last week alone, Comcast Corp. (Nasdaq: CMCSA, CMCSK) has plunged nearly half a billion dollars into Buzzfeed and Vox Media through its NBC Universal subsidiary. It's announced a new addition to its Video IP Engineering & Research (VIPER) division with the acquisition of This Technology LLC . And word has leaked that a new Comcast online "Watchable" video service is on the horizon, a potential complement to the company's planned skinny-bundle offering called Stream that is also set to debut this year. (See Comcast Scoops Up 'This Technology' and Comcast Readies 'Watchable' Online Service.)

More than most pay-TV and Internet companies, Comcast recognized early on the importance of owning critical media assets and becoming not just a dominant service provider, but a technology leader.

Not everything in the company's playbook has gone according to plan. Think back to Comcast's failed takeover of Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS) in 2004, and its likewise doomed attempt circa 2008/2009 to turn the tru2way/OCAP standard into an operating system for entertainment devices that would bridge the gap between cable and the retail industry. Ouch.

However, Comcast hasn't been one to let failure set it back permanently. Instead, it's continued to place long-term bets and spread its significant wealth around through major media and technology investments.

On the media side, those bets have been obvious. NBC Universal is now the bedrock of Comcast's entertainment business, with further investments in new media companies like Vox and Buzzfeed shoring up its position against current and future online rivals. (See Comcast's NBC Invests $200M in Vox Media and NBCUniversal Invests $200M in BuzzFeed.)

Want to know more about the pay-TV business? Check out our dedicated video services content channel here on Light Reading.

What's less well understood is how Comcast has bulked up on the technology side. The company has invested heavily in building out a national content delivery network. It's pushed fiber so deep into its network that it believes it can offer gigabit broadband to 18 million homes by the end of this year. And, in a major shock to the corporate culture of the company, Comcast has spent the last several years focusing on software development, experimenting with open source technologies and adopting Agile and DevOps workflows. (See Comcast Goes N+0 in Gigabit Markets and Cable Forecast: Cloudy With a Chance of DevOps.)

The cable company has also seeded the rest of the industry with many of its innovations, including the integrated software stack for set-tops known as the Reference Design Kit (RDK) and the X1 video platform. (See Shaw Licenses X1, Proves Comcast's Influence.)

And all of the above doesn't even take into account what Comcast is doing around Ethernet and business services, or its WiFi hotspot network.

If there's one lesson to take away from it all, it may be that Comcast is undaunted. A short four months after its acquisition of TWC collapsed, and the company hasn't slowed down at all. Despite the staid and stuffy reputation of the cable industry, Comcast continues to push the envelope. It makes its own momentum, which begets more momentum, which is turning Comcast into one of the media and technology giants of our time.

— Mari Silbey, Senior Editor, Cable/Video, Light Reading

About the Author(s)

Mari Silbey

Senior Editor, Cable/Video

Mari Silbey is a senior editor covering broadband infrastructure, video delivery, smart cities and all things cable. Previously, she worked independently for nearly a decade, contributing to trade publications, authoring custom research reports and consulting for a variety of corporate and association clients. Among her storied (and sometimes dubious) achievements, Mari launched the corporate blog for Motorola's Home division way back in 2007, ran a content development program for Limelight Networks and did her best to entertain the video nerd masses as a long-time columnist for the media blog Zatz Not Funny. She is based in Washington, D.C.

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