Comcast
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 exclusively to Comcast and Cablevision subscribers. The channel shows
news, sports, and entertainment and 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.
On January 3, 2005, Comcast announced that it would build the Comcast Center.
The 975 ft skyscraper will be the tallest building in Philadelphia when it is
completed in late 2007.
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
television 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.
In April of 2005 Comcast and Time Warner announce plans to buy Adelphia Cable.
