Comcast CEO gives the Internet a hug at The Cable Show

Comcast CEO Brian Roberts had the honor of being a panelist at the cable industry trade show in Washington. All of the cable big wigs are slated to attend the event hosted by the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, including News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch.
According to reports, Roberts used his time to persuade his colleagues that the Internet is not the enemy and is another avenue for monitization. The cable industry has been abuzz over customers canceling pricey cable packages in favor of getting media via broadband Internet connections. The practice, known as “cord-cutting” in cable-company-speak, has had an impact on cable companies. Many companies are also suffering because of cost-cutting consumers not renewing service to save money, and the Center-City based Comcast is no exception. As covered previously in Technically Philly, the company lost 233,000 cable subscribers last quarter.
Of the five member panel, Roberts was the most supportive of placing video online.The Comcast CEO stated bluntly that the customer should only pay for cable once and receive it across all mediums. Comcast’s OnDemand strategy employs this tactic: subscribers to premium channels, such as HBO, automatically receive the channel’s content on demand for no additional cost.
Comcast is planning an “OnDemand Online” service that would create a walled garden available only to subscribers. Currently, Comcast offers TV episodes for free at Fancast.
“It’s going to be hard but we’re in an industry that can afford to widen the moat by continuing to invest,” he said, quoted by tvweek.com.
Suddenlink Chairman and CEO Jerry Kent was leery with Roberts’ philosophy of giving all mediums with a single subscription. Kent didn’t want the cable industry to make the same mistake as the newspaper industry and give their content away online for free however he added that the cable industry could not keep ignoring the Web. Roberts noted that most broadcast stations always have been free, and he could not understand why they didn’t reach out to every medium available.
(Sources: paidcontent.org, Wall Street Journal | Disclaimer: I have applied to positions at Comcast Interactive Media)