Comcast Roundup: NBC hearings begin today, a Google balance and More

Every Thursday morning at 8:30 a.m. EST, find all the stories you need to know about your friendly telecommunications giant in the Comcast Roundup. Get an e-mail subscription for our Comcast news updates.

DEFINITE READS

• USA Today reports that Hulu executives are likely eager to start experimenting with paid version of the popular video streaming site but must wait for the finalized result of Comcast’s deal with NBC, which owns nearly a third of the site.
• The Washington Post reports that today the congressional hearings on the Comcast-NBC deal have begun.
• paidContent reports on Democratic staff memos that discuss, ahead of today’s congressional hearings on the matter, the impact the merger has to “fundamentally shape the way Web video evolves.”

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Comcast purchases majority stake in NBC Universal, awaiting regulatory approval

One of the world’s largest corporations this morning officially announced its intentions to sell one of the most storied media brands to the country’s biggest cable-TV and broadband-Internet company.

General Electric‘s $30 billion sale of a 51 percent majority stake in NBC Universal to Center City-based Comcast comes after months of highly-publicized talks. The NBC acquisition will make Comcast the largest media company in the country, with $51 billion in annual revenue and more than $100 billion in assets, as the Inquirer reports, topping Walt Disney Co.

“This deal is a perfect fit for Comcast and will allow us to become a leader in the development and distribution of multiplatform “anytime, anywhere” media that American consumers are demanding,” Comcast CEO Brian Roberts said in a statement this morning.

Today’s announcement, which was widely expected, doesn’t mean the deal is done.

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Comcast Roundup: Competing with ESPN, greatest Comcast photo ever and More

Every Thursday morning at 8:30 a.m. EST, find all the stories you need to know about your friendly telecommunications giant in the Comcast Roundup. Get an e-mail subscription for our Comcast news updates.

• Yo, Happy Thanksgiving. Comcast is celebrating, first by bringing the Yule log to OnDemand in HD, and in more ways below.

• Forbes reports that this Thanksgiving, employees of Comcast, General Electric, NBC and Vivendi should all pray that the deal to give Comcast a majority stake in NBC goes through. If the deal fails, Forbes suggests, all those involved will be hurt.
• New York Times Media Decoder blog reports that Upper Darby princess and now NBC star Tina Fey hosted an Ad Council event and liberally joked about the possible Comcast-NBC merger. “It leaves me wondering,” she reportedly said, “will I have to change the name of my show from ’30 Rock’ to ‘Industrial Park Along the Schuylkill River?”

After the jump, Chicago Tribune video on becoming a Comcast customer service agent and the photo we hope will someday be on the currency of the global nation state that Comcast creates after it outlasts Google and Facebook in a universal war of empires. We assume this will happen in 2012.

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Comcast Roundup: Inqy helps bring Phillies baseball to retirement home, NBC Sports is pissed and More

Every Thursday morning, find all the stories you need to know about your friendly telecommunications giant in the Comcast Roundup.

Ninety-four-year old Jessie Foyle probably wouldn’t get a personal patch into her beloved Phillies games from Comcast if not for old media, it might be fair to guess.

The “legendary” fan now lives in a city retirement home that has a subscription with DirecTV, which doesn’t send nearly as many televised games from the Phightins as the ‘Cast, but, as Inquirer columnist Dan Rubin wrote last week, Taylor got some special treatment after he wrote a column early this month about her dilemma.

Six residents and four guests showed up for the first showing against the Cubs, Rubin reported, after Comcast wired the home so they could get all the Phillies games.

“We made an exception with [her retirement home],” Jeff Alexander, a Comcast spokesman, told Rubin. “We took into consideration the fact that Mrs. Foyle is such a legendary fan and the property was quick to partner with us.”

Rubin, a newspaperman of the truest order and a Hell of a columnist to boot, brought the popcorn.

After the jump, more Comcast iPhone app buzz, ESPNU on board and eight more Comcast stories for the faithful.

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Comcast Roundup: Philly gets faster Internet speeds, a cable guy gets arrested and More

Every Thursday morning, find all the stories you need to know about your friendly telecommunications giant in the Comcast Roundup.

Philly, your life just got a little more Comcastic.

Comcast has completed its local rollout of “wideband” internet, introducing two new premium tiers of service.

Extreme 50, the higher tier, offers up to 50 Mbps download and 10 Mbps upload. The lower tier, Ultra, offers 22 Mbps down and 5 Mbps up.

In other words, customers in the metropolitan area will soon be able to turn their Internet connections up to 11. The fastest current offering is 16 Mbps down and 2 Mbps up.

The company has been upgrading our tubes since December 2008 and has already covered 50 percent of the nation with the upgraded DOCSIS 3.0 network.

After the jump, a Comcast tech is in to bondage, Comcast helps you go green and how you will soon be able to buy hapiness for under $7 a month.
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Osage Ventures invests in locally-based Second Life clone

A company screen shot of the Protosphere

Bala Cynwid-based Osage Ventures has announced a Series A investment in ProtonMedia, a company that specializes in creating virtual worlds.

Stopping just short of calling its main product “The Matrix,” ProtonMedia’s primary product is “ProtoSphere” — a platform that customers use to hold virtual meetings and classes. The software allows for voice chat, document transfer and custom avatars, among other features.

The Lansdale-based company is already profitable, boasting some pretty large customers including Comcast and AstraZeneca.

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Comcast Roundup: TV Everywhere balloons, Shaq and Stein are back and More

Every Thursday morning, find all the stories you need to know about your friendly telecommunications giant in the Comcast Roundup.

Seventeen more cable TV networks have agreed to put their content on Comcast’s TV Everywhere, the proposed online video service that would be offered to subscribers only. That brings the total to 23, according to the Associated Press.

Though some public discourse has remained skeptical of the authentication model, Comcast has continued to move forward with its unprecedented experiment of paid content on the Web.

HBO is in that number of participants. The cable channel recently announced it will put at least 750 hours of its programming on the service scheduled to be rolled out for 5,000 trial subscribers in coming weeks, as reported by the Philadelphia Business Journal. That’s nearly as high profile as the thunder heard after CBS announced it was following suit, as reported by MediaMemo, which followed Time Warner becoming the first big fish in the pond with Comcast. Others, like Starz, added their own buzz.

Details on the security of the system aren’t yet clear, but it’s unlikely 23 networks, including major players like Time Warner, CBS and HBO would join so quickly if something wasn’t clear.

After the jump, more social media praise, a Comcast technician turns to crime and six other stories for the faithful.

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Comcast Roundup: Olympic channel controversy, Justice Dept. on telecom abuse and More

Every Thursday morning, find all the stories you need to know about your friendly telecommunications giant in the Comcast Roundup.

The United States Olympic Committee and Comcast announced yesterday they would partner to launch in 2010 The U.S. Olympic Network, broadcasting the trials and training and everything else that goes into the international event.

Comcast’s corporate blog takes on the rosy dream of giving you superhuman mega athletes and their schmaltzy stories 24/7/365. Of course, the N.Y. Times and the Debbie Downers that they are focus more on the fact that, well, the International Olympic Committee has made clear they have not given name or TV rights for the project.

The Times reports that this is just the latest development in the tense relationship between the U.S.O.C. and the I.O.C.

Richard Carrion, an I.O.C. executive board member, told the Times that they were concerned about the viability of the network and its affect on longtime U.S. broadcaster NBC.

“We’ve given the rights to NBC to be the Olympic network,” he said. “I don’t think something else called the Olympic network will fly.”

After the jump, Verizon crashes Steel Town, what Pirate Bay wants to sell Comcast and five other stories for the faithful.

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Comcast Roundup: In bed with Time Warner, Comcast Idol and More

Every Thursday morning, find all the stories you need to know about your friendly telecommunications giant in the Comcast Roundup.

In Comcast news big enough to get Philebrity’s Joey Sweeney to bite, Comcast has reached a partnership with Time Warner to put content from their Turner Broadcasting online, where Comcast-subscribers can watch, as the Business Journal reported yesterday.

The agreement also included a set of principles for future online distribution of TV shows on a platform they call TV Everywhere, which require viewer authentication. Read those guiding principles here.

In the announcement, Comcast said it will begin testing next month this On Demand Online with 5,000 subscribers. The initial Turner programmaing will include content from TBS and TNT. No word on if you’ll be able to get those old reruns of Walker Texas Ranger.

This model is seen as a direct threat to advertising-supported Web TV streaming sites like Hulu, as Wired reported. Paid Content reports that Comcast got a taste for that model from ESPN360 in its partnership with Disney.

The Inquirer’s Joe Distefano, who offered the news a brief, recently reported on timid speculation about a Comcast merger with Time Warner.

After the jump, someone else has an interview with Brian Roberts, Verizon gets faster, video of Comcast Idol participants, and four other Comcast stories for the faithful.

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Verizon takes steps to adding new local channel

Hold on to your clunky digital cable boxes Philadelphia, because a good old-fashioned capitalist throwdown is brewing between local cable giant Comcast and its feisty competitor Verizon.

You may remember that Verizon received approval from City Council earlier this year to build a $1 billion FiOS network in the city. According to the company’s franchise agreement with the city, it will fully cover the city in FiOS within seven years with initial service offerings beginning by the end of 2009.

If recent moves by Verizon in the 67th ward are a sign of things to come, Verizon may be challenging the cable giant’s Comcast Network news channel as well.
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