Every Thursday morning, find all the stories you need to know about your friendly telecommunications giant in the Comcast Roundup.
Comcast CEO Brian Roberts said two big things this week.
You’re gonna pay for online viewing of TV content and, yeah, this economy still sucks.
Roberts joined a growing group of cable company executives who are calling for a China Wall around online-streaming cable content, as Media Post News reported. They’re calling it an “era of authentication,” in which you won’t be able to pop in to watch episodes of your favorite gardening shows unless you prove you’re paying customer of HGTV. Time Warner and other top chiefs are mostly seen as on board — only technology and implementation stand in the way. The same obstacles for my jet pack.
Roberts also let us in on a little secret. The decline in consumer spending is still rattling Comcast here in the second quarter, as MarketWatch reported. Others have pointed to other reasons for the struggles, but those problems don’t seem to be disappearing anytime soon. Folks aren’t necessarily ditching their service any quicker, Roberts says, it’s just that no one else is calling up.
As if that wasn’t enough buzz, Roberts got some residual ink about the Time Warner deal from the Philly swoop by Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who said he and Roberts are gal pals.
After the jump, what if Comcast bought TimeWarner, at least somebody cares about hockey and five other Comcast stories the truly faithful would read.
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