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Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Comcast 'to hire 500' for business sales

Comcast cfo Michael J. Angelakis talked and took questions about where Comcast is hiring people, closing facilities, and making money, at Morgan Stanley's Technology, Media & Telecom conference yesterday. Excerpts from the Bloomberg transcript:

Hirings and firings: "We are consolidating some call centers, we are consolidating some warehouses...

"Those reductions, we're investing in other areas. We're investing in business services. We're going to hire 500 people this year in business services... for companies that have about 20 employees... There's (also) a very large market with some real pent-up demand, with real need for high bandwith, really good services, and that's in the zero-to-a-couple-hundred employee companies."

Cable vs. online: "A typical consumer watches about 130 hours a month of TV on a TV, and they watch about three hours a month online... A lot of the online viewing is really about catching up to things they missed" on TV. So "online TV is a friend to our company."

Buying NBC Universal: "Our goal is to have (the deal) closed by the end of the year."

The economy: "If there is one side that worries me, it's still unemployment and housing formation. Those numbers are persistently still high. But on the flipside, we've seen some real positive dynamics, in particular advertising... In the fourth quarter... it was actually up," if you don't count political ads.

Profits: "Our margins have been stable at, on the cable side, roughly 40%... for a long time..." On a gross-margin basis, "our broadband business is probably more profitable than our video margin." On the profitability of Comcast programming vs. programming from other companies: "Talking about sports, not even close. Sports is fantastic."

Limiting Internet use: "We actually do have a cap. A very small proportion (of customers) actually hit the cap.... A much larger question... (is) to think about consumption-based billing... We will have that discussion at the right time."

The new Xfinity brand: What "the iPod is to Apple, or how Windows is to Microsoft, we think the Xfinity brand is to Comcast."

On "rumors" that Apple will launch a "virtual" video company to rival cable TV: "Apple has to do what they have to do... I'm not particularly worried."
Posted by Joseph N. DiStefano @ 12:39 PM  Permalink | 4 comments
Comments   
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 1:24 PM, 03/03/2010
    consumption based billing - are you kidding me? I'll tolerate the cap since Comcast has set it so high that even my family which downloads movies like crazy through iTunes and Apple TV and streaming from Netflix hasn't hit the cap, but consumption based billing sounds like a slippery slope for Comcast to enable to start charging more.
    — rs505
  • Comment removed.
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 4:38 PM, 03/03/2010
    Translation: 1) They're firing more people than they are hiring, and 2) the people they are hiring will make less money and are not located in Philly.
    — DC
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 4:52 PM, 03/03/2010
    and Comcast is NOT producing local sports programming from local Big 5 colleges, instead they are importing games from non-Philadelphia markets from college teams very few here follow. All Big 5 Men's College Games need to be on local TV - get to work Comcast and stop robbing Philadelphia of its' traditions.
    — BFlint


4 comments
About Joseph N. DiStefano
Joseph N. DiStefano writes this blog to feed his PhillyDeals column in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Joe has been a member of Bloomberg LP’s New York Finance Team, wrote the book “Comcasted,” taught writing at St. Joseph’s University, and studied economics and history at Penn. Reach Joe at 215-854-5194 and JoeD@phillynews.com
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