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Thursday, September 3, 2009

Don't fear bigger Comcast: Wharton prof

Should video consumers worry that Philadelphia cable and Internet giant Comcast Corp. will take over U.S. media, after the DC Court of Appeals last week blew away the Federal Communications Commission's ban on Comcast buying TimeWarner Cable or other big cable companies?

Nah, says Wharton marketing professor Peter S. Fader in an in-house interview. (Fader says he hasn't been a consultant to Comcast or its rivals.) "It's not as if they are threatening to take over broadcasting, telecommunications or anything like that. In the big scheme, they are a fairly small player.... It's a beautiful market right now, with lots of different technologies and different business models." And Comcast is "by no means... winning the race." 

Fader's views were posted by Knowledge@Wharton , the staff research showcase of the University of Pennsylvania's business college. More excerpts: 

Because Comcast is big (and may get bigger), it has "the capability to offer different kinds of programming, whether it is sports or other kinds of entertainment, that they couldn't offer if they were just one of a zillion little players. Consumers are better off today with the choices they have than they had years ago, and it's getting better all the time." 

Not that he's a Comcast fanatic: Fader "recently dropped Comcast to move to Verizon FiOS, and it wasn't so much dissatisfaction with Comcast as much as, 'Here's something cool. Let's give it a try.'"

The Comcast-backed "TV Everywhere" project - to give customers access to cable programming on other devices -"will be a boon to consumers, and at the same time it will light a fire under competitors - even Hulu and YouTube - to up the ante a little bit.... Lawyers and regulators can just stay out of it and let the market prosper."

What about Project Canoe, the Comcast-backed effort to create a single data format that would make it easier to customize advertising - that Holy Grail of ads?  "It's a great idea, but so far it has been a failure. They were hoping to have some services out there by the summer of 2009, which is just about gone, and there's still nothing to show for it."

Giant size isn't a crushing advantage? "I'm not picking on Comcast in particular, but just because these are big cable companies doesn't mean that they can get their arms around all this data better than small companies that are built around analytics."
Posted by Joseph N. DiStefano @ 11:58 AM  Permalink | 1 comment
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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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