Comcast

Comcast Corporation, formerly known as Comcast Holdings, is an American multinational mass media, telecommunications, and entertainment conglomerate. Headquartered at the Comcast Center in Philadelphia, the company was ranked 51st in the Forbes Global 2000 in 2023. It is the fourth-largest telecommunications company by worldwide revenue, after AT&T, Verizon, and China Mobile. Comcast is the third-largest pay-TV company, the second-largest cable TV company by subscribers, and the largest home Internet service provider in the United States.

It owns and operates the Xfinity residential cable communications business segment and division; Comcast Business, a commercial services provider; and Xfinity Mobile, an MVNO of Verizon Communications. The company is also the nation's third-largest home telephone service provider, serving residential and commercial customers in 40 states and the District of Columbia.

Comcast has owned NBCUniversal and its various mass media subsidiaries since 2013. It is a high-volume producer of films for theatrical exhibition and television programming through its film studios: Universal Pictures, DreamWorks Animation, Illumination, and Focus Features. Its over-the-air national broadcast network channels include the National Broadcasting Company (one of the US's Big Three television networks), Spanish-language channels Telemundo, TeleXitos, and Universo, television stations like Cozi TV, multiple cable-only channels such as MSNBC, CNBC, USA Network, Syfy, Oxygen True Crime, Bravo, and E!. NBCUniversal also works in news (NBC News and Noticias Telemundo) and sports (NBC Sports and Telemundo Deportes), bolstered by its 1996 acquisition of professional sports company Spectacor. It owns the video-on-demand streaming service Peacock; its holdings in digital distribution include thePlatform, acquired in 2006; and ad-tech company FreeWheel, acquired in 2014. Comcast has been the parent company of Sky Group since 2018, when it dropped out of the running to buy 21st Century Fox, Sky's then-largest shareholder, and instead acquired the company from Fox and other shareholders. The company operates theme parks under its Universal Destinations & Experiences subsidiary.

Comcast is criticized and put under intense public scrutiny for a variety of reasons. Its customer satisfaction ratings were among the lowest in the cable industry from 2008 to 2010. It has violated net neutrality practices; it has offered a commitment to a narrow definition of net neutrality that critics say ignores the difference between Comcast's private network services and the rest of the Internet. Critics also note a lack of competition in the vast majority of Comcast's service areas; in particular, the limited competition among cable providers. Given its negotiating power as a large ISP, some suspect that it could use paid peering agreements to unfairly influence end-user connection speeds. Comcast's ownership of both content production (in NBCUniversal) and distribution (as an ISP) has raised antitrust concerns that scuttled the company's 2014 effort to acquire Time Warner Cable. Comcast was dubbed "The Worst Company in America" by The Consumerist in 2010 and 2014.

In 1963, Ralph J. Roberts in conjunction with his two business partners, Daniel Aaron and Julian A. Brodsky, purchased American Cable Systems as a corporate spin-off from its parent, Jerrold Electronics, for U.S. $500,000. At the time, American Cable was a small cable operator in Tupelo, Mississippi, with five channels and 12,000 customers. In 1965, American Cable Systems purchased Storecast Corporation of America, a product placement supermarket specialist marketing firm. In 1968, American Cable Systems purchased its first franchise of Muzak, a brand of background music played in retail stores. Storecast was a client of Muzak.

The company was re-incorporated in Pennsylvania on March 5, 1969, under the new name Comcast Corporation. Comcast's initial public offering occurred on June 29, 1972, on the National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotation System (NASDAQ), a then-recently-established stock exchange, with a market capitalization of U.S. $3,010,000. In 1977, HBO was first launched on a Comcast system with 20,000 customers in western Pennsylvania with a five-night free preview getting a 15% sign up rate. In 1986, Comcast bought 26% of Group W Cable, a broadcast company, doubling its number of subscribers to 1 million. Also that year, Comcast made a founding investment of $380 million in QVC. In 1988, Comcast was able to buy a 50% share of SCI Holdings in a joint deal with Tele-Communications Inc. Comcast also acquired American Cellular Network Corporation in 1988 for $230 million, marking the first time it became a mobile phone operator.

In February 1990, Ralph Roberts' son, Brian L. Roberts, succeeded his father as president of Comcast. Ralph Roberts established The Comcast Fund, a foundation that supports innovative ideas and research in technology and public policy. Daniel Aaron retired, although he remained on the company`s board. Two years later, the company's mobile division, Comcast Cellular, purchased a controlling interest in Metromedia's Philadelphia-area cellular telephone interests, Metrophone. By 1994, Comcast owned 50% stock in the cable communications company Garden State Cable, who by that year were serving approximately 195,000 subscribers. That same year, Comcast became the third-largest cable operator in the United States, with around 3.5 million subscribers following its purchase of Maclean-Hunter's American division for $1.27 billion. Comcast grew to 4.3 million subscribers the following year with the purchase of the cable operation of E. W. Scripps Company for $1.575 billion in stock.

Comcast offered internet connection for the first time in 1996, with its part in the launch of the @Home Network. Also in 1996, Comcast formed Comcast Spectacor, which became owner of the Philadelphia Flyers. In 1997, Microsoft invested $1 billion in Comcast, and the company launched its digital television service. That same year, in partnership with The Walt Disney Company, Comcast got a 50.1% controlling interest in E! Entertainment. By December 31, 1997, it was available in the Philadelphia, Detroit, Baltimore, Orange County, California, Sarasota and Union, New Jersey areas. ^{[citation needed]}