comcast

Comcast scoops up rest of NBC Universal from GE

Comcast now owns all of NBC Universal.

The cable company shared the news in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday, revealing that it completed its acquisition of the 49 percent of NBCU held by GE.

To finance the purchase, Comcast said it spent $10 billion in cash (of which $3.2 billion came from NBCU), $725 million in preferred stock, $4 billion in securities, $750 million in cash funded through a commercial paper program, and $1.25 billion in cash from NBCU's credit facility.

Comcast also announced that it now owns certain properties at NBCU's … Read more

Comcast to buy GE's stake in NBC for $16.7 billion

Comcast Corp. is going to buy all of General Electric's remaining stake in NBCUniversal for $16.7 billion, the cable giant announced today.

NBCUniversal will also buy its facilities at 30 Rockerfeller Plaza and CNBC's headquarters in New Jersey for $1.4 billion. The deal is expected to go through by the end of March.

Comcast already owns 51 percent of NBCUniversal since its purchase of the majority stake from GE went through in 2011. Comcast is the largest cable provider in the U.S.

Today's announcement comes well before the agreed deadline for Comcast to buy … Read more

Comcast takes $150M stake in set-top box maker

Comcast has agreed to buy a stake in set-top box maker Arris for $150 million.

Arris announced the agreement yesterday to sell roughly 10.6 million shares of its common stock, valued at $150 million, to Comcast. The deal will be completed in conjunction with Arris' purchase of the Motorola Home business from Motorola Mobility, a subsidiary of Google, that was worth $2.35 billion.

As a result, according to the statement, Comcast and Google will each own about 7.85 percent of outstanding Arris shares once the takeover is completed. In addition, as part of the Motorola Home business … Read more

Comcast CEO takes design lessons from Apple

With all the chatter about Apple upending the TV business as it did the music industry, you'd think the incumbent cable players were incapable of redefining the TV user experience. Comcast CEO Brian Roberts begs to differ. In an interview with Fortune, Roberts said he's taking lessons from Apple in how to "take really complicated things and make them simple, make them fun, make them beautiful and easy."

Read: CNET's Apple HDTV rumor roundup

He continued, "As I think about where I'd like to see us go, it is absolutely … Read more

Comcast Xfinity app now lets you download movies for offline viewing

There are plenty of apps that can stream movies and TV shows to your tablet or smartphone -- Amazon Instant Video, Crackle, HBO Go, Hulu Plus, Netflix... shall I go on? -- but very few that let you download content for offline viewing.

That's kind of a bummer, because it means if you want to watch something on, say, an airplane, you have little choice but to buy from iTunes or rip from DVDs.

If you're a Comcast subscriber, now you have another option. The newly updated Comcast Xfinity TV Player app (Android|iOS) now offers the enviable … Read more

NPD: Cable dominates Web in VOD rentals

Cable companies accounted for 48 percent of all on-demand movie rentals for the first half of the year, research firm NPD said in a press release Monday.

NPD said that the fastest growing segment in VOD are telcos, which grew 24 year-over-year. Telcos outpaced Internet video-on-demand rentals, which saw a 15 percent increase.

Paying an upfront fee for an individual movie rental is different from services like Netflix and Amazon's Prime service, which offers unlimited renting for a flat monthly price.

Grain of salt time: NPD notes that its numbers are strictly for VOD and did not include subscription … Read more

Get a Cisco Linksys cable modem for $37.99

It's bad enough you have to pay such exorbitant rates for broadband Internet access, but a modem rental fee on top of that? Horrors!

In fact, if you're a Comcast subscriber, you may have noticed that the monthly tab for modem rental is now $7. That's $84 per year.

Luckily, there's no law that says you have to lease Comcast's modem (thank goodness, as some other ISPs have started making it mandatory). If you bring your own, you can save that cash instead.

And here's one of the best deals I've seen: Cisco … Read more

Pay TV is on the ebb as customers cut the cord

A look at the numbers shows that subscribing to pay-TV services is on the ebb. According to Reuters, more than 400,000 TV watchers have "cut the cord" since January.

First, DirecTV, which is the top satellite TV provider in the U.S., announced today that it lost 52,000 customers in the second quarter. Then the No. 2 cable provider in the U.S., Time Warner, also announced a second quarter loss today with 169,000 people leaving the service.

"Basic video subscriber losses aren't getting better," Bernstein Research analyst Craig Moffett told Reuters … Read more

Smart homes of the future (video)

The home of the future may be coming to a neighborhood near you.

A number of companies, including AT&T, Comcast, Lowe's, and Verizon are intent on making your home a smart home.

Imagine getting an alert when you leave the garage door open, or when your elderly parents fall down, or when your liquor cabinet is breached by wayward teens. Connected homes give residents the ability to remotely control thermostats, lights, and door locks through mobile devices.

The selling point is convenience; and routine.

"Every single day you get up in the morning and you leave … Read more