Comcast's Ambitions Go Beyond Cable—to Digital

Ever since Feb. 13, when Comcast announced its agreement to buy Time Warner Cable for $45 billion, consumer advocates have been gnashing their teeth over what they see as the horrifying prospect of the country’s two largest—and least beloved—cable-TV providers joining forces. The resulting Internet and TV colossus will stifle competition, they warn, leading to less choice and higher bills for consumers. “No one woke up this morning wishing their cable company was bigger or had more control over what they watch and how they get online,” Craig Aaron, president of Free Press, a consumer advocacy group, said in a statement.

Comcast Chief Executive Officer Brian Roberts just might agree. That could explain why, in recent years, Roberts has been aggressively pushing Comcast to evolve into something far more than a cable company. While the sheer heft of the Time Warner Cable acquisition has commanded headlines, what’s really emerged under Roberts’s choreography is a three-headed omnivore: one part cable-TV distributor, one part mass content creator, and one part high-speed Internet provider. Roberts has said in the past that a radical transformation is about to sweep over the television industry. And evidence continues to mount that he’s remaking Comcast to profit from the coming disruption however the future of TV ultimately shakes out.