MediaFile

Is Comcast really the Worst Company In America? Really?

So Comcast ‘won’ the Worst Company In America award from readers of The Consumerist blog, which as its tagline suggests, is the place where “shoppers bite back”. Yet we have to ask, is Comcast really the worst company in America or is it all relative?

The Consumerist’s readers are likely to have contact with Comcast through its customer service. They, like many, have likely been frustrated with waiting for hours for a technician (sleeping or awake). Or maybe it’s taken Comcast a day or two too long to fix their high-definition DVR boxes?

Fairly or unfairly, Comcast’s reputation had gotten so bad the company took the opportunity of a new product launch  to change its customer-facing name to Xfinity. But it’s not just customer service. Consumerist’s readers have also been ticked off by what they see as  above-inflation price rises, throttling Internet access, and Comcast’s plans to buy NBC Universal.

Depending on your view,  some of these are clearly not customer-friendly business practices (for the others we’ll let regulators decide). Yet how does the biggest U.S. cable company compare with some of the other top companies that have had a tough time in the reputation stakes in recent months?

Take Bank of America, which incidentally made the final four on the Consumerist list. Some readers of the blog were disappointed this behemoth of Charlotte didn’t run away with the award the same way it did with taxpayers’ bailout dollars while also having to foreclose on those same consumers’ homes. As one Consumerist reader puts it: “I still think BOA was robbed. Which is ironic.”

Or the No.1 live concert ticketing company, Ticketmaster (now part of Live Nation Entertainment), whose notoriety has been earned with customer-friendly tactics like the  ’convenience fee’ of using your own printer to print the ticket you’ve just paid for.  Consumerist readers saw it as more of a monopoly in ticketing than any cable company.

And the biggest car company Toyota? They’ve had a tough time too with the faulty accelerators. troublesome floormats and endless numbers of recalls.  Their products allegedly killed people yet Toyota is still not the worst company in America. Or maybe it’s because the top man apologized to Congress.

UPDATE: Everybody loves Steve Burke, even Warren Buffett

When news of Comcast’s bid for NBC Universal broke on Sept 30 most of the spotlight focused on Comcast chairman and CEO Brian Roberts.

But as the weeks dragged on, some of that spotlight began to shine on his number 2, Stephen Burke, chief operating officer and a former senior Disney executive.

As we now know since the deal was confirmed on Dec 3, NBC Universal’s top brass will report to Burke, making him (once you count the 24 million subscribers he also oversees) one of the most powerful men in TV.

Now, as if he won’t be busy enough taking drape measurements at 30 Rock, Burke has added another feather to his cap. Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway said this morning that he will join the board.

While it may be sign that Buffett is opening up his board to outsiders, it’s also a sign that Burke has become a force to be reckoned with in the corporate world. He already serves on the board of JP Morgan, which as you might recall had a lot to do with engineering the NBC deal — JPMorgan was the banker for NBC parent General Electric.

How powerful is Burke? Well even his minions-to-be can’t get enough of him. A CNBC reporter said this morning in response to the news of his Berkshire appointment, that Burke is “a very handsome man.”

UPDATE: Since we issued our original post, Comcast put out a regulatory filing stating Burke’s contract has been extended for another five years to Dec 2014. The new contract “acknowledges his substantially increased responsibilities.”

Zucker praises Comcast; but will it be a good fit?

Paul Thomasch

Dec 7, 2009 17:33 EST

When it comes to the Comcast-NBC Universal deal, one of the big stories over the coming year will center on corporate culture. Maybe too much is made of this, maybe different cultures had nothing to do with the disaster that was Time Warner-AOL, for instance. But I doubt it.

Which brings us back to Comcast-NBC Universal. The New York Post got a jump on the culture clash story today, and UBS banker Aryeh Bourkoff followed up on it during an interview with NBC Universal boss Jeff Zucker at the UBS Media and Communications Conference.

Asked about his relationship with Comcast’s Brian Roberts and Steve Burke, Zucker said up the following. (Perhaps he’s already figuring out the Comcast culture of bland, family friendly diplomacy).

“I’ve known Brian and Steve prior to this, not as well as I’ve gotten to know them over the last four months,” he said. “I think one of the things that will come out of the next year, which is getting to know everybody personally and professionally; we will get to know each other even better.”

That doesn’t tell us much — and maybe we shouldn’t expect anything else. After all, here’s a CEO who suddenly finds himself with two new, very powerful bosses. What would any of us say? So the best option here seems to be opening the matter up to comment. Will Zucker get along in the new Comcast-NBC Universal? Will he last — and, if so, how long?

Media, tech moguls meet in New York (You are NOT invited)

Robert MacMillan

Nov 3, 2009 09:23 EST

Media and technology executives are meeting Wednesday and Thursday in New York City at a conference hosted by private equity firm Quadrangle. Note the word private.

When they meet at the Plaza, they will talk about a ton of different things that their customers, their investors and other readers want to know. I have to apologize for them because they’re not letting in any riff-raff. And that includes reporters who get paid to spend all day figuring out how these people decide what kind of entertainment you want, what kind of technology you pay them for and what deals they pursue with the money that you give them when you buy their stock. This event always excludes press, but that’s no reason not to highlight what you probably are missing because of this. After all, who wants to wait for the 8-K filing?

Some press will be allowed, but it will be an assortment of celebrity journalists who will moderate panels and, according to Peter Kafka, author of “MediaMemo” at News Corp’s AllThingsD blog, will not write about the event (I’m talking about Maria Bartiromo and David Faber of CNBC, The New Yorker’s Ken Auletta, etc).

Peter wrote two posts about this, here and here. He also issued me a challenge to sneak into the conference, but horror of horrors, I’m on a deadline that I can’t shirk any longer. So consider this an invitation from me to you to go to the Plaza and catch these guys on the way in and out of the building. It’s a fun way to spend the day, and maybe you’ll learn something interesting.

Here is the agenda, courtesy of Peter Kafka. Below that is a list of speakers. Outrage breeds corrections: I have to amend the record: The list I had posted here of topics is last year’s agenda. My mistake. The list of speakers appearing THIS year still appears below.

2009 SPEAKERS EMILIO AZCÁRRAGA President, Board of Directors and CEO, Grupo Televisa DENNIS CROWLEY Co-Founder, foursquare BARRY DILLER Chairman and CEO, IAC; Chairman, Expedia, Inc. and Ticketmaster Entertainment, Inc. BRIAN DUNN CEO, Best Buy CHARLES FORMAN Founder, OMGPOP REED HASTINGS Founder, Chairman and CEO, Netflix REID HOFFMAN Executive Chairman and Founder, LinkedIn Corporation CHAD HURLEY CEO and Co-Founder, YouTube JEFF IMMELT Chairman and CEO, GE PAUL JACOBS Chairman and CEO, Qualcomm Incorporated OLLI-PEKKA KALLASVUO President and CEO, Nokia JASON KILAR CEO, Hulu LESLIE MOONVES President and CEO, CBS Corporation ANNE MULCAHY Chairman, Xerox Corporation JAMES MURDOCH Chairman and Chief Executive, Europe & Asia, News Corporation BRIAN PHILLIPS CEO and Co-Founder, Thread DAN PORTER CEO, OMGPOP BRIAN ROBERTS Chairman and CEO, Comcast Corporation PAUL SAGAN President and CEO, Akamai ERIC SCHMIDT Chairman and CEO, Google IVAN SEIDENBERG Chairman and CEO, Verizon Communications BIZ STONE Co-Founder, Twitter HOWARD STRINGER Chairman, CEO and President, Sony Corporation BEN VERWAAYEN CEO, Alcatel-Lucent DAVID ZASLAV President and CEO, Discovery Communications

MODERATORS MARC ANDREESSEN General Partner, Andreessen Horowitz KEN AULETTA Author and Writer, “Annals of Communications”, The New Yorker MARIA BARTIROMO Anchor, Closing Bell; Host & Managing Editor, Wall Street Journal Report, CNBC JAMES CITRIN Co-Leader, Board & CEO Practice, North America, Spencer Stuart DAVID FABER Anchor, Reporter, CNBC MICHAEL HUBER Co-President and Managing Principal, Quadrangle Group BECKY QUICK Co-Anchor, Squawk Box, CNBC GEOFFREY SANDS Director & Leader, Global Media, Entertainment & Information Practice, McKinsey & Co. JOSHUA L. STEINER Co-President and Managing Principal, Quadrangle Group GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS Anchor, This Week; Chief Washington Correspondent, ABC News

Comcast’s Brian Roberts at Web 2.0 (video)

Comcast Chief Executive Brian Roberts took time out from strategizing over his company’s reported bid to buy NBC Universal to speak at the Web 2.0 Conference in San Francisco on Tuesday. As expected, Roberts declined to comment on any ”specific” deals including NBC. But he did indicate as he has done in the past that content will be an important part of his company’s future and that it is always “prudent” to take a look at opportunities as they come up.

While he remained on message (or is that off message?), Jeff Immelt, his counterpart at NBC Universal’s parent General Electric, was a little more forthcoming, saying the company is considering its options for NBC Universal which could include keeping it.

In this 43 minute interview, Roberts also talked on a range of other topics including the importance of building faster Internet services and gave a demostration of his company’s On Demand Online service which he said will be launching nationally before the end of the year.

Time Warner’s Bewkes: ‘No no, after you Brian’

If you’ve ever listened to Time Warner chief executive Jeffrey Bewkes speak, you’ll be used to his breezy, languid style. But he sounded even more so than usual on Friday at a conference in Washington D.C.  when asked about the big media story of the year so far: Comcast’s bid to take control of NBC Universal.

Comcast’s bid, led by CEO Brian Roberts, is exactly the opposite of what Bewkes has been doing at Time Warner, where rather than buying he’s spun off the cable assets and hopes to do the same with AOL by the end of this year.  So Bewkes couldn’t resist a little jab at his rival and sometimes partner:

“I don’t want to say anything that would discourage Brian from continuing in this pursuit that he has,” Bewkes said to laughter from the audience.

Bewkes agreed with suggestions that Comcast might be doing this for a share in the growing cable business. 

“They may have concerns about their future in cable and they may want to hedge into what they think is a better long-term business, which is the branded content business. It’s a good business, it’s one that everybody should want to get in. We’re in it, we’re very nicely placed in it.”

But the executive who lived through one of the worst corporate mergers of all time — AOL-Time Warner — is far less supportive of the idea of big combinations, especially in the media space.

Is Comcast on the prowl for Big Media ?

Franklin Paul

Aug 17, 2009 11:26 EDT

Comcast made a bold $54 billion bid for Walt Disney Co. in 2004. It failed — but there are those who wonder today if the cable provider might be considering a play for another media giant.

Reuters’ Yinka Adegoke takes a look at this idea in a story that recounts the speculation about Comcast’s desire to be a major player in Big Media.

Stockholders, who have watched the value of Comcast shares shrink to historical lows, might not be so thrilled about such a move.

Investors worry that Comcast might use growing cash reserves to go after names such as Viacom Inc, owner of MTV Networks and Paramount film studio, or Time Warner Inc, which owns CNN, HBO and Warner Bros despite little evidence of such a move, said analysts.

But then again, the man who fended off Roberts’ move for Disney back in ’04, Michael Eisner, still thinks there’s a chance Comcast is interested in owning content. The former Disney chief told trade magazine Broadcasting & Cable last week:

Comcast won’t just be sitting there; they may want to recapture their dreams of going after Disney, but not with Disney specifically.

Does Eisner know something we don’t? He says he has “zero information”.

Comcast CEO Roberts makes the Top 15 on pay

While we were at The Cable Show last week, Comcast filed a documents with securities regulators detailing its 2008 executive compensation. The filing showed that Chief Executive Brian Roberts received $23.7 million in 2008 up from $20.8 million in 2007 but below his 2006 payout of $26 million.

Roberts, as the AP points out, has long been criticized by shareholders for the size of his pay package. His increase comes after Comcast shares fell some 7.6 percent in the calendar year 2008, but this outperformed most of the major market indexes, which fell between 30 to 45 percent last year.

In February Roberts and other executives agreed to forgo a pay rise in 2009 and cut back on personal benefits, including a previous agreement which had guaranteed the payment of his base salary and cash bonus to his heirs for up to five years after his death — a so called ‘golden coffin’ package.

According to Comcast’s compensation committee, Roberts and other top executives are compensated in line with other executives in similar sized companies both in the entertainment/media sector and beyond.

As Comcast filed on April 3rd, it was not included in the New York Times/Equilar Special Report on executive pay which ran in Sunday’s paper. The Times report was based on data reflecting pay for 200 chief executives that had filed their annual proxies by March 27 and whose companies had revenue of at least $6.3 billion.

Based on the Times’ chart of top earners, Roberts would have come in as the 13th highest paid chief executive — just below the newly appointed Motorola co-CEO Greg Brown ($24.2 million) and above Lockheed Martin chief Robert Stevens ($22.9 million).

In the entertainment/media sector Roberts came in third behind Walt Disney’s Bob Iger ($51.1 million) and News Corp chief Rupert Murdoch ($30.1 million). Motorola’s other co-CEO Sanjay Jha was at the top of the overall list with $104.4, mainly made up of stock options used to lure him to join the company last year from Qualcomm.