Comcast is cutting the price of its super fast 50 megabits Internet access service to $116.95 a month in most markets, less than year after launching the service at $139.95.

In fact, now that Comcast has started bundling the service with its phone and video services, subscribers will be able to get the so-called ‘Wideband’ even cheaper that $116.95. Wideband will effectively be priced at $99.95 if it is bought with one of those other services from the largest U.S. cable operator.

The new pricing strategy kicks off nationally on June 15.

Comcast has been aggressively rolling out its version of the wideband cable technology and says it now reaches around a third of the homes its systems pass in the United States.

Many Wall Street analysts think super-fast Internet access could be the killer app for cable companies rather than their traditional dominance in video. The cable operators meanwhile are concerned that programmers are giving away TV shows for free on Hulu and other websites. Their key concern is the fear of ‘cord-cutting,’ meaning that many users will end up canceling their cable TV service.

But the analysts point out that cable operators will continue to have some leverage as they’re well positioned to offer the kinds of Internet speeds that subscribers will need to deliver high-definition video pictures.

(Photo: Reuters of Austrian skier Strobl)

With the end of the economic meltdown so tantalizingly close, and stock markets pricing in the spring thaw, The Consumerist’s annual Worst Company in America competition is just the tonic DealZone readers need to keep their prized sense of perspective appropriately tickled.

“It’s the bailouts versus the monopolies!” the Website’s news release rings out:

The annual 32-company battle royale has whittled itself down to the “final four”: Bank of America, Comcast, Ticketmaster and AIG. One of these disastrous companies will go on to join Halliburton (2006), RIAA (2007) and Countrywide (2008) as “The Worst Company in America.”

AIG and Ticketmaster face-off May 4th, Bank of America and Comcast face-off May 5th, the victors of those contests meet May 6th, and then the “winner” is announced May 7th.

The competition began with 32 companies separated into four brackets. Companies competed in head-to-head match ups and the winner of each match up was determined by the vote of Consumerist readers. The 32 companies included: AIG, Target, Peanut Corp of America, American Express, Walmart, HP, T-Mobile, Best Buy, Ticketmaster, TWC, Apple, United HealthCare, Verizon, Sprint, Home Depot, Citibank, Comcast, DirecTV, US Airways, Capital One, General Motors, United Airlines, Sears, Chase, eBay/Paypal, GE, Dell, Chrysler, AT&T, Circuit City, Starbucks, and Bank of America.

“AIG and Bank of America paved their way to the final four with exorbitant executive compensation packages, reckless management, and tax payer bailouts. Ticketmaster and Comcast drew the ire of voters because they were viewed as monopolies that consumers were forced to deal with,” said Meghann Marco, Consumerist.com.

Deals of the Day:

* French retail giant Carrefour has signed a preliminary memorandum of intent to buy 75 percent in Russia's Seventh Continent and will make a final offer on May 15, a newspaper reported. Sources told Reuters last month that Carrefour had provisionally valued its takeover target at $1.25 billion.

* Commodity trader Noble Group raised its offer for Australian miner Gloucester Coal to A$490 million ($361 million), in a bid to scupper Gloucester's planned deal with rival Whitehaven Coal.

* Sanofi-Aventis announced a 200 million euro ($265 million) plan to convert a factory to biotechnology, highlighting efforts by the world's fourth largest drugmaker to penetrate the growing sector.

* Finland's Metsaliitto said it will sell its 49.9-percent stake in state-controlled renewable energy firm Vapo to a consortium for 165 million euros ($218.4 million) to bolster its balance sheet.

* Azrieli Group said it submitted the winning bid to buy a 4.83 percent stake in Bank Leumi from Cerberus Capital Management and Gabriel Capital Corp.

* Zotye Auto, a Chinese maker of sport utility vehicles (SUV), is raising about 720 million yuan ($106 million) by selling a 20 to 30 percent stake to a private equity fund-led consortium, aiming for a Shanghai initial public offering later, sources said.

* Saab Automobile, the Swedish unit of struggling U.S. carmaker General Motors, said it was not in talks with Italian peer Fiat SpA about a takeover.

(PHOTO: Manchester United's John O'Shea (R) celebrates his goal against Derby County during their English League Cup soccer match at Old Trafford in Manchester, northern England January 20, 2009. Photograph taken on January 20, 2009. REUTERS/Darren Staples)

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.

(Photo of Roberts/Reuters)

Reuters and others are reporting that Amazon.com is expected to unveil a new version of the Kindle electronic reader on Monday.

While the Kindle is a tiny part of Amazon’s web retail business, it gets a ton of buzz, and a new version has been much speculated about on the web.  The question is whether mainstream consumers are really ready to buy it, particularly in the current economic environment.

“We think Kindle will be an interesting product which the high-end consumers love, particularly investment bankers traveling in from Connecticut,” Bernstein Research’s Jeffrey Lindsay says in the Reuters story. ”We don’t think it will be a large penetration object any time soon.”

To help with mainstreamers, the Wall Street Journal writes,  Amazon is also expected to say it has acquired a new work by best-selling novelist Stephen King that will be available exclusively, at least for a time, on Kindle.

“Many publishers have long feared that Amazon would persuade a major author to write for its Kindle on an exclusive basis. Although retailers such as Barnes & Noble Inc. have long published their own books, they have struggled to find distribution outside their own stores. But Amazon has already proven that it can sell as many Kindles as it can manufacture. Indeed, Amazon is working to overcome the supply problems that have plagued the device,” says the Journal.

We won’t know all the details until later today, so stay tuned. For now, engadget has what appear to be some early images of the new version.

Meanwhile, the New York Times has a piece today on Plastic Logic, which also makes an electronic book device. The article says that Plastic Logic will “announce partnership deals on Monday that it says will bring a number of major publications to its planned device.”

Keep an eye on:

• Satellite mogul Charles Ergen made an unsolicited offer late last year to take control of Sirius XM Radio Inc and was rebuffed, according to people familiar with the situation to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ.com)
• Most media companies are cutting back on investments but Comcast’s SportsNet is putting money into studio improvements and new programming and revamping its Web sites to bring in more national advertising dollars (NY Times)
• Former Led Zeppelin singer Robert Plant received a “whole lotta love” at the Grammy Awards Sunday, winning five prizes including album of the year for an acclaimed collaboration with bluegrass queen Alison Krauss (Reuters)

(Photo: Reuters)

 If that notion of a recession-resistant entertainment industry hasn’t already been debunked, just get in touch with one of your pals out in Hollywood. They’ll tell you how bad it is — how jobs are disappearing.

Warner Brothers Entertainment is the latest to cut staff, announcing 800 jobs would be lost, or 10 percent of its worldwide staff.  NBC Universal and Viacom have already cut jobs, and industry watchers expect more job cuts to be announced by Walt Disney and Sony Pictures.

Perhaps more than other layoffs, the Warner Bros cuts send a signal of just how bad business look, The New York Times points out.

While not unexpected — Warner had been quietly preparing Hollywood to expect cuts — the layoffs rattled the movie capital because the studio is regarded as one of the industry’s healthiest. With a parade of hits like “The Dark Knight,” “Sex and the City,” “Get Smart” and “Four Christmases,” Warner recorded global ticket sales of $1.77 billion in 2008, up 25 percent from a year earlier.

But DVD sales plummeted in the fourth quarter and orders of scripted television programs — a huge Warner business — are expected to decline as networks cope with tumbling advertising sales. The struggles of Warner’s parent company, Time Warner, in the publishing arena have also put pressure on the studio to increase profitability.

The Wall Street Journal  also notes the challenges faced by parent Time Warner.

The deepening economic downturn has heaped added pressure on Time Warner to cut costs. The company recently announced a $25 billion fourth-quarter write-down to account for the tumbling value of its cable, publishing and AOL businesses, and once again scaled back its advertising outlook.

Warner Bros. was always seen as one of Time Warner’s more bloated divisions, with significant room for trimming and margin improvement. Time Warner’s movie business has already gone through one round of around 300 job cuts last year when Time Warner folded its New Line Cinema unit into Warner Bros. and shut down two boutique labels, Picturehouse and Warner Independent Pictures.

Keep an eye on:

• Google will halt its Print Ads program on Feb. 28 because the program to help newspapers make more money in online advertising sales was not working (Reuters)
• Tensions are rising at Sony over a restructuring aimed at cost cutting (FT.com) 
• Russian billionaire and ex-KGB agent Alexander Lebedev is buying a majority interest in London’s struggling Evening Standard newspaper for a nominal sum (Reuters)

(Photo: Reuters)

Time Warner’s earnings may be better-than-expected, but the most arresting news out of its quarterly report isn’t really about the media company’s profit, revenue or forecasts. It’s about strategy.

It’s always interesting to find out what direction Time Warner plans to take. What’s it selling? What’s it spinning off? What could it buy? Will it get rid of AOL? Could it acquire NBC Universal?

Here’s the latest news: Time Warner Chief Jeffrey Bewkes says the company would split AOL’s dial-up Internet and advertising business. This plan, along with getting rid of its cable services business, basically positions Time Warner as a content company.

Here’s what Bewkes said in the press release:

We’ve also made significant progress in our top structural initiatives. During the quarter, we agreed to the terms of our planned separation from Time Warner Cable. In addition, we’ve made the key decisions that will enable us to run AOL’s access and audience businesses separately beginning in 2009. As we continue to reshape Time Warner, we’ll increasingly focus on our goal to create and manage high-quality branded content, across multiple platforms around the world, at the highest returns possible for our stockholders.

Okay, but this leaves a lot of questions to be answered. Sources have said Time Warner is still talking about deals to merge or sell off its online advertising and Internet business. Does this mean a deal with Microsoft? Or Yahoo? And if it sees itself as a content company, does this mean it could be looking to acquire a TV network? Or more cable channels? Does it make a deal with NBC Universal more likely? (We should note that NBC Universal and parent GE have repeatedly said the media concern is not up for sale).

It’s time to speculate…

Keep an eye on:

• Comcast is buying email fashion and culture newsletter Daily Candy for $125 million, the Wall Street Journal reports, citing people familiar with the matter (WSJ.com)
• Mel Karmazin talks to the New York Times about the merger of Sirius Satellite Radio and XM Radio, and says the movie he is most proud of making in his time as a media mogul is “Jackass.” ”It cost me $6 million and made $100 million,” he says (NY Times)
• Mario Gabelli has filed to raise $200 million and will use the proceeds to buy a media or telecom company (NY Post)

(Photo: Reuters)

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission today ordered the largest U.S. cable TV operator Comcast Corp to change how it manages its broadband network. The regulator concluded that some of Comcast’s tactics unreasonably restrict Internet users who share movies and other material.

The 3 to 2 decision supported by two Democrat commissioners and the Republican chairman,  is precedent-setting. It could kick-start a long-simmering ‘net neutrality’ debate between advocates, who believe Internet access should always be open without interference, and some Internet service providers, who believe they should be allowed to manage Internet delivery in order to provide the best service to all users. The FCC seemed to support the former group.

“Subscribers should be able to go where they want, when they want, and generally use the Internet in any legal means,” FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said in a statement.

 Here are some reactions:

We are disappointed in the Commission’s divided conclusion because we believe that our network management choices were reasonable, wholly consistent with industry practices and that we did not block access to web sites or online applications, including peer-to-peer services. We also believe that the Commission’s order raises significant due process concerns and a variety of substantive legal questions.  We are considering all our legal options and are disappointed that the commission rejected our attempts to settle this issue without further delays.

Sena Fitzmaurice, Comcast senior director, Government Affairs

I believe today’s FCC action sends a strong message to the industry that the Commission intends to take Internet freedom principles seriously and will act to protect the integrity and openness of Internet commerce and communications.  Vigilance by regulators and policymakers, coupled with a commitment to act when necessary, is vital to thwart the emergence of new bottlenecks to competition and innovation.  I commend Chairman Martin, as well as Commissioners Copps and Adelstein, for their recognition of this fundamental tenet of realistic telecommunications policymaking. 

Rep. Edward Markey (Democrat),  chairman of the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet.

Today’s order makes it clear that there is nothing reasonable about restricting access to online content or technologies. Moving forward, this bellwether case will send a strong signal to cable and phone companies that such violations will not be tolerated.  But the fight is far from over. A duopoly market — where phone and cable companies control nearly 99 percent of high-speed connections — will not discipline itself. We look forward to working with the FCC and Congress to ensure proactive measures keep the Internet open and free of discrimination, and accessible to all Americans.

Josh Silver, executive director of Free Pres (Free Press was one of two parties that brought the complaint against Comcast)

No one has seriously questioned the right of network operators to reasonably manage their networks.  They will continue to do so after this Order.  But, there is nothing reasonable about the use of techniques that indiscriminately target applications or protocols, regardless of their use.  This is something that anyone who cares about the free and open Internet should be concerned about.  Equally important, all free markets require transparency in order to be effective.

Gilles BianRosa, Chief Executive Officer Vuze Inc. (Vuze was the other party to bring the complaint against Comcast)

There is no longer any doubt that ISPs have the right to use network management tools to address unlawful activity - including the theft of copyrighted music.  We applaud Chairman Martin’s clear affirmation that ISPs may use technology to prevent the theft of copyrighted works.  There is a crystallizing consensus among governments around the globe that ISPs should be taking affirmative steps to address piracy on their networks.  It is our hope and expectation that ISPs here will accelerate their efforts to work with us to address online piracy.

Mitch Bainwol, Chairman of Recording Industry Association of America.

The  FCC  should  be  careful  what  they  wish  for. If network operators can’t manage traffic loads one way, they’ll need  to  do it another.  By banning  discrimination based on application  or  content,  the  FCC - and  Net  neutrality proponents  more  broadly - are  pushing  network  operators closer  and  closer  to  what  is  increasingly  their  only  viable alternative option - Usage Based Pricing.  UBP might just be the  best  thing  that  ever  happened  to  the  network  operator crowd.  And it might be the worst thing that ever happened to applications and content.

Craig Moffett, analyst Sanford Bernstein

(Photo: Reuters / FCC’s Kevin Martin)

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission is likely to vote today to uphold a network complaint against Comcast Corp, the largest U.S. cable television operator, which was accused of violating open-Internet principles by blocking peer-to-peer traffic on its network.

The FCC chairman Kevin Martin and two Democrat commissioners have already voted in favor of a reprimand, according to a source. That makes it three out of five votes and even following last-minute protests from the Bush administration officials and the top House Republican as this Wall Street Journal story says it’s likely to go through.

Comcast Chief Executive Brian Roberts spoke up in defense of his company’s network management practices at its quarterly annual meeting on Wednesday.

We disagree with the FCC’s apparent finding by three commissioners. We believe our network management choices were reasonable, consistent with industry practices and we have never blocked any websites or any applications as some of the articles have suggested. 

FCC’s decision today could finally kick start the long-simmering ‘net neutrality’ debate. Comcast and other ISPs are not likely to walk away with their tails between their legs.

Keep an eye on:

• Go for the fireworks, not the action at Yahoo’s annual meeting. (Reuters)
• Ex AOL Chief Jon Miller: martial artist, venture capitalist. (LATimes)
• China lifts web curbs. (Reuters)

(Photo: Reuters)

It’s been a rough few weeks for cable operator Comcast Corp. U.S. regulator FCC is on the verge of punishing it for allegedly fiddling with subscribers’ use of peer-to-peer services like BitTorrent while New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is threatening to sue if Comcast doesn’t agree to join other Internet service providers to block access to child pornography.

But the largest U.S. cable operator is hoping to win over its customers by offering a free Nintendo Wii to new subscribers to its Triple Play package of video, Internet and phone.

The national free Wii offer runs from Monday till August 17th for new subscribers who have to agree to sign up for two years to one of Comcast’s premium Triple Play packages: Preferred Plus (at $129 a month) and Premier Triple Play ($159 a month).

Comcast seems to be adopting the tactics of a major rival. Earlier on Monday we posted about Verizon’s drop-off in FiOS TV subscriber growth last quarter after it stopped giving away flatscreen high-def TVs. The expensive marketing push certainly helped Verizon establish the FiOS TV brand in the minds of consumers in areas where it markets such as New York.

Maybe the Wii, which still can’t be found on some store shelves, will help Comcast regain some of that customer love. Or perhaps that’s money better spent on improving customer service .

(Photo: Reuters)

Comcast, the largest U.S. cable TV operator, might have had a strong first quarter, started paying a dividend, and even be able to claim to be one of the best performing stocks in 2008 in its sector - but CEO Brian Roberts still couldn’t catch a break from shareholders at Wednesday’s annual general meeting.

Worker unions pointed out Roberts gets paid 964 times the average non-supervisory Comcast worker, while a shareholder advisory group demanded (as usual) that the company adopts a one-share one-vote structure and drops the 33-percent voting rights Roberts currently holds under the dual shares structure.

But worst of all for Roberts was the presence of Evelyn Davis, 78, the self proclaimed Queen of the corporate jungle, who dominated proceedings as usual by haranguing management over various obvious and sometimes obscure details about the business.

The colorful and acerbic Davis recently castigated Ford Motors for selling Jaguar and Land Rover to an Indian company Tata that she said sells cars to “low outcasts”.

On Wednesday she berated Roberts and management for their annual legal fees estimated at around $100 million.

“Lawyers are like taxi drivers they run up the meter instead of taking you to your destination,” Davis opined.

Ironically, the aggressive pensioner’s solution for reducing these lawyer bills? Try and settle things amicably she said.

And what about all those shareholder proposals to cut Roberts’  pay, and to reduce his controlling stake etc?

Plus ca change, as they say. 

The board got re-elected, adopted all company-sponsored proposals, and defeated all shareholder proposals.