WEBVTT - The Comcast Story: Part One 0:00:04.200 --> 0:00:07.560 Get in tech with technology with Text Stuff from Stuff 0:00:07.800 --> 0:00:15.400 technolog Hey there, and welcome to Text Stuff. I am 0:00:15.480 --> 0:00:19.800 your host, Jonathan Strickland, and today I wanted to take 0:00:19.880 --> 0:00:24.480 a look at a company that has become an enormous 0:00:24.560 --> 0:00:30.560 powerhouse both on and offline, Comcast. Anyone who has listened 0:00:30.600 --> 0:00:33.559 to me on various shows knows that I have some 0:00:33.640 --> 0:00:35.919 pretty strong opinions, but I am going to do my 0:00:36.000 --> 0:00:39.400 best to be as unbiased as possible. I do not 0:00:39.520 --> 0:00:42.720 promise that snark will be completely kept out of my 0:00:42.840 --> 0:00:46.080 voice through the entirety of this episode, but I will 0:00:46.120 --> 0:00:50.559 do my best. Um, And also just know that this 0:00:50.640 --> 0:00:53.720 is a huge topic, so I am already going to 0:00:53.760 --> 0:00:56.880 tell you it will be a two parter. Otherwise it 0:00:56.920 --> 0:00:59.520 would be an epically long podcast, So we're gonna split 0:00:59.520 --> 0:01:03.560 this up at a two parts. So the reason why 0:01:03.600 --> 0:01:05.200 I wanted to look at this, the thing that that 0:01:05.400 --> 0:01:09.400 kind of spurred me into talking about Comcast, actually comes 0:01:09.400 --> 0:01:13.360 from a recent experience I had. So I'm recording this 0:01:13.680 --> 0:01:17.759 on Thursday, the twenty two of October two thousand fifteen. 0:01:17.800 --> 0:01:22.360 But on Monday, October nineteen, something special happened and I 0:01:22.440 --> 0:01:26.280 wanted to take part in it. That's something special. Was 0:01:26.760 --> 0:01:31.560 that Star Wars episode seven, the Force Awaitkens the the 0:01:31.640 --> 0:01:35.120 advanced tickets went on sale, and it was announced that 0:01:35.160 --> 0:01:37.320 they went on sale a little earlier than what people 0:01:37.360 --> 0:01:42.360 had originally anticipated. So I rushed to try and buy tickets, 0:01:43.160 --> 0:01:46.480 and uh. One of the many things I tried to 0:01:46.520 --> 0:01:50.480 do was use Fandango. But it was very clear that 0:01:50.520 --> 0:01:54.440 there was an amazingly huge rush on tickets for the 0:01:54.440 --> 0:01:58.520 Fandango servers, as well as all the other services out there, 0:01:59.400 --> 0:02:03.600 and you could say that the servers for Fantango weren't 0:02:03.880 --> 0:02:07.560 fully operational in the parlance of Star Wars, and I 0:02:07.600 --> 0:02:11.560 started getting irritated. But then I remembered that Fandango is 0:02:11.560 --> 0:02:16.280 owned by Comcast, and then I thought, anger leads to hate. 0:02:17.040 --> 0:02:21.280 Hate leads to podcasts. But I promise I will do 0:02:21.360 --> 0:02:24.519 my best to remain objective and dispassionate as we look 0:02:24.520 --> 0:02:26.639 at the company, its history and the role it plays 0:02:26.639 --> 0:02:30.639 in their entertainment. And it's a really long history too. 0:02:31.160 --> 0:02:34.760 So before I talk about Comcast in particular, let me 0:02:34.800 --> 0:02:38.799 set the stage with some history about cable television. Now. 0:02:38.840 --> 0:02:41.840 Cable tv got its start back in the nineteen forties 0:02:41.840 --> 0:02:44.200 in the United States, and there was a need for 0:02:44.240 --> 0:02:48.000 an alternative to over the air broadcasts because some people 0:02:48.040 --> 0:02:50.760 lived in remote locations that were too far away for 0:02:50.880 --> 0:02:53.399 over the air air waves to make it to their 0:02:53.400 --> 0:02:56.600 homes with any sort of fidelity, or they might live 0:02:56.600 --> 0:02:59.200 in areas where radio waves had trouble reaching, like in 0:02:59.360 --> 0:03:03.640 mountainous areas where a mountain might be blocking the radio waves. 0:03:03.639 --> 0:03:06.520 So cable TV was the solution, and the basic model 0:03:06.639 --> 0:03:10.200 was pretty simple in its design. In fact, the earliest 0:03:10.240 --> 0:03:13.680 models just involved people setting up an antenna on a 0:03:13.760 --> 0:03:17.079 really tall structure or a mountain or something like that, 0:03:17.560 --> 0:03:21.360 and then physically running a cable from the antenna to 0:03:21.520 --> 0:03:24.880 their television sets. But beyond that you started to get 0:03:25.000 --> 0:03:29.480 actual organized businesses that would do this on behalf of customers. You, 0:03:29.600 --> 0:03:32.359 as a customer, would pay the business for the access 0:03:32.400 --> 0:03:35.680 to these over the air broadcast that otherwise you would 0:03:35.680 --> 0:03:37.640 not be able to reach. So you would have a 0:03:37.640 --> 0:03:41.160 broadcast station that would send out television along a certain 0:03:41.240 --> 0:03:45.000 channel or frequency of radio waves, and your cable station 0:03:45.360 --> 0:03:48.360 would essentially just be a set of receivers antenna in 0:03:48.400 --> 0:03:51.320 other words, which would pick up these broadcasts and then 0:03:51.400 --> 0:03:55.400 feed them through physical cables to their destinations, So early 0:03:55.480 --> 0:03:58.800 cable was still very much reliant on over the air broadcast. 0:03:58.800 --> 0:04:01.840 It was just an alternative way to get that that content, 0:04:02.520 --> 0:04:06.680 and channels don't take up much bandwidth on a physical cable. 0:04:07.000 --> 0:04:10.320 Each channel is six mega hurts, and a cable is 0:04:10.360 --> 0:04:14.040 capable of holding hundreds of mega hurts of signals, and 0:04:14.120 --> 0:04:17.120 using compression, you can even send multiple stations down a 0:04:17.200 --> 0:04:20.320 single six mega hurts channel, So you can blast a 0:04:20.440 --> 0:04:24.039 huge amount of channels through a single cable, and the 0:04:24.080 --> 0:04:26.159 cable box or television at the other end of that 0:04:26.240 --> 0:04:29.880 cable can tune into specific channels and block all the 0:04:29.920 --> 0:04:33.000 others out. So, in other words, imagine that you are 0:04:33.040 --> 0:04:37.200 in a room and there's every actor you've ever known 0:04:37.240 --> 0:04:40.360 about in that room, and they're all acting their hearts 0:04:40.360 --> 0:04:42.560 out at you at the same time, but you have 0:04:42.640 --> 0:04:45.919 the ability to tune into a specific actor and tune 0:04:45.920 --> 0:04:49.320 out everybody else. That's basically what's going on with cable 0:04:49.760 --> 0:04:53.359 on a technological level. And when you opt into a 0:04:53.480 --> 0:04:57.000 cable bundle often that means that you're also getting the 0:04:57.120 --> 0:05:01.800 cable company to decrypt information. So what's happening on the 0:05:01.839 --> 0:05:05.159 cable side, the cable operator side, is that they will 0:05:05.240 --> 0:05:10.320 encrypt certain channels, like pay channels that otherwise you would 0:05:10.400 --> 0:05:15.880 get for free. If you didn't have that encryption, then you, 0:05:16.080 --> 0:05:18.600 as a customer would be able to access everything a 0:05:18.600 --> 0:05:22.840 cable channel operator had to offer. But by encrypting it, 0:05:23.279 --> 0:05:26.640 then the cable company can control which channels you can 0:05:26.680 --> 0:05:29.760 actually view and which ones are off limits. When you 0:05:29.839 --> 0:05:33.960 opt in to a cable bundle, like you you subscribe 0:05:34.000 --> 0:05:36.960 to a specific cable service, they essentially send a message 0:05:36.960 --> 0:05:39.240 to your television or a cable box and that allows 0:05:39.279 --> 0:05:41.680 you to decrypt the signal on your end so that 0:05:41.760 --> 0:05:46.040 you can actually watch it. And the United States, communities 0:05:46.080 --> 0:05:50.279 in Pennsylvania, Oregon, and Arkansas were among the first to 0:05:50.360 --> 0:05:52.760 receive cable service, and by that I mean people were 0:05:52.800 --> 0:05:56.840 actually going out and setting up these antenna. By n two, 0:05:57.560 --> 0:06:02.000 there are about seventy actual cable systems in the entire country. 0:06:02.880 --> 0:06:06.600 So these were actual companies that had taken the same 0:06:06.680 --> 0:06:10.680 sort of model that these enterprising individuals had followed and 0:06:10.760 --> 0:06:13.120 actually made a business out of it. They only had 0:06:13.160 --> 0:06:17.160 about fourteen thousand customers back in nineteen fifty two, but 0:06:17.279 --> 0:06:20.440 cable television had a big advantage over home antennas in 0:06:20.440 --> 0:06:24.240 that if you use a sophisticate antenna and you were 0:06:24.240 --> 0:06:26.120 able to put it on a really tall building or 0:06:26.120 --> 0:06:29.520 a mountain or some other really tall structure, you could 0:06:29.560 --> 0:06:33.120 pick up signals from much further away than folks who 0:06:33.120 --> 0:06:36.840 are just using regular rabbit ears on their televisions, Which 0:06:36.839 --> 0:06:40.840 meant that cable customers sometimes could pick up signals from 0:06:40.960 --> 0:06:44.880 other broadcast regions, so you might be able to get 0:06:45.200 --> 0:06:49.240 content from multiple large cities. If you lived kind of 0:06:49.279 --> 0:06:52.760 in between two big cities and you had this cable, 0:06:53.040 --> 0:06:55.240 it might mean that you were able to double your 0:06:55.240 --> 0:06:58.560 programming options. At least it may be that, you know, 0:06:58.640 --> 0:07:02.360 the two elliots of of a major broadcast station are 0:07:02.400 --> 0:07:04.640 showing more or less the same thing, but throughout the 0:07:04.720 --> 0:07:07.520 day you would have some different options available to you, 0:07:07.960 --> 0:07:12.000 which made cable fairly attractive. It was sort of the 0:07:12.080 --> 0:07:17.080 beginning of cable's advantage over over the air broadcast, although 0:07:17.800 --> 0:07:19.480 as we'll talk about a little bit later, over the 0:07:19.520 --> 0:07:24.120 air still had a lot of other advantages. So interesting 0:07:24.160 --> 0:07:28.320 cable TV began to grow, particularly among people who just 0:07:28.480 --> 0:07:32.920 couldn't get over the air easily. By nineteen sixty two, 0:07:32.960 --> 0:07:35.480 the number of customers had grown to more than eight 0:07:35.560 --> 0:07:38.440 hundred thousand people in the United States, So in ten 0:07:38.520 --> 0:07:42.040 years it went from fourteen thousand customers to eight hundred 0:07:42.160 --> 0:07:46.240 thousand in the US. Cable TV was becoming a viable alternative, 0:07:46.320 --> 0:07:49.880 even in communities that didn't have problems accessing over the 0:07:49.960 --> 0:07:52.440 air signals. But it was also one of those things 0:07:52.480 --> 0:07:54.840 that cities were starting to look into because if you 0:07:54.880 --> 0:07:57.120 lived in a city with lots of high rise buildings, 0:07:57.280 --> 0:08:00.640 sometimes that would block radio signals too. So it was 0:08:00.720 --> 0:08:03.240 one of those things that that you could see the 0:08:03.240 --> 0:08:07.320 the benefit, the potential application, but it was still going 0:08:07.360 --> 0:08:11.680 to be really expensive to roll out the infrastructure. All right, Well, 0:08:11.720 --> 0:08:14.520 that that sets the groundwork for what the cable industry 0:08:14.560 --> 0:08:17.000 was like in the early sixties. Let's take a look 0:08:17.160 --> 0:08:22.480 at Comcast specifically. The company actually traces its history back 0:08:22.520 --> 0:08:27.520 to nineteen sixty three. That's when Ralph J. Roberts, Daniel 0:08:27.600 --> 0:08:31.800 Aaron and Julian A. Broad Ski purchased a small cable 0:08:31.880 --> 0:08:37.720 TV operator called American Cable Systems, which was in Tupelo, Mississippi, 0:08:38.000 --> 0:08:41.280 and that service had just one thousand, two hundred subscribers 0:08:41.840 --> 0:08:45.120 and that was it. The three businessmen spent five hundred 0:08:45.120 --> 0:08:50.480 thousand dollars on that purchase. So who were these guys? Well, 0:08:50.559 --> 0:08:54.280 Ralph J. Roberts grew up in New York and in Philadelphia. 0:08:54.520 --> 0:08:57.400 He served in the United States Navy before going on 0:08:57.480 --> 0:09:01.000 to work several different jobs. He gradually he earned enough 0:09:01.040 --> 0:09:03.080 money to purchase a business of his own. He and 0:09:03.120 --> 0:09:05.400 his brother went into a business. They invested in, a 0:09:05.440 --> 0:09:09.640 company called Pioneer Suspender Company. It turns out there was 0:09:09.800 --> 0:09:13.360 money in Suspenders because he and his brother decided to 0:09:13.480 --> 0:09:17.120 sell the business off later on, and with that money 0:09:17.320 --> 0:09:20.600 it allowed them to invest in other companies. So Ralph 0:09:20.679 --> 0:09:25.080 Roberts ended up looking into the world of TV, and 0:09:25.080 --> 0:09:28.160 it was reportedly Roberts who came up with a name 0:09:28.480 --> 0:09:32.160 Comcast in nineteen sixty nine. So several years down the 0:09:32.240 --> 0:09:36.040 road he would combine the words communications and broadcast together 0:09:36.120 --> 0:09:38.839 to create the name Comcast, and he would serve as 0:09:38.880 --> 0:09:42.960 Comcast Chief executive Officer for more than four decades. Uh. 0:09:43.040 --> 0:09:46.480 Ralph J. Roberts passed away in June of two thousand 0:09:46.440 --> 0:09:49.240 and fifteen, so very recently as of the recording of 0:09:49.240 --> 0:09:54.200 this podcast now. Daniel Aharon was born in nineteen twenty 0:09:54.240 --> 0:09:58.880 six in Giessen, Germany. His family escaped Germany during the 0:09:58.960 --> 0:10:01.440 rise of the Nazi Party in World War Two, and 0:10:01.640 --> 0:10:05.400 they settled in Queens, New York. Now Tragically, when he 0:10:05.440 --> 0:10:08.040 was just thirteen years old, he lost his mother. She 0:10:08.120 --> 0:10:11.199 committed suicide, and less than a month later, his father 0:10:11.400 --> 0:10:15.720 also committed suicide. Daniel Aaron was orphaned and he was 0:10:15.760 --> 0:10:18.840 not yet a citizen. He continued to live in New 0:10:18.920 --> 0:10:21.800 York and eventually he would be drafted and sent to 0:10:21.880 --> 0:10:25.720 Germany during World War Two. When he returned, he pursued 0:10:25.760 --> 0:10:30.200 a career in journalism and public relations. Eventually he entered 0:10:30.240 --> 0:10:33.760 the cable business and that's when he met Roberts and 0:10:33.840 --> 0:10:38.160 agreed to co found Comcast. In his obituary, he was 0:10:38.200 --> 0:10:42.320 referred to as the conscience of the company, famously even 0:10:42.360 --> 0:10:45.720 buying coffee for picketing employees who were in a labor 0:10:45.800 --> 0:10:49.320 dispute with Comcast. So he was sort of the working 0:10:49.400 --> 0:10:54.280 man's representative among the three co founders of this company. 0:10:54.720 --> 0:10:59.120 He passed away in two thousand three. Julian Brodsky grew 0:10:59.200 --> 0:11:01.839 up in philade, Alphia. He had served in the United 0:11:01.880 --> 0:11:05.439 States Army and he became an accountant after he left 0:11:05.440 --> 0:11:10.480 the service. So Bronsky served as Robert's accountant, Ralph J. Roberts, 0:11:11.080 --> 0:11:13.720 So he was actually the accountant for Ralph J. Roberts 0:11:13.880 --> 0:11:17.839 and was approached by Roberts and by Aaron when they 0:11:17.840 --> 0:11:21.720 were preparing to purchase this company, this little cable company 0:11:21.720 --> 0:11:25.200 in Tiple of Mississippi, and Brodsky's main role was to 0:11:25.360 --> 0:11:28.520 raise money for the company. In two thousand eleven, Brodsky 0:11:28.600 --> 0:11:31.960 retired as the vice chairman of the company, and of 0:11:32.040 --> 0:11:33.880 the three founders, he is the only one who is 0:11:33.880 --> 0:11:38.200 still alive as of the recording of this podcast. Now. 0:11:38.280 --> 0:11:41.120 Daniel Aaron is credited with having compared the three co 0:11:41.280 --> 0:11:45.360 founders as three people trying to drive a single car, 0:11:45.760 --> 0:11:47.760 and he said that Brodsky was the guy who had 0:11:47.800 --> 0:11:50.880 his foot on the accelerator as he was raising capital 0:11:50.960 --> 0:11:54.640 for the venture. Uh. Meanwhile, his own foot, Aaron, his 0:11:54.679 --> 0:11:56.880 own foot was on the break to make sure the 0:11:56.880 --> 0:12:00.000 company was a good corporate citizen, stepping on the brakes 0:12:00.240 --> 0:12:02.319 to slow down the company if he thought that they 0:12:02.320 --> 0:12:06.079 were about to do something reckless or damaging or or 0:12:06.120 --> 0:12:10.600 just unethical. And meanwhile, we're alf Dave Roberts. His hands 0:12:10.600 --> 0:12:14.679 were on the steering wheel, guiding the company along. In 0:12:14.720 --> 0:12:17.960 those early days of cable the company faced some pretty 0:12:18.000 --> 0:12:22.080 big challenges. According to the founders, they actually had to 0:12:22.160 --> 0:12:25.439 act as door to door salespeople on occasion in an 0:12:25.440 --> 0:12:29.760 effort to grow. So they were physically going out knocking 0:12:29.800 --> 0:12:33.480 on people's doors and telling them about cable service in 0:12:33.520 --> 0:12:36.400 an effort to get more customers. They came to the 0:12:36.440 --> 0:12:41.080 conclusion that expansion would require purchasing other cable companies, and 0:12:41.120 --> 0:12:44.720 this is a philosophy that Comcast has stuck with time 0:12:44.800 --> 0:12:48.920 and time again over its long history. They have purchased 0:12:49.360 --> 0:12:52.640 numerous companies that I will go into in some detail 0:12:52.720 --> 0:12:57.520 throughout these two episodes. Now, originally they focused on other 0:12:57.600 --> 0:13:01.120 cable services in the state of Mrs Sippy, So they 0:13:01.160 --> 0:13:04.600 began to expand both in eastern and western Mississippi and 0:13:04.640 --> 0:13:07.800 really focused on that state. But they were still finding 0:13:07.800 --> 0:13:10.520 it difficult to get enough customers to make a profit 0:13:10.920 --> 0:13:13.560 after going through the expense of setting up and maintaining 0:13:13.640 --> 0:13:18.240 cable systems. So, in other words, they're operating expenses were 0:13:18.280 --> 0:13:20.520 too close to the amount of money they were bringing in. 0:13:20.640 --> 0:13:24.680 It wasn't really a fast growing company. It wasn't a 0:13:24.679 --> 0:13:28.160 fast growing business, and they were trying to find new 0:13:28.200 --> 0:13:32.199 ways to add to that as quickly as they possibly could. 0:13:33.160 --> 0:13:36.720 In the company, which at that point was still known 0:13:36.760 --> 0:13:41.880 as American Cable Systems, purchased another company called Storecast Corporation 0:13:41.920 --> 0:13:46.160 of America. Here's the difference. Though Storecast was not a 0:13:46.200 --> 0:13:49.960 cable service company, it was a marketing firm. And only 0:13:50.080 --> 0:13:52.080 was it a marketing firm, it was a marketing firm 0:13:52.160 --> 0:13:55.440 that had a very specific kind of clientele. They were 0:13:55.520 --> 0:13:59.880 chiefly known for helping food companies work with supermarkets to 0:14:00.160 --> 0:14:04.520 maximize sales prices are sales of the products, by placing 0:14:04.559 --> 0:14:08.240 those products in prominent locations. In other words, they would 0:14:08.240 --> 0:14:11.800 go into a supermarket on behalf of a client, Let's 0:14:11.840 --> 0:14:16.520 say Wonderbread. I'm just taking that as a random example. 0:14:16.559 --> 0:14:18.880 I don't know if Wonderbread was actually one of their clients. 0:14:18.880 --> 0:14:22.080 But let's say they go into a supermarket they're representing Wonderbread, 0:14:22.360 --> 0:14:24.520 and they go to the bread aisle and they look 0:14:24.560 --> 0:14:28.520 around and they say, well, this is not great for 0:14:28.520 --> 0:14:32.360 our client. We recommend you move this to this shelf. 0:14:32.360 --> 0:14:34.960 If you're gonna move more product this way, you're gonna 0:14:35.040 --> 0:14:37.680 increase your sales. Our client will be happy, You'll be 0:14:37.760 --> 0:14:40.240 happy that's the kind of work they were mostly known 0:14:40.280 --> 0:14:44.520 for doing, so a little odd that Comcast or at 0:14:44.520 --> 0:14:48.080 that time, American Cable Systems would purchase this type of company. 0:14:48.720 --> 0:14:52.480 Comcast continued to try and grow through acquisitions during this time, 0:14:53.040 --> 0:14:57.120 and in nineteen sixty six, Ralph J. Roberts turned his 0:14:57.160 --> 0:15:00.560 attention to Philadelphia. Keep in mind, that's one of the 0:15:00.560 --> 0:15:02.720 cities he grew up in New York and Philadelphia is 0:15:02.760 --> 0:15:06.680 where he spent his childhood, and he bought cable systems 0:15:06.720 --> 0:15:09.960 that were serving the suburbs of Philadelphia, and later on 0:15:10.080 --> 0:15:13.480 he would also purchase a few that we're serving Western Pennsylvania. 0:15:13.560 --> 0:15:17.280 Philadelphia is in the east part of Pennsylvania. He then 0:15:17.360 --> 0:15:20.560 began to expand that service into neighboring communities and an 0:15:20.560 --> 0:15:23.960 effort to scale up operations, so instead of just acquiring 0:15:24.000 --> 0:15:26.800 cable businesses, he was actually trying to lay out the 0:15:26.840 --> 0:15:32.240 infrastructure to connect these various areas and scale up the 0:15:32.360 --> 0:15:37.160 entire operation, kind of consolidating them. In nineteen sixty eight, 0:15:37.760 --> 0:15:41.960 they would make another slightly weird purchase. Comcast or or 0:15:42.000 --> 0:15:45.119 American Cable system still at that time, bought a Musaic 0:15:45.560 --> 0:15:51.400 franchise in Orlando, Florida. You're probably aware of music. Music 0:15:51.520 --> 0:15:54.520 if you're if you never directly experienced it, you definitely 0:15:54.560 --> 0:15:57.720 have a right. I'm guessing you've heard the term music 0:15:57.800 --> 0:16:02.920 is a company that would create and distribute very soothing music, 0:16:03.040 --> 0:16:07.520 sometimes very soothing versions of popular songs that would play 0:16:07.560 --> 0:16:10.880 in the background of things like elevators and grocery stores 0:16:11.040 --> 0:16:14.640 and you know other places, dentist office, that kind of 0:16:14.680 --> 0:16:18.720 stuff where it's supposed to, you know, lull you and 0:16:18.760 --> 0:16:23.040 relax you. And it often makes me angry because often 0:16:23.080 --> 0:16:25.680 I can recognize the original song that the music is 0:16:25.720 --> 0:16:28.840 doing and it doesn't necessarily make me happy to hear 0:16:28.880 --> 0:16:34.480 it in a very laid back kind of approach. At 0:16:34.480 --> 0:16:40.000 any rate, they wanted to purchase a franchise in Orlando, Florida. 0:16:40.200 --> 0:16:42.600 And one of the reasons this might be the case 0:16:42.760 --> 0:16:47.400 is because Ralph Roberts's brother, Joe, was an executive vice 0:16:47.440 --> 0:16:51.720 president of the Music Corporation, which might raise a few 0:16:51.760 --> 0:16:55.440 eyebrows today that two brothers are essentially doing business with 0:16:55.480 --> 0:16:59.400 one another and doing acquisitions of companies, one selling to 0:16:59.440 --> 0:17:02.400 the other, But at any rate, that's what happened. In 0:17:02.480 --> 0:17:08.040 nine In n the company finally changed as changes its 0:17:08.119 --> 0:17:13.320 name to Comcast and reincorporates, this time in Pennsylvania. In 0:17:13.440 --> 0:17:17.840 nineteen seventy, the company reorganized so it sold off its 0:17:17.880 --> 0:17:21.919 Florida operations, which had just bought two years earlier, to 0:17:22.000 --> 0:17:26.160 another company called STORER Communications, which will come back into 0:17:26.160 --> 0:17:30.440 play a little later in the episode. And Comcast began 0:17:30.520 --> 0:17:34.760 to expand into other markets, primarily Maryland at that point, 0:17:34.880 --> 0:17:39.800 and also explored options and limited partnerships rather than outright acquisitions, 0:17:40.040 --> 0:17:43.679 which gave the company a bit of an advantage in 0:17:43.720 --> 0:17:48.480 that through a limited partnership, Comcast could get access to 0:17:48.520 --> 0:17:52.000 customers but not have to commit so much of its 0:17:52.000 --> 0:17:55.720 operating funds to expand the company, and this way it 0:17:55.720 --> 0:17:59.040 would allow the company to grow without having to spend 0:17:59.119 --> 0:18:02.879 millions of dollars is acquiring other cable systems, although it's 0:18:02.880 --> 0:18:06.639 still pursued that as well, and the music party continued. 0:18:06.720 --> 0:18:10.000 At the same time, Comcast bought franchises and multiple cities 0:18:10.000 --> 0:18:14.600 like Detroit, San Diego, and Hartford, Connecticut. By nine two, 0:18:15.640 --> 0:18:19.199 Comcast was able to hold an initial public offering was 0:18:19.240 --> 0:18:24.040 able to launch as a publicly traded company. Stocks were 0:18:24.119 --> 0:18:27.760 traded on the Nasdaq stock market and the ticker symbol 0:18:27.880 --> 0:18:32.000 was c M C s A, and it continued to grow. 0:18:32.600 --> 0:18:35.720 It would acquire smaller cable companies and incorporate them into 0:18:35.760 --> 0:18:38.639 its own service, and the company spread across the United 0:18:38.640 --> 0:18:41.480 States using these sort of acquisitions, but it was still 0:18:41.520 --> 0:18:45.679 finding it challenging to penetrate markets through other means. In 0:18:45.680 --> 0:18:49.160 other words, they were having trouble selling the idea of 0:18:49.200 --> 0:18:53.119 subscribing to Comcast. They found it easier to purchase the 0:18:53.119 --> 0:18:56.320 cable systems people were already using and then lump them 0:18:56.440 --> 0:19:01.480 under Comcast, and thus the people became Comcast customers by default. 0:19:01.760 --> 0:19:05.159 It wasn't necessarily that they chose Comcast, but rather that 0:19:05.280 --> 0:19:08.400 the company they had been a customer of before now 0:19:08.480 --> 0:19:14.320 belonged to Comcast, and that also included expanding its hold 0:19:14.359 --> 0:19:18.840 on music. By nineteen seventy three, Comcasts Music Network division 0:19:18.960 --> 0:19:24.200 was the largest independent musach operator. So music operates under 0:19:24.200 --> 0:19:27.959 a franchise system, which means that when Comcast would buy 0:19:28.040 --> 0:19:30.800 up a franchise would buy up one region and other 0:19:30.920 --> 0:19:35.280 franchises would remain independent of Comcast. But Comcast kept on 0:19:35.320 --> 0:19:38.800 doing this and thus became the largest independent musaic operator. 0:19:39.280 --> 0:19:41.280 So if you're a child of the early seventies and 0:19:41.320 --> 0:19:44.640 wondered where that easy listening music came from. There are 0:19:44.680 --> 0:19:50.600 good odds that Comcast was ultimately responsible. And also in 0:19:50.760 --> 0:19:55.400 nineteen seventy four, Ralph Roberts's son Brian started working at 0:19:55.400 --> 0:20:00.480 Comcast officially UH, specifically working for Storecast as an intern, 0:20:00.800 --> 0:20:03.920 and by the following year he would start training as 0:20:03.960 --> 0:20:07.919 a cable installer, which included home installations and climbing poles 0:20:08.000 --> 0:20:13.080 to hook connections from drops to the home the home area, 0:20:13.600 --> 0:20:17.240 and by three he would become the general manager of 0:20:17.240 --> 0:20:20.640 the Trenton system for Comcast, and by four he would 0:20:20.640 --> 0:20:24.199 become vice president of operations for the cable division. So 0:20:24.240 --> 0:20:29.000 within a decade of starting to work for the company officially. 0:20:29.680 --> 0:20:31.879 There are some reports that say that Brian Roberts was 0:20:31.920 --> 0:20:35.399 working at Comcast when he was just seven years old, 0:20:36.119 --> 0:20:38.800 which brings into questions some child labor laws, But at 0:20:38.800 --> 0:20:42.240 any rate, he within a decade he would go from 0:20:42.359 --> 0:20:45.480 intern to vice president of operations with a cable division. 0:20:46.400 --> 0:20:49.280 And UH this also raised some questions because, I mean, 0:20:49.440 --> 0:20:52.000 he's the son of one of the founders, so there's 0:20:52.000 --> 0:20:54.439 a little bit of legacy issue going on here, But 0:20:54.720 --> 0:20:58.360 he consistently showed that he was very dedicated to the company, 0:20:58.400 --> 0:21:01.160 so I don't mean to suggest that he didn't deserve 0:21:01.280 --> 0:21:05.359 this position. He certainly has been a great deal maker 0:21:05.480 --> 0:21:08.560 for Comcast and has led the company to some massive, 0:21:08.920 --> 0:21:11.399 massive business deals that we'll talk about in a second. 0:21:12.119 --> 0:21:15.320 But uh, it's still raised some eyebrows in the community 0:21:15.480 --> 0:21:20.640 of cable industry. In nineteen seventy six, the co founder, 0:21:20.720 --> 0:21:24.320 Daniel Aharon would become the chairman of the National Cable 0:21:24.359 --> 0:21:28.520 and Television Association, which is essentially a lobby group. It's 0:21:28.600 --> 0:21:33.640 it's kind of an advocacy group for cable companies, cable industry, 0:21:33.640 --> 0:21:38.280 cable service providers, and was really focused on helping shape 0:21:38.320 --> 0:21:43.119 policy in the United States that would remove challenges, obstacles, 0:21:43.119 --> 0:21:46.560 and restrictions facing the cable industry. And in some cases 0:21:46.600 --> 0:21:50.399 these were restrictions that were entirely arbitrary and unfair. I 0:21:50.480 --> 0:21:53.400 don't mean to suggest that they were working to completely 0:21:53.480 --> 0:21:58.760 leverage everything so that cable companies could dominate all telecommunications industries, 0:21:59.160 --> 0:22:03.399 but rather to try and address some problems that the 0:22:03.480 --> 0:22:06.280 cable industry faced. Because it was brand new, this was 0:22:06.359 --> 0:22:09.040 something I mean, even even by the seventies, this was 0:22:09.080 --> 0:22:12.720 still relatively new and still UH something that had to 0:22:12.760 --> 0:22:17.480 battle with much more entrenched systems like the telephone companies 0:22:18.240 --> 0:22:22.960 and the over the year broadcast companies. Also in nineteen 0:22:22.960 --> 0:22:27.160 seventy seven, Comcast would add HBO to twenty thousand customers 0:22:27.160 --> 0:22:31.600 in Pennsylvania with a five night preview, so customers got 0:22:32.320 --> 0:22:36.880 five nights free HBO, which was a fledgling company at 0:22:36.880 --> 0:22:42.480 that point, and afterward Comcast received three thousand subscription orders 0:22:42.520 --> 0:22:45.960 once the preview period ends, So it was a fairly 0:22:45.960 --> 0:22:50.520 successful preview. And if you listen to the story of HBO, 0:22:50.680 --> 0:22:54.439 which I believe was a three part episode that that 0:22:54.560 --> 0:22:56.960 I did, it's at least two parts at any rate, 0:22:57.040 --> 0:22:59.040 but I did that quite a while ago. If you 0:22:59.080 --> 0:23:01.400 go and look at the Tech Stuff archives, you can 0:23:01.440 --> 0:23:04.600 find the HBO story where we talk a little more 0:23:04.640 --> 0:23:09.480 about how HBO also really shaped the cable industry as 0:23:09.520 --> 0:23:15.040 it became more and more important. In Night, Daniel Aaron 0:23:15.320 --> 0:23:18.840 would become UH. He would use his position as the 0:23:18.880 --> 0:23:21.800 chairman of the National Cable Television Association or in c 0:23:21.960 --> 0:23:25.600 t a UH and successfully lobby the United States government 0:23:25.640 --> 0:23:29.080 to reduce restrictions on what cable operators could carry. So 0:23:29.200 --> 0:23:31.760 up to that point, there had been some limitations on 0:23:31.800 --> 0:23:35.600 some of the programming that cable operators could offer their customers, 0:23:36.040 --> 0:23:39.240 and often this was programming that their customers actually wanted 0:23:39.320 --> 0:23:42.480 access to, but the cable operators their hands were tied. 0:23:42.560 --> 0:23:45.760 They were not allowed by law to carry that programming. 0:23:46.200 --> 0:23:48.240 So the n c t A was able to argue 0:23:48.280 --> 0:23:51.720 successfully on behalf of cable operators and even reach the 0:23:51.720 --> 0:23:55.040 point where cable could offer up channels that weren't broadcast 0:23:55.080 --> 0:23:58.160 over the air, meaning that cable companies could now create 0:23:58.440 --> 0:24:03.000 or partner with creators to provide content that otherwise people 0:24:03.040 --> 0:24:05.239 would never see because there'd be no other way of 0:24:05.280 --> 0:24:08.760 getting it. That actually created a market advantage for cable 0:24:09.240 --> 0:24:13.359 over classic over the year broadcasts, because now not only 0:24:13.359 --> 0:24:15.720 could you get something that wasn't going to be affected 0:24:15.760 --> 0:24:20.040 by radio transmissions, but you could see content that would 0:24:20.080 --> 0:24:23.360 not be available to you otherwise. And by ninety eight, 0:24:23.400 --> 0:24:27.240 Comcast earnings were an excess of three million dollars, which 0:24:27.560 --> 0:24:30.439 is chicken feed compared to what they make today, but 0:24:30.520 --> 0:24:34.720 still was impressive at the time, and Comcast made its 0:24:34.720 --> 0:24:39.480 first international move in nineteen three, they expanded into the 0:24:39.560 --> 0:24:43.040 United Kingdom. The company was finding it increasingly difficult to 0:24:43.080 --> 0:24:45.520 acquire new operations. In the United States. At that time, 0:24:45.560 --> 0:24:49.399 there were only a few major cable operators left that 0:24:49.520 --> 0:24:52.200 had not been scooped up by one of the chief 0:24:52.240 --> 0:24:55.760 competitors to Comcast, so that meant that there were only 0:24:55.760 --> 0:24:59.160 a few limited service areas, meaning there was very little 0:24:59.200 --> 0:25:02.919 potential for g oath if Comcast purchased those companies, and 0:25:02.960 --> 0:25:06.119