winstongator
Well-Known Member
Comcast is squeezing as much as they can out of their monopoly cable business. It generates over half its revenue and over 2/3rds of EBITDA. It's easy to decry something as a low margin business when it requires work to run. Much easier to cash checks on existing infrastructure where people don't have competitive alternatives.It's pretty simple, Comcast execs are bearish on the whole streaming ecosystem and wanted to lock in a good price on Hulu in case there was any kind of devaluation in the next couple of years. They see Netflix as trading at bubble valuations and were concerned that possibly Hulu might be as well.
Comcast execs (and NBC execs) have said that they believe streaming is a low margin, high cost proposition. That's why they're focused on an AVOD service where ads will cover the whole cost of video, but they won't be trying as hard as others to make exclusive content and make the service their main money-maker for content distribution.
Only time will tell whether they're right or wrong. Nobody really knows what will happen yet as all these new services come online the next couple of years.
If, or when, true competitive options come around for coax for internet access, and when a-la-carte streaming overtakes, we'll hear Comcast execs singing a completely different tune. I know the when might be in 20 years, but it'll eventually get here.