Comcast Corporate Bio

Written by Samuel Phineas Upham

Comcast is the single biggest cable company as measured by revenue, and it also offers telephone and Internet service. It services residential clients that live in 40 different states around the United States, and its headquarters are in Pennsylvania.

Comcast owns a large share of channels available on television in addition to its services. It operates E! Entertainment Network, the Golf Channel and NBCSN. It also operates Telemundo, the popular Spanish-language station, and holds Universal Pictures as well.

The company began life in 1963, after Ralph J. Roberts purchased American Cable Systems. The purchase price was $500,000 for the small cable network that had five channels to its name in Tupelo, Mississippi. Within six years, the company was incorporated under a new name: Comcast Corporation (a portmanteau of “Communications” and “Broadcast.”)

Ralph was succeeded by his son Brian in February of 1990. By then, Comcast had managed to become a mobile phone operator and had increased its subscriber base to just over 1 million.

Brian made a series of aggressive purchases, including QVC and Cablevision. Some of these ventures failed, like Excite@Home, but the successful ones managed to build the company’s market share significantly.

Comcast officially became the largest provider of broadband and cable after a merger with AT&T in 2001. It acquired the assets of AT&T for $44.5 billion. It also tried, unsuccessfully, to merge with Disney. The company was ready to pay $54 billion for Disney as a whole, taking on $12 billion of Disney’s debts. Ultimately the deal fell through.