Commentary: Why Comcast Is Playing Catch Up On HDTV

In reading this morning’s Philadelphia Inquirer, I came across an interesting article penned by Noel Weyrich regarding Comcast and their poor public image, in Philadelphia and across the country. You can check out the full article here http://www.philly.com/philly/opinion/20080810_Comcast_losing_its_chance_to_be_terrific.html

While the article sums up rather nicely the issues surrounding Comcast’s corporate culture, it fails to address how their corporate culture affects the issue that is near and dear to us Home Theater enthusiasts -- namely high definition TV. This same arrogance described by Mr. Weyrich is also the reason why Comcast has fallen behind their main competition of Directv, Dish and Verizon in regards to high definition, which tis the area that will be driving the cable TV industry for the next several years.

In being the biggest player in the market, Comcast senior management let their position go to their head. They were of the opinion that they knew more than everyone else and failed to listen to others in their own company as well as outsiders as to where the market was headed. In the early part of the 21st Century Comcast failed to anticipate how fast the HD revolution would take hold, how the demand for more and more HD content would escalate.

The biggest mistake Comcast made was not insuring that they had enough bandwidth by upgrading all their systems to 860 mHz or even 1 Gig. At the very least, they should have dropped as many analog channels as possible to clear up space for HD. Why didn’t they? They felt that their customers with analog sets would complain that they need a set top box rather than rely on their cable ready sets. The only problem with this way of thinking is that no matter where their customers could turn for an alternative, all would have required them to get a set top box, be it Directv or Dish and later Verizon, so why not go this route earlier?

Instead, Comcast was left flatfooted when Directv added much more HD and improved their subscription base and churn rate. Now Comcast is biting the bullet and dropping analog service in most markets in the next year and adding more HD by adopting switched digital video. This after trying to pull the wool over our eyes by claiming that they have more HD than anyone, yeah, HD choices ( i.e HD VOD) vs. linear HD channels and even worse, degrading the quality of their HD service by squeezing 3 channels into a space fit for two.

Remember those ads where Comcast claimed that they had better picture quality than their competition? Oops! It turns out that it is HD channels that Comcast’s customers want, not “choices,” and further, want the best HD picture quality possible. Gee who would have thunk! I could say I told you so. Ok I will. I TOLD YOU SO. Glad to see that Comcast is finally getting into the HD game full time.

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