Devices

Comcast expects to eventually integrate content from third parties other than just Netflix into the X1interactive TV platform, according to Marcien Jenckes, EVP of consumer services at Comcast Cable. Comcast recently said it would make Netflix available to X1 users through Comcast’s X1 set-top boxes. “I think there’s only one Netflix at the moment,” Jenckes said at the recent Nomura Media, Telecom & Internet Conference in New York. “But there are other companies that are aggregating content that our customers want access to and there’s no reason why over time we wouldn’t figure out ways to include them in the experience as well,” he said. Comcast has been investing “very heavily and aggressively on innovation because we think that differentiates our service” and allows it to take market share away from rivals, he said. And those investments are already “paying off,” despite it still being “early in that process,” he said. “One of the biggest benefits that we’ve seen so far” has been a reduction in subscriber churn, he said, adding: “We’ve had 29 months of declining churn” and subscribers with X1 have 20% lower voluntary churn than other homes.

There’s also been “much greater consumption of on-demand content, much greater consumption of linear content” and even “more use of DVR across the board” among X1 homes than homes without X1, he said, adding: “Everything you look at in X1 shows that it’s a platform that allows us to showcase the content of our partners in a way that delivers value to our customers.”

Comcast is going to add “more and more sources of content into X1” like it’s done with the Summer Olympics, he said, adding that, for the Olympics, Comcast has “pieced together different content types” from multiple sources “into a unified experience in a way that’s been really compelling and very good for our customers and our partners at NBC.”

The X1 platform allows Comcast to “segment our customer base and serve different groups of people differently,” he went on to explain. X1 is not just a set-top box, but rather a “cloud-based platform that delivers experiences through a set-top box, but also delivers experiences to any Internet-connected device, whether it’s in your home or out of your home,” he said.

Comcast signed the deal with Netflix because it’s “good for our collective customers,” he said, adding: “Our view is that if you can create an aggregated experience that presents to a customer all the content that they want to consume no matter what the source is -— if it’s current season content based on one of our programmer deals, or if it’s prior season content either that we license directly or that somebody like Netflix licenses — and we are able to showcase within our experience, the unification of that is very powerful.”

Regarding the competitive landscape that Comcast faces that now includes relatively new players including Google, he said: “We aren’t going to roll over in light of new competition. We feel as though we have a very compelling product and we continue to play very hard for share.” Although Comcast doesn’t take new rivals “lightly,” Comcast feels “pretty good about our ability to compete going forward,” he said.

Comcast, meanwhile, is “carefully evaluating our options” in the wireless market, he said, adding: “When we explore the wireless market, and being a principle and a mobile service provider, it’s not because we think we have to. It’s because we think there might be an opportunity for us to fuel additional growth — whether that is as an extension of our existing wireline business, or whether it’s because we see an opportunity to be a bit of a disruptor on that front.”

Comcast is looking at “what’s possible for us to do” in the wireless space and it’s “looking carefully at how we think that benefits our current market trajectory in terms of what we offer, how we offer it, how successful we are and how much we can grow,” he said. “If we are able to chart the right path, figure out the right way of doing it, I think you’ll see us do some interesting things, but we are still in the process of evaluating that.”