Comcast Says Content Ownership 'Totally Appropriate'

Comcast's ownership and distribution of television programming is "totally appropriate," said David Cohen, executive vice president for the largest US cable company. "We've been in the content business for a long time," Cohen said, citing Comcast's cable channels such as Versus and the Golf Channel and its stake, sold in 2003, in the home- shopping network QVC Inc. "We've always seen a synergy, and a valuable synergy, between distribution and content," Cohen said. "It's totally appropriate for us to be involved on both sides of the business." Comcast may eventually charge heavy Internet users more, Cohen said. "Unless you want to have low-end users subsidizing the expense for high-end users, it probably makes sense one day to have multiple tiers of service, to have consumption-based billing," Cohen said. "There are a whole variety of models you could look at."