Over-the-Top Confusion With Comcast

Comcast has said time and time again that offering a Over-the-Top-TV service outside its own footprint doesn’t make economic sense, and that it is content, for now, to focus on bumping video sub numbers in-footprint with X1, its next-gen platform. Did Comcast suddenly change its mind? Did the dim economics of a virtual multichannel video programming distributor service brighten overnight? One might wonder, given some headlines circulating today claiming that Comcast is developing its own online TV service that's akin to a DirecTV Now or Sling TV. The apparent confusion about what Comcast is planning, or isn’t planning, stems from an interview with Mike Cavanagh, Comcast’s SVP and CFO, conducted Wednesday at the UBS Global Media and Communications Conference. The quote in question: “It’s coming.” And some took that to mean that what was "coming" was a new online TV service from Comcast. But when I looked back at that part of the conversation, the quote seems to be out of context. It wasn’t about a service from Comcast that is coming, but about the OTT competition that Comcast is facing, and will continue to face.