Brand of the day: Comcast
Welcome to Brand of the Day, where we pick the brand making headlines and explain what you need to know about why it's in the news.
Cable giant Comcast steals our brand of the day spot.
The group is apparently in early deal talks with various 'new media' outlets as it looks to boost its appeal among younger consumers, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.
Subsidiary NBCUniversal is said to have had held initial talks with several publishers, including Vice, Buzzfeed and Business Insider. And has also discussed increasing its existing 14 per cent stake in Vox Media.
The mass media group was founded in 1963 by Ralph Roberts, who is still chief executive today, alongside his business partners Julian Brodsky and Dan Aaron.
It comprises two primary businesses – Comcast Cable which provides internet services to 21m homes and NBCUniversal, a news, entertainment and sports cable network broadcaster.
In 2014 the Los Angeles Times broke the news that the firm sought to acquire Time Warner Cable in a transaction valued to be worth $45.2bn.
This was met with resistance from streaming service Netflix, as well as pressure groups who were worried about "fewer choices, higher prices and less diversity in our media."
The merger was finally quashed in 2015 when the deal was rejected by the US government after the Department of Justice said it had concerns that the merger would make Comcast "an unavoidable gatekeeper for Internet-based services that rely on a broadband connection to reach consumers."
Netflix and the cable behemoth have actually been sparring for the past few years over the issue of net neutrality.
In early 2014 Netflix reluctantly agreed to pay the firm to directly connect to its networt, but Comcast customers experienced extremely slow Netflix speeds and complaints about slow-loading videos more than quadrupled in the months that followed.
As a result, Reed Hastings, Netflix's chief executive called on the FCC to outlaw existing interconnection fees that companies charge each other when exchanging unequal amounts of data.
Today's news implies that the Comcast, which has yet to comment on the matter, is considering its options before diving in to any kind of partnership.
If the report is to be believed, it points to the fact that more young people are ditching cable (dubbed 'chord cutting') and singing up to online services instead.