Comcast expands online video to all cable+Internet customers
Comcast has opened up its On Demand Online beta—now dubbed Comcast/Fancast Xfinity TV—to all of its customers who subscribe to both the company’s high-speed Internet and cable TV service. With the launch comes a handful of details that were not previously available, giving us insight into the company’s plans for the service. One thing that’s clear, however, is that Comcast is definitely treating this as a supplement to its cable TV service rather than a full embrace of the Internet as a content delivery medium.
The On Demand Online beta was launched this summer to just 5,000 customers. At that time, content from HBO and Cinemax was available as well as a handful of movies for a total of 750 hours of programming. The announcement comes hot on the heels of Comcast and Time Warner’s “TV Everywhere” initiative—referred to as a set of broad principles “designed to serve as a framework to facilitate deployment of online television content in a way that is consumer friendly, pro-competitive.”
