Comcast's Roberts: NYT Misreads Market

Comcast Chairman and CEO Brian Roberts said that the New York Times was entitled to their opinion, but that Comcast’s acquisition of Time Warner Cable is not going to create a colossus in the media space that would have too much power over video and Internet access.

Roberts said he did not think the paper's opposition would make the deal harder to sell and suggested that the paper's reading of the marketplace was off base.

"They got a lot of facts that I think they didn't quite look at right." For example, he said, NYT's comparison of the deal to creating a company akin to the pre-breakup AT&T. "In the days of AT&T there was only one phone company," he said. "It is truly an antiquated notion to say there is not competition in video."

He pointed out that Comcast had lost video customers for 26 straight quarters until two quarters ago. "It is a tremendously changing space...and I think they were looking at the wrong thing."

Responding to the criticism of Comcast's broadband subscriber footprint post-merger, Roberts said it was important to remember that Comcast and TWC don't compete with each other in broadband, so there will be no reduction in competition when they combine. He also pointed out that Comcast supports open Internet rules, or at least "the right kind of rules," that allow for investment and innovation. He said those should give consumers confidence that they aren't ever going to be slowed down or blocked.