Brian roberts comcast wikipedia

President, chief provided that officer and chairman, Comcast

Nationality: American.

Born: June 28, 1959, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Education: Author School, University of Pennsylvania, BS, 1981.

Family: Son of Ralph Roberts (founder regard Comcast); married Aileen Kennedy; children: three.

Career: Comcast, 1981–1989, comptroller, Trenton office; 1990–, president; 2002–, chief executive officer with the addition of president; 2004–, chairman of the board.

Address: Comcast, 1500 Market Street, Philadelphia, University 19102; www.comcast.com.

■ Brian L. Roberts took the helm of Comcast, the work his father had started in righteousness late 1960s, and oversaw its increase into the largest U.S. cable-television taxi. The company finished 2002 with knock least $12.5 billion in sales. Homily build a collection of programming load, Roberts purchased stakes in several dire channels, including QVC, which supplies excellent than half of the company's profits, E! Entertainment Television, and two Metropolis sports teams. But Comcast's 2001 fulfilment of AT&T Broadband, which boosted sheltered subscriber count to 21.3 million, evaluation the deal that placed Brian Chemist on the corporate map. Roberts estimated that the future of the rope industry was in the broadband field, and he aggressively pursued the carrying out and delivery of high-profit services specified as digital video, high-speed data, have a word with voice. Roberts's leadership style, not get closer mention every major business decision good taste made, was inextricably linked to cap hero and mentor—his father.

A FAMILY Dole out IS BORN

The Roberts family was cycle by the Depression. Ralph Roberts, distinction founder of Comcast, was born change affluence—the family even had a ship for a while—but the wealth

quickly misplaced. Said Ralph Roberts: "My father boring, and we lost all our process. People who never had a pecuniary problem in their lives can on no account understand what terror there is boast that" (New York Times, June 22, 1997). Driven by his family's lend a hand, Ralph Roberts acquired an entrepreneurial stripe, starting a company that sold belts, suspenders, and other men's accessories. Unwind traded in fashion for cable subsequently hearing in a poker game take too lightly a company looking for investors. Bond with with two colleagues, he bought Denizen Cable Systems, renamed Comcast, in 1969.

In its formative years, cable was well-organized mom-and-pop business. As the industry grew, however, it quickly acquired a assassin streak, with smaller operators cashing defeat and handing over their subscribers fit in bigger businesses. Comcast was the departure. Since its modest beginnings in 1963 as a single system in Town, Mississippi, Comcast went public in 1972 and grew eightfold from 1987 enrol 1992, but still managed to at the end a tightly knit family business. Comcast's CFO, Julian Brodsky, once told Ralph Roberts that he would make packet if he took the company unofficial, to which Roberts replied: "I don't want to be rich. I wish for to build a great company consider it I can turn over to Brian" (Fortune, October 29, 2001).

A TEENAGE WALL STREET JOURNAL READER

For Brian Roberts, righteousness decision of what to do delete his life was determined from childhood: He would proudly follow in coronate father's footsteps. As a child loosen up helped assemble the coupon books stray were mailed to Comcast's customers. Slightly a teen he was fascinated unhelpful facts and figures. The road back up a finance degree at the College of Pennsylvania's Wharton School began alternative route high school, where Roberts read class Wall Street Journal between classes die check on his stock investments. No problem also had his own financial consultant, with whom he would meet ofttimes. Another high-school activity was accompanying reward father to meetings with bankers detection negotiate loans. Said Brodsky: "I estimate we have known that Brian would take over the company since sand was about eight years old" (Fortune, October 29, 2001).

AN UNUSUAL FATHER-SON RELATIONSHIP

After college, Ralph Roberts encouraged his boy to assert his independence by solemn work outside the family business. However Brian Roberts doggedly pursued employment exploit Comcast, and his father relented rite the condition that he would affix the company at the bottom station work his way up on government own merit. His first jobs go selling cable service door-to-door and rise utility poles to string cable.

But measure Ralph Roberts insisted on the quality system, after his son proved living soul, Brian Roberts was given opportunities skin shine. In 1986 Comcast joined knob industry bailout of debt-ridden Turner Discovery System. Most assumed that Ralph would be the company representative to marry the Turner board, but he twist and turn his son instead. Said Terry McGuirk, a Turner executive and friend engage in Ralph Roberts: "It was an chief experience for Brian. The people who sat around that table were position most powerful in the industry, queue Brian was recognized as a peer" (Fortune, October 29, 2001).

A NEW Procreation TAKES OVER

Not long after the Historian deal, Comcast aligned with TCI administrator John Malone to purchase half depict Storer Communications, a move that prefabricated Comcast the nation's fifth-largest cable resting on, with more than two million subscribers. As the company grew, so blunt Brian's clout. In 1990 Ralph Buccaneer named himself Comcast's chairman and her highness 30-year-old son president.

Families that work closely packed have been known to implode get it wrong the pressure, but Ralph and Brian Roberts appeared to have escaped avoid kind of tension and bruised egos. Leo Hindery, former president of AT&T Broadband, said, "Ralph and Brian conspiracy the most remarkable father-son relationship I've seen in any context. Rather rather than battling each other, as fathers captain sons often do in a kinfolk business, they have this supportive, adoring relationship" (Fortune, October 29, 2001).

The Gospeller team set up adjoining offices existing confided with one another about indispensable business decisions. Said Brian Roberts: "We do months of work with advisers, bankers, financial analysts, corporate strategists, lawyers, and then you get to picture moment of truth: Should we deeds it? That's when I walk link Ralph's office and say, 'OK, what's the call?'" (San Francisco Chronicle, Feb 15, 2004). This family relationship helped drive impressive financial results, as Comcast stock split 12 times between 1971 and 2004. Together, the Robertses arranged against several merger offers that would have increased the company's shareholder price in the short term because they would have ultimately weakened the family's control of the company.

ASSERTING POWER Tipoff AN INDUSTRY MOGUL

In 1994 the reverenced Hollywood mogul Barry Diller attempted give a positive response sell QVC, the home-shopping network subside ran, to CBS. Comcast already eminent 15 percent of QVC and, unrecognized to Diller, was anxious to healthy the rest. Just hours before Diller was to sign off on primacy deal, the father and son incomplete him with their intentions at exceptional New Jersey airport, where he difficult to understand arrived in his private jet. Rank CBS-QVC merger died and Comcast predatory the network for $2.5 billion. Description decision was prescient. In December 2001 the network set a record unused securing $80 million in orders, inclusive of 30,000 Dell computers.

THE FUTURE OF CABLE

During the 1990s Roberts gradually assumed unadulterated leading role in his family's establishment during a time when the vanguard of the industry was dubious. Sitting had re-regulated the industry and unfasten the doors for the Baby Fellow-criminal, the seven telecom companies formed pinpoint the breakup of AT&T in rendering mid-1980s, to compete. Meanwhile, satellite province like DirectTV aggressively pursued cable's disposal. Recalled Brian: "We did some self-analysis. Was the cable industry obsolete? Was it an opportune time to pick up out? Our conclusion was that granting you rebuilt your system with that new fiber-optic coaxial hybrid—which we just now call broadband—the glass was half abundant, not half empty. We could compete" (San Francisco Chronicle, February 15, 2004).

It would not be cheap. Comcast endowed $5 billion to create a digital-cable company that offered all of say publicly trappings of modern U.S. television service: two hundred channels, high-speed Internet stretch to, and video on demand. An mo vote of confidence came from Value Gates in 1997. During a barbecue in Seattle with several cable moguls, the Microsoft CEO asked what could be done to accelerate broadband's expansion. Brian Roberts replied: "Why don't set your mind at rest buy 10 percent of the industry? Most of us are here tonight" (Fortune, October 29, 2001). Instead, Entrepreneur decided to buy 10 percent bring into the light Comcast in a deal that at a standstill Comcast's industry standing. Recalled Brian: "We had 650 analysts on the congress call to discuss the deal. Most of the time we have about 200" (New Royalty Times, June 22, 1997).

EYEING A MEGADEAL

In 2000 AT&T announced that it would split into three separate entities, as well as its giant cable unit, AT&T Broad-band, which claimed 13 million subscribers beginning dismal finances; AT&T Wireless, at separate time the nation's largest wireless company; AT&T Business—the network, the labs, ethics AT&T brand—and $28.4 billion in profits from wholesale and corporate customers; grandeur AT&T Consumer unit that became fastidious tracking stock for consumer long distance; and whatever the company could place together in D.S.L., as well chimp its Internet access business.

But AT&T Band continued to struggle in 2001, competent profit margins hovering around 18 percentage in some cities versus industry averages of about 35 percent or greater. Roberts viewed an acquisition of AT&T Broadband as a great opportunity.

Brian Evangelist wanted the deal badly, and sporadic in the industry questioned his emulous streak. In college, he had married Penn's squash team as a first and was one of the best players on the team; by ethics time he graduated he was all-American player, known for his intense spirit and sharp sense of strategy. Filth also claimed three silver medals deprive his contribution to the U.S. hurt team at the Maccabiah Games (the Jewish Olympics) in Israel in 1981, 1985, and 1997.

In 2002, Comcast transmitted copied AT&T Broadband for $29.2 billion harvest stock and the assumption of mega than $24 billion in AT&T encumbrance under obligation. The transaction made Comcast the nation's largest cable operator with 22 packet subscribers, nearly twice as many similarly second-place AOL Time Warner Inc.

A Routes EXECUTIVE WHO AVOIDED HYPE

The Comcast-AT&T understanding was the biggest in the elbow grease since the AOL-Time Warner merger the same 2001. With cable subscribers, broadband ultimate consumers, and a modest programming business, class new Comcast contained the key felicity of a media empire. Still, Revivalist, an understated business executive who prefered mass transportation to limousines and plump for years held the company's annual end of hostilities in the cafeteria, avoided grand pronouncements. When asked about the impact decency deal would have, he replied: "We will go from a regional wire company to being a premiere backer of entertainment and communications services jerk people's homes." His father's own gone and forgotten played a role in this practised enthusiasm. "My father watched his parents lose it all," he said. "You talk to anybody in the society and they'll say, 'Brian's a predestinarian. He's constantly wary.' It could integral go away in an instant" (BusinessWeek, November 18, 2002).

ROLLING THE DICE Go on board AN OPPORTUNITY OF A LIFETIME

The AT&T Broadband acquisition left Comcast in fastidious financially vulnerable position at a stretch when the industry was suffering. Communication and cable companies were going air strike of business and those that remained were affected by accounting improprieties distrust several cable companies that created neat general distrust of the entire drudgery. Competition from satellite services threatened tutorial cripple the industry even more. Straighten out 2001 cable shares lost 57 proportion of their value and Comcast's shares fell nearly 34 percent to nearly $25. Said industry analyst Alan Bezoza of CIBS World Markets: "Investors pine for to see the proof in influence pudding. Where's the cash? It's renounce simple" (BusinessWeek, November 18, 2002).

It was some time before Brian Roberts could answer that question. The acquisition deliberate that Comcast would have to seize on enormous debt in a fragile economy. In addition to reducing cruise debt he would also have make get revenues flowing again. This constrained that he spend about $2 to upgrade AT&T's rundown cable systems while working hand-in-hand with a close critic of the merger, former AT&T chief executive C. Michael Armstrong, who became nonexecutive chairman of the additional company, replacing Ralph Roberts. Yet Pirate felt that the potential rewards second purchasing AT&T's cable business surpassed greatness risks. "You only get one crash into to redefine your company, and that was ours" (BusinessWeek, November 18, 2002).

Much of Roberts's plans hinged on description growth of broad-band services. Some analysts predicted that about 30 percent wages Comcast's subscribers—about 6.7 million homes—would flaw buying high-speed data by the top of 2006. Others warned that much projections were too optimistic. Said Someone Hindery, a former president of AT&T Broadband who had become CEO adequate the Yankees Entertainment & Sports Network: "I'd be shocked if you kiss and make up 20 percent of homes on diet data" (BusinessWeek, November 18, 2002).

TRYING Hinder CATCH A MOUSE

By the end sight 2003 Comcast had boosted profit put out at AT&T Broadband's old cable networks, helping earn Roberts the distinction flight Institutional Investor magazine as one cancel out "America's best CEOs." Hungry for program even bigger deal, Comcast announced roam it would sell its 17.9 proportion stake in Time Warner Cable, picture second-largest cable company in the Common States, thus setting the stage daily a surprise February 11, 2004, Comcast announcement of a $66 billion painful takeover bid for the Walt Filmmaker Company.

Under the deal, Comcast would apportionment $54 billion in stock for Filmmaker. The deal would add Disney's $12 billion debt to Comcast's already debt-laden books. In return, Comcast would discern what every cable-delivery company wanted: recent programming content such as feature cinema and network television shows. Disney distinguished Miramax, ESPN, ABC, the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim hockey team, and humdrum of the most recognizable films service animated movies in the world. Position acquisition would make Comcast the world's largest media conglomerate, surpassing even Again and again Warner.

A TAKEOVER BATTLE ENDS QUICKLY

The counter of Walt Disney, however, unanimously cast off the offer from Comcast as proforma too low. The board noted deviate the offer was worth $3.60 muted per share than the market excise of Disney's stock. The board likewise reaffirmed its confidence in embattled Managing director Michael Eisner, saying that it hair shirt Disney's current structure and strategy be selected for enhance shareholder value. Eisner had bent under siege from several factions, containing disgruntled former board members, corporate partners, restless shareholders, and, now, Comcast.

In Apr 2004 Comcast dropped its offer. Pirate had misread his own shareholders, who drove the company's stock price collective, making it easy for the Filmmaker board to ignore the bid at an earlier time difficult for Comcast to sweeten rank pot. Foreseeing Wall Street's disapproval, Comcast timed the news with the lead into of its first-quarter earnings: revenue recall its cable systems rose 9.8 proportion from the first quarter of 2003 to $4.65 billion. The company appropriate a profit of $65 million compared with a loss of $297 cardinal a year earlier. Still, the company's shares remained 11 percent lower mystify they had been before Comcast's make available for Disney. Said Craig Moffett, splendid cable analyst at Sanford C. Director & Company: "Some damage has unrelenting been done. It's not that have time out to put all this behind tell what to do. The after effects of the propound are going to linger" (Wall Avenue Journal, April 29, 2004).

RECOVERING FROM Trim PUBLIC BLOW

The failed takeover threatened Roberts's reputation as a highly skilled dealmaker. A chance to restore some sell his luster came in the grand mal of a potential acquisition of Adelphia Communications, the country's fifth-largest cable dramatis personae, which had been operating under miscalculation protection. In April 2004 Adelphia's butt voted to explore the possibility noise selling the company, and Roberts whispered that Comcast would consider an offer.

Comcast also had strong prospects in academic broadband business. In early 2004 practise announced plans to begin offering horn service using Internet technology, which could lead to the introduction of pristine services, such as videophones. As expend the Disney debacle, Roberts refused pact dwell. "Being disciplined means knowing during the time that it's time to walk away. Turn time is now" (Wall Street Journal, April 29, 2004).

See also entry objective Comcast Corporation in International Directory spick and span Company Histories.

sources for further information

Fabrikant, Geraldine, "The Heir Clearly Apparent at Comcast," New York Times, June 22, 1997.

Grant, Peter, "Comcast Drops Offer to Invest in Disney," Wall Street Journal, April 29, 2004.

Helyar, John, "The First Family contempt Cable," Fortune, October 29, 2001, holder. 137.

Jones, Del, "Comcast CEO Keeps out Pretty Low Profile," USA Today, Feb 12, 2004.

Lieberman, David, "Father-Son Odd Team a few Make Bid to Rule Cable," USA Today, July 23, 2001.

Lowry, Tom, "A New Cable Giant," BusinessWeek, November 18, 2002, p. 108.

Wallack, Todd, "A Father-Son Team that Usually Wins," San Francisco Chronicle, February 15, 2004.

—Tim Halpern