Comcast Launching Streaming Video Service

By Published on July 13, 2015

NEW YORK (AP) β€” Comcast, the country’s largest cable company, is offering its own online video alternative as people spend fewer hours watching live TV and more time using tablets and phones for entertainment.

The new service, called Stream, will be available to Comcast Internet customers and cost $15 a month. It will include only broadcast networks like FOX and NBC in addition to HBO, but no cable channels like AMC or TNT.

Anyone can watch broadcast networks for free on a TV with an antenna, which costs about $20 and up. And HBO already sells a stand-alone streaming service for $15 a month.

Comcast’s service, which is only for its customers, follows the launch earlier this year of Dish Network’s nationwide Internet TV service, Sling TV, which sells for $20 a month and includes cable channels like ESPN, AMC and Food Network. You can also add on HBO. A slew of Internet TV options have come in the past year as cable and TV companies think younger customers prefer to watch TV online, without paying for a full bundle that can easily top $70 a month.

The ability to smother competitors’ online TV services was a major reason why regulators were concerned about Comcast’s bid to buy Time Warner Cable. It would have created a TV and Internet behemoth that would serve more than half of the country’s high-speed Internet customers, as calculated by the government.

The deal never went through.

 

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