Comcast announced its latest competitive strategy at CES yesterday, Project Infinity. Infiniti aims to dramatically increase the amount of content available via video on demand. Comcast CEO Brian Roberts says by the end of the year, Infiniti will bring over 1,000 HD VOD titles each month to subscribers, which quadruples their current offering. Eventually, Comcast intends to get to 6,000 titles per month, with half of them being in HD. The move is pointed squarely at Comcast’s competitors, namely DirecTV, but also Verizon and others.
Comcast is trying to trump DirecTV’s (and to some extent DISH) momentum with linear HD channels, which is now approaching 100. With the new Infiniti project, Comcast can make the claim that they offer the most HD programming, which includes linear and on demand choices. VOD has always been seen as a competitive advantage for landline multichannel video operators. Comcast is hoping to exploit that advantage even further with HD availability. Comcast also announced the launch of Fancast, an online video play with content from a variety of sources, including a partnership with hulu. One last thing, Comcast has quietly become the fourth largest telephone company in the U.S. by line count, surpassing Embarq. They now have just over 4 million telephone subscribers.
