Comcast announces plans for a net based video on demand service

It may be that someone at Comcast actually gets it. License all of the content you already distribute for net distribution. Geeze, what a concept! Move your big library out onto the net where anyone, including non Comcast customers view ad supported programs or can pay to view your premium content.

Quoting CNet: Although the television component is still at a nascent stage–Comcast’s existing video-on-demand service has about 300 titles, compared with the 6,000 it eventually hopes to offer–the Web portion is further along.

Comcast has set up a site called Fancast.com where viewers can watch more than 3,000 hours of television shows from NBC, Fox, CBS and MTV and where they will soon be able to remotely program the digital video recorders in their homes. The shows on Fancast are available free. Comcast has yet to say how it will price the rest of the content as its plan moves forward.

Worst case scenario, this is just a lot hot air for getting press attention at CES and maybe pumping up the stock price.

Hey Comcast! Here’s another idea for pumping up your stock price: spin access and content off into 2 different companies. Give the world a fat pipe at a fair price, and sell content to anyone anywhere. Both are winners. One more suggestion: when your customer calls with a problem, answer the phone and be nice.