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The Comcast Universe

It may seem like a cosmic stretch to think of Comcast Corp. chief executive officer Brian Roberts as an old-fashioned studio mogul à la Louis B. Mayer. After all, Comcast is a cable company. It owns wires, not constellations of celebrity stars.

ROBERT WEST / Inquirer Staff Artist
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It may seem like a cosmic stretch to think of Comcast Corp. chief executive officer Brian Roberts as an

old-fashioned studio mogul à la Louis B. Mayer. After all, Comcast is a cable company. It owns wires, not constellations of celebrity stars.

But that universe has been changing over the last several years. These days, Roberts and his father, Comcast founder Ralph Roberts, occasionally hang with Sundance Film Festival founder and 1970s hunk Robert Redford, a reflection of the Philadelphia cable company's dramatic expansion - and influence - in programming and entertainment.

The company's recent announcement that it was forming a sports network with the Portland Trail Blazers is only the latest effort to boldly go where few cable companies have gone before.

And, in perhaps a strange incidence of space and time bending, Comcast now owns part of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the studio founded by none other than Louis B. Mayer. - Miriam Hill

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