Despite its failed bid to acquire much of Fox’s TV and film businesses, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts presented his company as one ready to strike on future buyout candidates while speaking Wednesday morning at Goldman Sachs’ Communacopia conference.
“We’re going to compete for video, but we want to compete for profitable video,” Roberts said. “Right now, we’re in a strategically great place,” he added, before saying the telecom giant still wants to “play offense” if the right deal presents itself, which comes after Disney ultimately beat Comcast for Fox’s slew of assets earlier this summer.
Roberts shrugged off Comcast losing 140,000 video customers during the second quarter when asked, pointing to the increasingly competitive market for streaming customers. And Comcast is still benefiting from that competition, Roberts said, thanks to deals bringing Netflix and Amazon content to its Xfinity X1 service.
“We don’t care whose content you watch, just watch it through our X1 experience,” Roberts said.
And despite Comcast owning a 30 percent stake in Hulu, Roberts didn’t rule out Comcast’s own direct-to-consumer streaming option. Comcast continues to “study these things all the time,” Roberts said, but that he had “no news” to share on Wednesday.