Comcast to beef up its Fancast entertainment site

Comcast Corp. has reached agreements with several major content providers to offer their shows on its entertainment Web site, Fancast.com.

The Philadelphia-based cable operator has inked deals with ABC, CW, Showtime, HBO and The Food Network to offer free ad-supported TV episodes and clips. The shows will start rolling out this weekend, except those from ABC, which went live last week.

In the race to grab video share online, Comcast recently added an online store to Fancast where consumers can buy or rent video — though some analysts see the moves as expensive distractions from the company's core mission as a cable service provider.

Over the next few weeks, customers in a few markets will be able to program their digital video recorders through Fancast. National rollout will start in 2009.

The moves signal Comcast's intention to claim online viewership, even at the risk of losing cable TV viewers.

"Our consumers were moving online with the rest of the world ... and we felt strongly that the Comcast experience should be a screen-agnostic experience," said Amy Banse, president of Comcast Interactive Media, in an interview with The Associated Press.

If done right, Fancast could become "the ultimate program guide" for Comcast customers, said James McQuivey, media technology analyst for Forrester Research.

One of Fancast's biggest rivals is Hulu.com, a collaboration between NBC Universal and News Corp. that offers online viewing of ad-support TV shows and movies, clips, trailers and other content from over 90 providers.

Although Fancast debuted in January, two months before Hulu officially went live, Hulu has gotten more viewers largely because it has distribution deals with other sites such as Yahoo, MSN and MySpace.com. Fancast is a partner as well.

This week, research firm comScore Inc. said users viewed videos 119.4 million times on Hulu in July compared with 2.2 million for Fancast.

Fancast aims to boost its viewership by raising its number of providers over 100.

New ABC content includes "Desperate Housewives," "Lost" and "Dancing with the Stars." CW shows include "Gossip Girl" and "America's Next Top Model," while Showtime will offer the first season of "Californication" among others. WB, a current partner, will add teen shows like "The OC," "One Tree Hill," "Gilmore Girls" and "My So-Called Life."

Along with WB, Fancast also will offer ten episodes of "Friends" starting Monday.

But Comcast's online ventures have some wondering whether it's a good use of capital.

"Investors are inclined to give Comcast the benefit of the doubt, but only to a degree as long as these kinds of transactions remain relatively small," said Craig Moffett, senior analyst at Sanford Bernstein.

However, "the backdrop is a long simmering frustration with capital allocation that investors are impatient for the return of cash to shareholders," he added.

Comcast has spent a reported $600 million on online sites. While Comcast developed Fancast, it did acquire properties such as Fandango and Movies.com — movie information and ticketing sites — and video manager thePlatform. In August, it purchased Daily Candy, a Web site that sends e-mail about shopping, food and entertainment

Daily Candy is the first online asset purchase without a direct tie to Comcast's core cable TV business. Banse said Daily Candy's appeal was its growth prospects.

Comcast won't say how much revenue its online properties pull in.

But it is part of the company's "corporate and other" category in earnings reports. In the second quarter, that category — which includes sports and entertainment assets such as the Comcast-owned Philadelphia 76ers, stadiums and a regional sports network — took in $87 million in revenue. For 2007, the same category had revenue of $276 million.

Moody's analyst Neil Begley said Comcast has a good track record of investing in assets that ultimately prove to be profitable. Also, Comcast can't afford to ignore the Internet, where viewers are increasingly flocking.

"If it's going to happen, you might as well be part of it," he said.

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