Comcast Cable

Comcast has a new message for customers frustrated by installers who are late or miss appointments and by rude customer-service representatives. In an ad campaign that began this week, the company is acknowledging its past customer-service fumbles and promising to do better - starting now. "We get it," said David N. Watson, Comcast Cable's executive vice president of sales, marketing and customer service, in an interview yesterday. "We recognize we have legacy issues as a service provider.

Comcast Cable will start to offer digital cable-television service - which has crisper pictures, more premium-movie channels, 40 pay-per-view channels, and 30 CD-quality music stations - in the Philadelphia area next month. The digital video service will be available through Comcast's cable systems in Philadelphia, Lower Merion and Willow Grove. The company said it will demonstrate the service today at Chestnut Hill's "Fall for the Arts Festival. " This is believed to be the first appearance of digital cable in this region and one of the earliest in the nation.

Comcast Cable subscribers in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and nine other states would receive a $1 credit on their cable bills for several months under a sweeping settlement the cable company reached yesterday with regulators. The agreement stemmed from 268 rate complaints filed through mid-1994 covering 22 cable systems in 11 states owned by Comcast Cable, a unit of Comcast Corp., Philadelphia. The settlement was brokered by the Federal Communications Commission, which handled the complaints.

In its first official bow to allowing other Internet service providers to use its high-speed cable lines, Comcast Corp. will announce today that it has reached an agreement to allow Juno Online Services Inc. to offer Internet service over Comcast's high-speed network in a trial using Philadelphia-area subscribers. Comcast said the companies had not yet worked out how many customers would participate or where in the region the trial would occur. It will take place in the first quarter of next year.

Home-oriented cable-television offerings will expand starting next week, when a real estate-sales listing show will be picked up by several local cable channels. The Main Line Real Estate Show, produced by Advantage Marketing Inc., of Wynnewood, will air seven days a week, starting Monday, on Adelphia Cable in Delaware County, Comcast Cable in Montgomery County and Harron Cable in Chester County. Air times on all three systems will be 8:30 and 10:30 p.m. Monday, Wednesday and Friday; 10:30 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday, and 9 a.m. Saturday and Sunday.

After a council member's request, the cable telecast of a meeting at which residents assailed the Borough Council with complaints and insults for nearly three hours was halted 10 minutes after it began showing Friday. In its place, a Phillies 1950s reunion, which had been shown just beforehand, was reshown. Comcast Cable, however, said the tape was not being censored and would be shown twice this week, to wider audiences than would have seen it otherwise. Borough Councilwoman Patricia Evans said that she requested that Comcast not show the council meeting due on Good Friday due to its "malicious" content.

A nice touch to yesterday's George Foreman-Gerry Cooney press conference was the presence of Ron Lyle and Philadelphia's Jimmy Young, two of the fighters' three common opponents (the other is Ken Norton). Lyle, who was knocked out in four rounds by Foreman in 1976 and in one round by Cooney in 1980, said he remembers both men as devastating punchers. "George Foreman is probably a heavier puncher," Lyle said. "He's, you know, heavy-handed. When he punches you, it's like being hit with a club.

Comcast-Spectacor purchased three minor league baseball teams affiliated with the Baltimore Orioles about a month ago. Around the same time, Comcast Corp. initiated talks on acquiring telecast rights to sports programs around the Baltimore and Washington area. Comcast Corp. - a Philadelphia-based firm that owns Comcast Cable and Comcast-Spectacor, which owns and operates the Flyers and Sixers - yesterday announced the acquisition of Home Team Sports L.P. from Viacom Inc. Home Team Sports is a sports-programming network in metropolitan Baltimore.

The ESPN X Games, a festival of extreme sports, will return to Philadelphia from Aug. 15 to Aug. 19, Comcast-Spectacor announced yesterday. About 235,000 people turned out last August for stunt biking, wakeboarding, skateboarding, in-line skating, and Moto X during the Games' first visit to Philadelphia. The X Games are being held here again this year under terms of a two-year agreement signed by Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Comcast Cable and Comcast-Spectacor. Events will again be held at the First Union Complex (inside and around the First Union Center)

Some local viewers of the Olympic women's soccer match between the United States and Greece yesterday missed the second U.S. goal and other game action because Comcast accidentally inserted numerous blocks of commercials during the contest. The game, shown live on MSNBC as the unofficial start of the 2004 Athens Olympics, supposedly was being presented commercial-free by sponsor Hummer. Instead, ads, including Comcast promotions, came on at regular intervals during the game, as if MSNBC's daytime news programming were running.

In the Region Kwasnik law license suspended in N.J. The New Jersey State Supreme Court on Wednesday suspended the law license of Philadelphia lawyer Michael Kwasnik, who was charged in a state grand jury indictment in November with stealing $1.1 million from a Cherry Hill widow. Kwasnik had been under investigation by state bar authorities and law enforcement officials for a variety of alleged ethics-code and criminal violations involving his mostly elderly clients.

Neil Smit, a top executive at Comcast Corp., has added title of chief executive officer of its cable division to his job description. He has been president of the division and will keep that designation as well. Comcast hired Smit in March 2010 and he now heads the company's core cable/Internet/phone businesses and reports to Comcast Chairman and CEO Brian L. Roberts.    - Bob Fernandez

The Universal theme park in Florida with its popular Harry Potter attraction and the high-grossing box-office blockbuster Fast and Furious 5 helped boost Comcast Corp.'s pro forma second-quarter revenue by 9.4 percent. The Philadelphia-based company lost fewer cable-TV subscribers during this year's second quarter than the last year's - 238,000 compared with 265,000 - and added more high-speed Internet customers, which has been a focus of growth for Comcast. The company added 144,000 Internet customers compared with 118,000 added in the year-ago quarter.

Two leave Temple hoops   Redshirt sophomore forward Chris Clarke has left the Temple basketball program and will transfer to Division II Morehouse College in Atlanta. He sat out last season after coming to North Broad Street from Pensacola (Fla.) Junior College. The Owls had also recently learned that another sophomore, forward Carmel Bouchman, would not be returning. A native of Tel Aviv, he chose to remain in Israel after playing sparingly last season. - Mike Kern   Lookin At Lucky on hold   The newly positioned $1 million Pennsylvania Derby was the almost certain next start for Preakness winner Lookin At Lucky - until racing reality intervened.

Vivendi SA, a French media conglomerate, and General Electric have reached a tentative agreement for Vivendi to sell its 20 percent share in NBC Universal Inc. back to GE, which would pave the way for Comcast Corp. to gain control of the giant entertainment programmer. A deal could be completed for Comcast, the Philadelphia cable giant, to obtain a controlling interest in NBC Universal within days, a person knowledgeable of the talks said late last night. GE chief executive Jeff Immelt met with top Vivendi officials last week to finish talks between the two companies over the fate of NBC Universal.

Comcast Corp. says it will stop targeting BitTorrent on the Internet, according to an announcement to be made today. Seeking to defuse tensions in a government investigation, Comcast says it will halt its practice of interfering only with BitTorrent file-sharing programs when the Internet congests and slows speeds for everyone. The Philadelphia cable company also will boost broadband capacity to make it easier to transmit online video and other rich media, it says. At times, BitTorrent accounts for 50 percent of the traffic on the Internet, with 40 million to 45 million users around the globe.

Charisse R. Lillie Vice president, human resources for Comcast Corp., and senior vice president, human resources, of Comcast Cable. Her rise to stardom: This Houston native grew up wanting to be a civil rights lawyer - an unusual dream for little girls at the time. But with family support, she persevered and made it to Temple Law School. Her legal accomplishments include working as a Justice Department lawyer, two stints at law firm Ballard Spahr and time serving as city solicitor.

Charisse R. Lillie   Vice president, human resources for Comcast Corp., and senior vice president, human resources, of Comcast Cable. Her rise to stardom: This Houston native grew up wanting to be a civil rights lawyer - an unusual dream for little girls at the time. But with family support, she persevered and made it to Temple Law School. Her legal accomplishments include working as a Justice Department lawyer, two stints at law firm Ballard Spahr and time serving as city solicitor.

Penn State fans in Philadelphia hoping to watch the Nittany Lions' season opener against Florida International on television tomorrow are in a state of dead air. Negotiations between Comcast Cable and the Big Ten Network (which is co-owned by the Fox Cable Networks and the Big Ten Conference) have hit a major snag. "I do not see any prospect of quick resolution to this problem," David Cohen, executive vice president of Comcast Corp., said yesterday. He said that "multiple discussions" had taken place this week between Fox and Comcast, but that none were meaningful enough to strike a deal.

Comcast Corp. has hired Charisse R. Lillie, a prominent Philadelphia lawyer and former board chairwoman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, as vice president of human resources. Lillie, 52, a national advocate for diversity in the legal profession, will start at the largest U.S. cable-television firm in mid-February, Comcast said yesterday. She is a partner at Philadelphia law firm Ballard Spahr Andrews & Ingersoll L.L.P., where she has represented management at companies such as Comcast, Aramark Corp.