Comcast

Comcast Corp. reported weaker quarterly results for NBC broadcast TV and deeper cable-TV subscriber losses in the first quarter, but higher revenues and profits because of TV rate hikes and growth in other parts of the business. Theme parks, big-screen movies, and business services did well. Revenue at the cable-TV and media conglomerate rose 3 percent to $15.3 billion when compared with the same period of the prior year. Comcast's profits jumped to $1.44 billion from $1.2 billion for the quarter, or 54 cents a share.

Cathy Avgiris, daughter of a Greek carpenter and a seamstress from Brooklyn, keeps climbing the corporate ladder at Comcast Corp. The 53-year-old executive, who helped launch the company's Internet and phone business, has been promoted to chief financial officer of its cable division, a business that serves 22 million cable-TV subscribers and has a projected $40 billion in annual sales this year. The division is a source of much of Comcast's profits. Avgiris already is the top woman executive in the division, the nation's largest cable-TV provider.

STAMFORD, Conn. - Officials call Connecticut the sports-media headquarters of the world, with the 19-building complex that is ESPN in Bristol and offices for World Wrestling Entertainment Inc. and the Yankees' YES Network here. Now they can add NBC Sports. Lured by generous tax credits and modern TV studios, the Comcast Corp.-owned NBC Sports is bailing on 30 Rockefeller Plaza in midtown Manhattan - the most prestigious address in the TV business - after rehabbing and reconfiguring a Clairol hair-products factory for $100 million.

On a path pocked with potholes and strewn with hacked and chainsawed brush, Bill and Stephanie Mink scanned their list of names. Bill's grandparents and great-grandparents had already been crossed off, their graves found in a well-kept section of Mount Moriah Cemetery. The rest of the Minks, more than a dozen of them, could be anywhere in the sprawling, 200-acre cemetery just off Cobbs Creek Parkway, in Southwest Philadelphia, their gravestones choked by weeds like so many plots in the 158-year-old burial ground.

Comcast Corp. CEO Brian Roberts was compensated $29.1 million in salary, stock options, bonus, pension contributions, and perks such as use of a corporate jet in 2012. That's more than 700 times what the typical U.S. worker earned in 2012, and Roberts, who was third on the list of top-paid Philadelphia-area CEOs last year, could top the list this year. It's a lot of moola. In an era of runaway Hollywood-mogul compensation, though, Roberts' pay package won't even make it to the top five in the entertainment industry, where Comcast has become a powerful economic force.

Comcast Corp.'s Philadelphia cable-TV franchise agreement expires in late 2015. City officials say they will seek public comments over the next year as they negotiate a renewal with the nation's largest cable operator. Currently, Comcast offers TV, Internet, and phone services in the city. "A lot has happened in the last 15 years, and there is a lot to talk about," said Steven Robertson, deputy chief innovation officer for the city. "It's the beginning of the discussion. " The negotiations will be handled through the Office of Innovation and Technology.

More than a decade ago, the telecommunications company RCN Corp. viewed itself as a potential competitor to Comcast Corp. One national magazine wrote about it as "The Little Phone Company That Can?" Then, according to a long-running antitrust lawsuit in Philadelphia federal court, Comcast thwarted RCN's expansion into cable-TV business in Philadelphia by lobbying against RCN with government officials, offering customers discounts in areas where RCN would expand, and restricting RCN's access to contractors who would build out its network.

Here's an excerpt from Craig LaBan's online chat of April 2, 2013: Craig LaBan : Good afternoon, hungry friends. It's been two weeks since we last got together. Please dish, so we can catch up. We do have a Crumb Tracker Quiz, with a chic apron for the first person who names all three places I ate these dishes: (1) crawfish mac-n-cheese; (2) shrimp "cupcakes"; (3) Puerto Rican-style fried chuleta pork chops. Ready, set - start crumbing! Reader: Do you know where the former Vernick pastry chef who made their delicious blueberry pie went?

Aereo Inc., the Barry Diller-backed technology venture that streams broadcast TV content online, won an important court challenge Monday brought by NBC and a dozen other broadcasters or studio-production companies. The plaintiffs say the Aereo service violates copyright law and steals their content for profit. But the U.S. Court of Appeals in New York, in a 2-1 decision, said the plaintiffs were not likely to win on the merits of their case and denied a preliminary injunction against the Aereo service.