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Comcast Partnering With Netflix? It’s Happening Soon

By Nick Younker
Published on: 10:43 PST, Jul 5, 2016

Comcast has long been a major adversary to Netflix, but it seems as if the two media companies have mended their ways and are looking for a better path forward that could benefit both of them in the near future.

It appears as though Comcast and Netflix are about to partner up with a streaming venture that could close ranks between the two enemies and shore up the market share that has long since seen swaths of major competition flow through it, according to Forbes.

In the beginning, it was Comcast and other major cable companies that dominated streaming media and set top players. But those days came to a quick end when Netflix launched on to the scene and put a major dent in their market share, giving their own customers a streaming video experience that would turn out to be a binge watching buffet.

Although it did take several years for Netflix to make major cable companies like Comcast somewhat obsolete, they have led the charge in the major shift that has cable customers cutting the cord and opting for streaming media instead. It can likely be said with great assurance that Comcast and other major cable companies have felt a major pinch since losing so much of their market share to streaming media companies like Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Hulu.

But now, Comcast seems to have adopted an old rule that goes a little something like, “If you can’t beat them, then join them.” That’s because Comcast has officially taken up a new business strategy that ultimately hands Netflix more of their customers. But that does not mean that Comcast could lose customers from it. As a matter of fact, this new venture is something that could stop their bleeding, if it is pulled off right.

Comcast has officially announced that they would be offering a new app on their set top cable boxes that allows their customers to tune directly into Netflix. Yes, you just heard that right, Comcast is offering a direct link to Netflix straight through their set top cable boxes.

Many people in the past have opted out of cable because they had a Netflix subscription, but they did not have a quick way to get to Netflix through their cable TV. That means that they had to spend more money to buy set top boxes that could stream Netflix to their TV’s, thus forcing them to cancel their cable subscriptions and spend their market dollars on Netflix and other on-demand streaming media companies.

Both Comcast and Netflix joined together and released a brief joint statement on the new venture to Forbes.

“We have much work to do before the service will be available to consumers later this year,” the joint statement said. “We’ll provide more details at that time.”

At first glance, it appears as though Netflix has the most to gain out this new business arrangement between the two media streaming rivals. But there is a bright side for Comcast, who is losing customers by the hundreds almost daily. The main thing that Comcast could gain out of this is they could stop their consistent loss in the market share, which they have so much of that it is unreal.

Comcast has moved into nearly every major market and created cable monopolies all over the country now for quite some time. That means that they have been able to charge their customers excessive prices for their services and their customers would have to pay it without any other companies competing in the markets. But Netflix has forced Comcast to reevaluate their business practices and offer the Netflix app on their set top boxes just to try and keep from losing their customers.

The basic take away from this is that Netflix stands to gain everything, while Comcast stands to stop losing everything. It’s a win-win situation of sorts.

[Photo by Angela Weiss/Getty Images]

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