Discovery Warns of Cable `Street Fight' as Viewers Go Online
- Zaslav: Prospect of nationwide Comcast could create ‘mayhem’
- AT&T, Sony have 400,000 web TV subscribers each, Zaslav says
David Zaslav. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg
Comcast Corp. and Charter Communications Inc. may have to sell their TV services nationwide to fend off online rivals, creating “mayhem” in a cable industry without head-to-head competition, Discovery Communications Inc.’s chief executive said.
Online-only video services from Sony Corp.’s PlayStation Vue and AT&T Inc.’s DirecTV Now, which include Discovery networks like TLC and Animal Planet, will eventually pressure cable operators to compete beyond their regional footprints, David Zaslav told reporters Tuesday. Vue, which debuted two years ago, and DirecTV Now, which launched last fall, each have more than 400,000 subscribers, according to Zaslav. A spokesman later clarified that Zaslav was basing the subscriber figures on estimates he had seen.