Comcast, Netflix Taking Different DTC Paths, MoffettNathanson Says

Comcast's 2020 foray into a streaming service is incrementalism (see 1901140030) since the MVPD "has many masters to serve" and can't totally disrupt its cable TV or content licensing businesses, MoffettNathanson wrote investors Tuesday. The company appears to be taking an experimentation route, and that might be the smartest path since there are no obvious easy answers, it said. Netflix's announced price hike, with the money presumably going into more content development and marketing, shows the streaming company focused more on a spending war against competitors than a price war, the analysts said: Comcast apparently doesn't have the stomach for the level of investment into content that Netflix does, or doesn't think it needs to spend that much. Comcast and Netflix didn't comment.