• Comcast's SVP Matt Strauss: "You Have to Envision a World Where Video Will Be Everywhere" [VIDEO]

    Comcast reported strong 2nd quarter results this morning, adding another 156K broadband subscribers, while losing 176K video subscribers, an improvement over the 238K it lost in Q2 '11. It's the seventh straight quarter Comcast has improved its video subscriber losses, while driving the average monthly revenue per subscriber up another 8% to $148.57.

    At the recent VideoNuze 2012 Online Video Advertising Summit, I did a fireside chat with Matt Strauss, Comcast's SVP, Digital and Emerging Platforms, who articulated Comcast's strategy for meeting consumers' ever-higher video expectations. Matt observed that "you have to envision a world where video will be everywhere." This seems to be the rallying theme for all of Comcast's recent video efforts. Matt describes how the company has reorganized itself to collapse traditional boundaries between linear, on-demand and online groups, including now having just one user experience team.

    It's not just subscribers that are impacted though, it's also content providers and advertisers, two key ecosystem constituencies. On the content side, Matt discusses the value of "binge viewing" and how that led to the development of Streampix, which is a budding competitor to Netflix in offering deep libraries in addition to catch-up content. And on advertising, Matt talks about the advent of dynamic ad insertion for VOD, which he says will be available in its full footprint by the end of the year. Comcast is involved in multiple audience measurement initiatives with Nielsen, with the goal of helping drive new industry-wide solutions for advertisers across platforms.

    Last but not least, Matt talks about why going over-the-top of other pay-TV operators is not in Comcast's roadmap. Much as some industry observers have considered this a big opportunity for Comcast, as the industry's largest player, Matt says the company is squarely focused on leveraging its own network to deliver new services.

    (Related, Matt explained Comcast's new X1 service in a video interview at the Cable Show in May. I have also included that video, below the fireside chat).