Comcast 2011 Annual Report Download - page 33

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Order and the NBCUniversal Consent Decree, which have imposed numerous conditions on our businesses
relating to the treatment of competitors and other matters. Failure to comply with the laws and regulations
applicable to our businesses could result in administrative enforcement actions, fines and civil and criminal
liability. Legislators and regulators at all levels of government frequently consider changing, and sometimes
do change, existing statutes, rules, regulations, or interpretations thereof, or prescribe new ones, which may
significantly affect our businesses. Any future legislative, judicial, regulatory or administrative actions may
increase our costs or impose additional restrictions on our businesses, which could materially affect our
results of operations. For a more detailed discussion of the risks associated with the regulation of all of our
businesses, see “Business – Legislation and Regulation” above.
Weak economic conditions may have a negative impact on our business, results of operations and
financial condition.
Weak economic conditions in the United States and internationally, including a weak U.S. housing market,
persisted during 2011. A substantial portion of our revenue comes from customers whose spending patterns
may be affected by prevailing economic conditions. A continued or further decline in economic conditions, or
an increase in price levels generally due to inflationary pressures, could adversely affect demand for any of
our products and services and have a negative impact on our results of operations. For example, customers
may reduce the level of cable services to which they subscribe, or may discontinue subscribing to one or
more of our cable services. This risk may be increased by the expanded availability of free or lower cost
competitive services, such as video streaming over the Internet, or substitute services, such as wireless Inter-
net devices and smartphones. The weak economy negatively affected video services during 2011. Weak
economic conditions also may have a negative impact on the advertising revenue of our cable communica-
tions, cable networks and broadcast television businesses. Weak economic conditions could also reduce
prices that multichannel video providers pay for our cable networks’ programming and have reduced and
could continue to reduce the performance of our theatrical and home entertainment releases in our filmed
entertainment business and attendance and spending for our theme parks business. Weak economic con-
ditions and turmoil in the global financial markets may also impair the ability of third parties to satisfy their
obligations to us. Further, any disruption in the global financial markets may affect our ability to obtain financ-
ing on acceptable terms. If these weak economic conditions continue or deteriorate, our business, results of
operations and financial condition may be adversely affected.
A decline in advertising expenditures or changes in advertising markets could negatively impact our
results of operations.
Our cable communications, cable networks and broadcast television businesses derive substantial revenue
from the sale of advertising on a variety of platforms, and a decline in advertising expenditures could neg-
atively impact our results of operations. Declines can be caused by the economic prospects of specific
advertisers or industries, by increased competition for the leisure time of audiences and audience fragmenta-
tion, by the growing use of new technologies, or by the economy in general, any of which may cause
advertisers to alter their spending priorities based on these or other factors. In addition, advertisers’ willing-
ness to purchase advertising may be adversely affected by lower audience ratings for our television
programming. Changes in the advertising industry also could adversely affect the advertising revenue of our
cable and broadcast networks. For example, we rely on Nielsen ratings and Nielsen’s audience measurement
techniques to measure the popularity of our content. A change in such measurement techniques or the
introduction of new techniques could negatively impact the advertising revenue we generate. Further, natural
disasters, wars, acts of terrorism or other significant adverse news events could lead to a reduction in adver-
tising expenditures as a result of uninterrupted news coverage and general economic uncertainty. Reductions
in advertising expenditures could negatively impact our results of operations.
31 Comcast 2011 Annual Report on Form 10-K