PHILADELPHIA — Ralph Roberts knew he was on to something big when people ran after his cable-TV trucks in Tupelo, Miss., asking for a visit to their homes.
It was 1963. Roberts had been looking for new ventures after selling his belt-and-suspenders company. He bought American Cable Systems for $500,000 — an opportunity that had been mentioned to him by a business acquaintance he came across while strolling a Philadelphia street.
American Cable Systems, which served 1,200 subscribers, was one of many independent companies arising at the dawn of the cable-TV industry: It strung up cable to carry television broadcasts to homes that couldn’t get clear reception over the free airwaves.
“It just looked to me like a wonderful business. Without doing too much, you just put up an antenna, ran some cables and people paid you $5 a month . . . to bring in TV stations,” he said in a corporate video produced this year. “It’s marvelous because people love TV, and more is better.”
Today the descendant of that small cable system — Comcast Corp. — still believes people want more TV. And Comcast might be about to get lots of it.
Comcast is close to sealing a deal to take control of NBC Universal from General Electric Co. in a transaction ultimately expected to be worth $30 billion. If regulators approve, Comcast would be one of the nation’s largest entertainment companies.
It would be a way for Comcast to further diversify beyond its main business of selling cable-TV subscriptions. But it would be a huge gamble for Roberts and his son, Comcast chief executive Brian Roberts. Their family owns about 4 percent of Comcast shares and controls a third of the voting power.
“Brian and Ralph are the best father-son combo since Archie Manning and the two Manning quarterback sons,” said Reed Hundt, a former Federal Communications Commission chairman, who has known the Robertses since 1994.
Ralph Roberts, now 89, grew his cable business by buying similar companies. In 1969, he incorporated Comcast back home in Pennsylvania and named the company for the combination of the words “communications” and “broadcast.”
Comcast didn’t begin to balloon in size until the son, who had started in the business by climbing utility poles to string cable, was appointed president in 1990. In 2002 Comcast spent $47.5 billion for AT&T’s cable division and became the nation’s largest cable-TV provider.
Now Comcast has 24 million subscribers in 39 states and Washington, D.C. This year, Comcast became the nation’s largest provider of Internet access. It is the third-biggest carrier of phone service, just four years after offering that product. And befitting its larger ambitions, it is majority owner of the Philadelphia 76ers and the Philadelphia Flyers and has a stake in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
Comcast has made no secret of its desire to own more programming content to supplement its cable distribution system, which faces increasing competition from satellite TV, phone companies and the Internet.
Comcast has bought or created such cable networks as E! Entertainment, Style, Versus and The Golf Channel. It launched several regional sports networks and has chased premium sports rights to challenge those enjoyed by satellite-TV provider DirecTV Group Inc.
