Comcast Chairman and CEO Brian L. Roberts on Wednesday defended his company's $45 billion takeover of Time Warner Cable, saying the deal would make it more competitive in video and improve its broadband offerings for customers.
"It's truly an antiquated notion to say there's not competition in video," said Roberts, noting that between increased competition and cord-cutting, Comcast lost video customers for 26 straight quarters until two quarters ago. "It's a tremendously changing space. Never been moving faster."
Roberts added that Comcast does not compete with Time Warner Cable, in terms of both broadband and video, because the companies are not available in the same markets.
"They're in New York. We're in Philadelphia. They're in LA. We're in San Francisco," said Roberts, from the Re/code Code conference in Rancho Palo Verdes, California. "You can't buy a Comcast in New York. You can't buy a Time Warner in Philadelphia. So there's no reduction in competition in broadband or in television."
In terms of broadband, Roberts said the acquisition would still be governed by existing federal rules.
"We support an open Internet and having rules, the right kind of rules that are legally enforceable and allow for investment and innovation," he said. "But that also gives consumers great confidence that they can do what they want to do, and they're never going to be slowed down. They're never going to be blocked. Some of the things that we've read that are scaring people have not ever been, for 20 years, how we've had our most successful business selling broadband."
—By CNBC's Drew Sandholm.
Disclosure: Comcast is the owner of NBCUniversal, the parent company of CNBC and CNBC.com. NBC News group is a minority stakeholder in Re/code and has a content sharing partnership with it.
