Comcast

Comcast owes Harford County more than $7,100 in additional franchise fees for fiscal 1994, according to a review of cable television franchise-fee revenue by County Council auditor Michael Treherne.Comcast has agreed to pay the county $3,800, but it is balking at paying the rest of the money.Mr. Treherne, who conducted the audit at the council's request, said miscalculations by Comcast short-changed the county by $3,378 in revenue percentages and $3,800 in misallocations.He reported that the cable TV company paid the Harford County government $332,302 in franchise fees for fiscal 1994.

Comcast yesterday added 18 Spanish-language channels to its digital cable television lineups in cities and counties throughout the state. Viewers with digital cable can now view the channels in Baltimore City, Annapolis and Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Calvert, Howard and Harford counties. While the channels can be viewed at no cost through Aug. 31 by those Comcast customers who subscribe to digital service, the monthly fee to continue receiving the Spanish-language channels will be $9.95 starting next month.

Next time you get a bill in the mail, check it for an employment opportunity.Comcast Cablevision of Maryland solicited its Baltimore County customers in their last cable bill to go door-to-door selling basic and premium programming packages to the 100,000 county households that don't have cable already.The rationale is simple, says Stephen Burch, Comcast's area vice president and general manager, who put himself through law school selling cable in Washington state and thought up the customer recruiting plan.

SOMETIMES I feel like the blind man trying to describe an elephant. You've probably heard that old Indian parable: four blind men were summoned by Buddha to help settle a dispute among citizens about the nature of God. Buddha's disciples put the four in different spots around an elephant and asked them to describe the animal. One touched the elephant's leg and said the elephant looked like a pillar. The second touched the elephant's belly and said it looked like a wall. The third touched the elephant's ear and said it looked like a piece of cloth.

In a last-minute effort to thwart the merger of CBS Inc. and QVC Inc., Comcast Corp. stunned the entertainment industry last night by announcing an uninvited bid to take over QVC.Comcast, the nation's third-largest cable television company and a minority shareholder in QVC, was unhappy that QVC Chairman Barry Diller was aligning his cable television home-shopping channel with a network broadcasting company. Comcast, which owns 15.5 percent of QVC, is reluctant to have an interest in the over-the-air television business.

Monthly bills for many Comcast cable television subscribers in Harford County will increase slightly beginning March 1.In a notice sent last week to the County Council, Comcast said Harford subscribers to Expanded Basic Service will receive a 43-cent increase, to $17.59 per month.Rate increases for Comcast subscribers in the county's three municipalities and at Aberdeen Proving Ground will be similar, ranging from 29 cents to 49 cents a month, depending on where a subscriber lives.Comcast, which has 50,000 subscribers in the county, is mailing notices to customers concerning the rate changes.

Comcast Corp., Maryland's dominant cable provider, will launch its phone service in Washington in June and in Baltimore City in July, a company executive said yesterday. "I think the consumers, more and more of them, are looking to bundle their products," said Michael Doyle, president of Comcast's eastern division. "They don't want to pay three bills." Comcast's launch of phone service comes at a time when phone, Internet and cable services are converging and telecommunications companies are moving toward offering multiple services.

Andrew Pontius and Jarrett Starbuck, fifth-graders at Triadelphia Ridge Elementary School, are the Howard County winners of the Comcast Public Service Announcement Contest, "What Does the Star-Spangled Banner Mean to Me?" The contest was sponsored by the Star-Spangled Banner Education Committee of Maryland, a group of organizations working to teach schoolchildren about the American flag. The Smithsonian's National Museum of American History owns the flag that flew over Fort McHenry in 1814 during the Battle of Baltimore and inspired Francis Scott Key to write a poem that became the national anthem.

Marcus Cable Co. L.P. said yesterday that it has agreed to sell its Eastern Shore cable services to Comcast Cable Communications Inc. for $65.5 million.The deal involves service for 26,500 customers in the Denton, Federalsburg and Cambridge areas and in central Delaware.Comcast spokesman David Nevins said it was "way too premature" to say if the transaction would affect rates or channel selection.He added that no job cuts are anticipated as a result of the transaction.Philadelphia-based Comcast has 700 employees in Maryland, including 300 at the company's regional headquarters in White Marsh.

Comcast Corp., a national cable company that sells cable television service in Baltimore County, has announced plans to develop a mobile phone service that will combine cable and cellular technologies.If successful, the hybrid technology will represent a first for the cable television industry and a new line of business for Comcast, said Marolyn Bailey, director of investor relations for Philadelphia-based Comcast."It will create additional uses for the current state of cable technology," Ms. Bailey said.