Comcast Hears Growing Buzz for Premium TV

Talking about other advanced services, Roberts said that HDTV was proving especially helpful in winning customers back from satellite service. Every one of the company's major markets offers HDTV, he said, with up to 10 to 12 HDTV channels in each market.

With investors closely watching to see whether Comcast and other cable operators are losing market share in the high-speed Internet access business to telcos offering lower-priced DSL service, Roberts said the company is trying to find a balance between subscription growth on the one side and revenue and pricing on the other. He cautioned investors against "rewarding or penalizing too much just based on one metric, whatever that metric is."

"We're not looking to destabilize prices," Roberts said.

Speaking about the company's programming agreement with Viacom (VIAB Quote) announced over the holidays, and what each company walked away with, Roberts said that Viacom received "additional certainty" about the carriage of its various TV channels on Comcast, though not necessarily covering new launches. Comcast, he said, received additional high-definition and VOD content, though not, as he had desired, 60 Minutes.