An Advertising Age profile of Comcast (Nasdaq: CMCSA) COO Steve Burke shows how hard those outside the inner sanctums of the cable industry are trying to understand the cable guy who's coming in to shake up their way of life. As evidence that non-cable media is fascinated with this outsider, the article headlines Burke as an "un-mogul reinventing TV" then pictures him in a very mogul-like, arms-crossed pose.
The body of the story makes it very clear that Burke, whose executive purges seem to indicate he can't wait to take over NBC Universal, has the attention of the wider media.
Burke, the story says "is in a unique position not only to influence what America watches, but also shape the way in which marketers advertise to the nation by harnessing the one-to-one addressable technology of cable and melding it with the mass reach and programming might of NBC Universal."
After Burke fixes "long-running problems" at NBC he will quickly "try and hitch Comcast's massive cable footprint and the set-top box technology upon which it relies to hours of NBCU content to drive new TV-viewer behavior such as responding to TV commercials with a remote," according to the story.
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