Fitch affirms Comcast

Fitch Ratings said it affirmed the ratings of Comcast Corp. and the other issuers included in Comcast's cross-guaranty structure, including their BBB+ issuer default and senior unsecured debt ratings, Comcast's BBB+ $7 billion revolving bank facility and F-2 commercial paper and Comcast Holdings Corp.'s BBB senior subordinated debentures and subordinated exchangeable notes.

The outlook is stable.

The agency said the ratings continue to reflect Comcast's strong competitive position as the largest cable multiple-system operator in the United States, its compelling subscriber clustering profile and its high degree of financial flexibility.

Rating concerns center on Comcast's ability to maintain its relative competitive position given the changing competitive and economic environment, grow retail revenues beyond its core Triple Play service offering, efficiently manage its cable plant bandwidth to provide it with sufficient flexibility to tailor service offerings and continue to balance investing in its business with returning capital to shareholders, Fitch said.

Comcast's leverage metric was 2.4 times at the end of 2008, and Fitch anticipates that leverage will approach 2.2 time by the end of 2009.

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