Comcast tries to hook college cord cutters with campus TV deal

With its new service, Comcast is trying to reach younger viewers who are most likely to cut all ties with any pay TV service when they graduate. With its new service, Comcast is trying to reach younger viewers who are most likely to cut all ties with any pay TV service when they graduate. Photo: Elise Amendola, AP Photo: Elise Amendola, AP Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Comcast tries to hook college cord cutters with campus TV deal 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

Comcast said Tuesday it is expanding an online TV subscription service for college students as the cable TV giant tries to stem the rising tide of cord cutters among young viewers.

Xfinity on Campus, which delivers a scaled-back, online-only version of Comcast’s full home TV service, is expanding to 27 campuses this fall, including Sonoma State, UC Davis and Chico State in Northern California.

The list of colleges offering the service now includes Dartmouth, MIT, Northwestern and Yale, spokeswoman Jenny Gendron said.

Comcast launched Xfinity on Campus last year at seven colleges for students who live in dorms. The service, bundled with dorm fees, lets students stream shows over the college Internet system to their computers, smartphones or tablets without the need for a standard cable box.

Those fees vary depending on the university, but the service includes a mix of network TV, premium networks and sports channels. It also includes a cloud DVR service and access to video on-demand programs.

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With the service, Comcast is trying to reach younger viewers who are most likely to cut all ties with any pay TV service when they graduate. The cord-cutting trend has flattened growth of cable industry subscriptions, although high-speed Internet subscriptions continue to increase.

With 57 percent of Millennial viewers watching TV on laptops, smartphones and tablets, Comcast is trying to convince students that it this “isn’t your parent’s cable service,” Marcien Jenckes, executive vice president of consumer services, said in a conference call with reporters.

“It is very important for us to have the next generation of customers, to give them exposure to our products and services,” Jenckes said.

So far, live sports account for about 78 percent of all Xfinity on Campus viewing, but students are also watching “Game of Thrones” and “Keeping Up With the Kardashians.”

The campus service is the model for a streaming-only service Comcast is trying in Boston to try to reach cord cutters of all generations.