Although other Wall Street pros fairly yawned at Chieftain's radical proposals - in fact just last week selecting him, for the 2nd year in a row, as Institutional Investor magazine's best CEO in the cable and satellite industry - the letter does provide an opportunity to consider Comcast's stature in the highly dynamic video marketplace. But rather than looking backwards at Comcast's performance, I'd suggest looking forward and asking: how healthy is Comcast's positioning for future success? Is it closer to "Comcastic" or to "Comcastrophe"?

I'd argue that the most important factor determining Comcast's (and other cable operators') future financial success is how well they are embracing delivery of broadband video into their core business models. The adoption of broadband video by consumers, and the enthusiasm for it by content providers large and small are the most crucial fundamental marketplace changes that cable operators are now facing.

This is the case because, as I've said repeatedly over the years, broadband's open access undermines cable operators' traditional closed business model, in which only networks which have so-called "carriage deals" are available to subscribers. This closed approach contrasts with the broadband world, where all programming is accessible by everyone, all the time. Piggybacking on the Internet's own success in driving consumer choice, broadband's openness is poised to drive a stake into the heart of cable's traditional video packaging paradigm and revenue model.

Yet despite this gathering storm, Comcast and other cable operators have been woefully inattentive to explaining how they'll weave broadband video into their TV-based services. Instead, their broadband access businesses, now generating billions of dollars per year in revenues, remain almost entirely siloed from the core video side of the business.

While Comcast should be lauded for initiatives such as broadening Fancast's content, starting Ziddio, announcing an aggressive agenda for bringing more HD content to its VOD menu, and backing Tru2way, none of these directly answer the question of how Comcast will update its closed approach to content, facilitating its subscribers' access to broadband video through their set-top boxes. This would provide for a seamless and highly compelling viewing experience. Comcast's and others' silence is creating the void that is behind the frenzy of activity from technology vendors and consumers trying to kluge the broadband and TV worlds together.