Comcast CEO Talks Q1, From Cable To Theme Parks

Brian Roberts, chairman and chief executive officer of Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA) appeared on CNBC Squawk Box Wednesday morning to talk about the company's impressive first quarter.

"It was a really strong quarter across the board, I think, on a lot of metrics, on most metrics and we've been increasing free cash flow throughout the year," said Roberts.

According to Roberts, their cash flow grew 7.4 percent in Q1. The company, however, is also charging costumers more than ever. As a result of the hike, Comcast lost around 60,000 costumers.

"We raised more rates, the adjusted rates, more in the first quarter than we did in the prior couple years' first quarter," said Roberts. "And that always has an effect on our balance between costumers and rate, but in the grand total of revenue generating units, which is an important metric to look at, we added 583,000 costumers."

Comcast's 3.2% gain in new customers is due mostly to their triple play bundle package which includes phone, Internet, and cable service at a significantly lower price than each individual service when combined.

"The triple play is working for us. We had more, about eight percent more triple play take rate in this quarter than we did last year, and that's over 40 percent now of all our costumers," said Roberts.

According to Roberts, Comcast brought in 433,000 costumers in this quarter due to the draw of broadband.

"We continue to want to have the fastest broadband. Having wireless extensions to that broadband, in our case, is with Verizon Wireless (NYSE: VZ), and also Wi-Fi," said Roberts. "One of the things we're trying to do is redefine in the consumer's expectation: What is your broadband experience? So it's not just coming into the house, it's transmitting throughout the house that fastest Wi-Fi experience in the nation, which is one of our new investments we've been making in a claim that we're proud to make."

Beyond cable and the draw of broadband, Comcast has a variety of businesses bringing in money, especially since acquiring NBCUniversal. Theme parks were something that Roberts called a pleasant surprise of the acquisition.

"The trend has been very positive every single quarter. They're doing a great job. We look forward to opening new attractions in the years ahead, that we're investing in now. And NBCUniversal in total was up 17 percent cash flow growth, maybe their best quarter since we've owned the company and a great way to start as the new Comcast NBCUniversal," said Roberts.

As for growth in that area of the company, Roberts is partly betting on a little bit of magic.

"We're investing in Harry Potter now. We're taking that incredible growth franchise and expanding it around the world," said Roberts.

As for the United States economy, Roberts said that he thinks there is a slow and steady recovery happening.

"We're feeling pretty confident that the economy is rolling along," said Roberts.