Comcast said Wednesday that it will spin off its cable networks, including MSNBC and CNBC, in a bid to unshackle its movie studio and theme parks from the waning fortunes of traditional television.
NBCUniversal, Comcast’s media division, is set to cleave off a bundle of cable channels that generate roughly $7 billion in revenue annually, including USA, Oxygen, E!, Syfy and Golf Channel, into a new public company. Comcast will keep the NBC broadcast network under NBCUniversal, along with Bravo, home to reality TV programs like “Top Chef,” the company’s theme parks and its Universal studio.
Brian Roberts, the influential chief executive of Comcast, will own a one-third voting stake in the new company, which is expected to complete the spinoff to Comcast investors before the end of next year, after shareholder and regulatory approval. Mr. Roberts will not serve on the board of the new venture nor oversee its operations.
The spinoff is a reversal of sorts for Mr. Roberts, who has spent much of his professional life building up the cable business founded by his father, Ralph, into a globe-spanning media and telecommunications giant. By splitting his kingdom into pieces, Mr. Roberts follows one of his longtime mentors, the cable pioneer John Malone, who has long relied on a web of spinoffs and so-called tracking stocks to manage his sprawling media empire.
Cable television, once a juggernaut that propelled the share prices of traditional media companies, has become a financial albatross. Though they remain enormously profitable, cable TV channels are in long-term decline as viewers replace subscriptions with streaming services like Netflix or YouTube TV.
Those losses have posed tricky questions for big media companies that are trying to build streaming businesses alongside their decaying cable networks. For Comcast, will investors be more enthusiastic about streaming services like NBCUniversal’s Peacock if they weren’t under the same corporate roof as cable TV channels? And will any gain for Peacock be worth giving up the regular, if imperiled, profits produced by the cable networks? In both cases, it appears the answer is yes.
Comcast said Wednesday that the new company will be unencumbered by debt and well-positioned to scoop up other assets. Comcast announced last month that it was considering a spinoff, leading analysts to speculate that the new company would be on the hunt to buy rival cable TV networks, cobbling together a bigger bundle of channels.
In addition to the cable channels, the spinoff will inherit some of NBCUniversal’s digital assets, including the Rotten Tomatoes film and TV review site and Fandango, the movie ticketing business.
Some of NBCUniversal’s most senior executives will join the new company.
Mark Lazarus, the chairman of NBCUniversal Media Group, will be chief executive of the as-yet unnamed company. Anand Kini, the chief financial officer of NBCUniversal, will be chief operating officer and financial chief of the new venture.
But many senior executives will remain at NBCUniversal.
Donna Langley, the company’s chief content officer, will become chairman of NBCUniversal Entertainment and Studios, with increased sway over the company’s content spending. Cesar Conde, the chairman of NBCUniversal News Group, will continue to oversee NBC News, along with Telemundo and the local TV stations.
Matt Strauss, the NBCUniversal executive overseeing Peacock, will become chairman of NBCUniversal Media Group. Adam Miller, an executive vice president at NBCUniversal in charge of technology, communications and human resources, will be chief operating officer of NBCUniversal.
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