It was less than three weeks ago when the first news broke about the impending divorce of Comcast from its portfolio of cable networks. We devoted a musing to it then when the consensus of experts, and this still small voice as well, was anything but upbeat.
Yesterday, more news broke with further details–and a couple of unexpected twists– which apparently will become official later today, as CNN’s Brian Stelter reported on its website:
Comcast is planning to spin off most of its cable television networks, including MSNBC and CNBC, into a separate publicly traded company, according to executives with knowledge of the plan. The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the impending announcement on Tuesday evening, said the involved channels also include USA, Oxygen, E!, Syfy and Golf Channel. Comcast’s NBCUniversal division is keeping Bravo, the NBC broadcast network, the Peacock streaming service, and all of its other assets, like NBC Sports and the Universal theme parks.
They will also be spinning off some of its management team to try and keep up the momentum this news triggered, as reported by YAHOO! Finance’s Laura Bratton this morning:
Comcast (CMCSA) stock jumped as much as 3.5% in premarket trade on Wednesday after the company confirmed plans to spin off most of its cable networks into a new, publicly-traded company.
The yet-to-be-named SpinCo will house most of NBCUniversal’s cable television networks… (t)hose networks collectively generated approximately $7 billion in revenue over the past 12 months, Comcast said in its announcement.
NBCUniversal Media Group chairman Mark Lazarus will assume the role of CEO of SpinCo. Anand Kini, the Chief Financial Officer of NBCUniversal, will now serve as SpinCo’s CFO.
“As a standalone company with these outstanding assets, we will be better positioned to serve our audiences and drive shareholder returns in this incredibly dynamic media environment across news, sports and entertainment,” said Lazarus. “We see a real opportunity to invest and build additional scale and I’m excited about the growth opportunities this transition will unlock.”
“Our financial strength will also provide capacity for an attractive capital return policy while allowing for investment in the growth of these businesses.”
Lazarus is a veteran sales executive who steadily rose through the ranks of management in recent years amidst the departures of Jeff Shell and Linda Yaccarino, and comes from equally talented stock–his dad John was a top-notch driver of revenue for ABC and FOX and one of the shrewdest deal-makers I’ve ever encountered. It’s apropos that he will have the responsibility of spearheading something with the name “Spin” in it, and the paragraph above is proof positive he’s darn good at it.
But I kinda doubt even he fully believes his own BS in light of the realities of what he’s exactly inheriting.
The synergies that these networks have been able to employ that have resulted in those favorable financials are now anything but assured. By being owned by the largest multivideo provider in the country, these networks, along with other smaller ones which we assume will also be moving to SpinCo, were assured full disttribution and optimal channel positioning (yes, that still matters). By being corporately aligned with as prolific a studio as Universal, they were given priority access–and favored-nations pricing–to movies and shows which are needed to round out a full schedule. And talent was more likely to want to work with these entities even if their priority was to work with those entities which Comcast is keeping.
And by drawing such a line in the sand, Comcast is effectively messaging that the businesses that Lazarus will now be charged with running didn’t measure up to being seen as wheat versus chaff, a point TOO MUCH TELEVISION’s Rick Ellis distinctly made in his newsletter last night:
This is an all an indication of where Comcast sees the television business headed moving forward. It needs NBC in part because NBC has long-running sports right deals that it wants to be able to share with Peacock. And keeping NBC News and the NBC News digital arm in the same company makes strategic sense. As for Bravo, the simple truth is that Peacock’s most sticky non-sports programming is Bravo programming. So Comcast wasn’t inclined to let it go.
So if these networks were no longer in a position to help the company that ostensibly built them up, what would give anyone confidence that they could do that for someone else while they are in decline?
And let’s also add that the sturm and drang that is revolving around its talent isn’t helping matters. Witness the reaction to what has transpired over the last few days, as THE INDEPENDENT’s James Liddell reported this morning:
Morning Joe ratings have taken a nose-dive as hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski face a backlash for meeting with Donald Trump.
During Monday’s show, the hosts revealed that they had traveled to Mar-a-Lago on Friday to “restart communications” with the president-elect before he takes office, marking their first face-to-face meeting in seven years.
Now, new data from Nielsen reveals that it may have also hurt the show’s ratings.
Morning Joe airs for four hours each morning between 6 a.m. and 10 a.m. The cable news show is typically said to garner viewers hour over hour, according to Mediate.
Nielsen data shows that 56 minutes after the hosts began explaining their trip to the Trump residence, viewing figures began to tumble.
Between 7 a.m. and 8 a.m., they had fallen 17 percent from 839,000 to 694,000. Among the 25- to 54-year-old age group, viewing figures plummeted by 38 percent.
During the 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. hour, the show briefly bounced back with 775,000 viewers but, from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m., the numbers dropped slightly again to 770,000.
And while one day of numbers may or may not be significant, the hue and cry among those with the mindset to be a regular part of that audence that’s been expressed could be much more foreboding of further rejection. And it appears to be bipartisan in nature. Liddell noted these reactions:
The hosts have been facing backlash with Jon Stewart of The Daily Show calling them out for meeting Trump after recently comparing him to Adolf Hitler.
Trump’s former presidential rival Nikki Haley also described it as a stunt to bolster MSNBC’s ratings, adding that “they realized they needed Trump for their survival”.
MSNBC host Katie Phang made a more indirect jibe at Scarborough and Brzezinski. “Normalizing Trump is a bad idea,” she wrote on X. “Period.”
While, naturally, the NEW YORK POST’s Emily Crane took full opportunity to recap the reactions from the other side of the spectrum in her article from yesterday:
The ensuing backlash against the pair was swift from all sides, with many blasting Scarborough and Brzezinski for their “shamelessness” — as others raged they were “bending the knee” and “kissing the ring” by arranging their first sit-down with him in seven years.
Hitler getting a lot more meeting requests than I would’ve thought,” Republican strategist Scott Jennings wrote on X, referring to the co-hosts’ past attacks on Trump.
Washington Examiner chief political correspondent Byron York tweeted, “Annals of shamelessness: They call Trump a fascist, and much, much more, and then, just 22 days after his ‘Nazi-like’ rally, they fly to Florida for an audience.”
Eli Lake, a Free Press columnist, wrote, “Why would Trump bother talking to these people other than to urge them to seek mental health counseling?”
Even more significantly from a business perspective, MSNBC will no longer be directly tied to NBC News, which provided it with talent and programming that made it somewhat more comparable to the balance of CNN versus the mostly opinion focus that FOX News Channel offers up–a battle that was being won ratings-wise way before the election cemented how those opinions are being received by the majority of those who actually care.
Years ago, when Syfy was correctly spelled, they produced and even syndicated a program with psychic John Edward. It might be an appropriate time for Mark Lazarus to consider rebooting it, or at the very least consulting with him directly. Even someone named Lazarus will need help raising these zombies.
Until next time…