What’s the mood of the rank and file at the NBCUniversal cable networks and businesses Comcast intends to spin off next year?
As you would expect, there’s a degree of anxiety over the move to create “SpinCo,” carved off from Comcast and NBCU, with a number of unanswered questions about what’s next. And there’s dismay over the perception that SpinCo is “a mishmash of shitty stuff,” as one employee put it — casualties of the streaming wars. Comcast, after all, essentially said that a reason it’s jettisoning the declining cable networks (excluding Bravo) is to improve the core company’s growth profile and valuation, with a focus on Peacock.
SpinCo will include basic cable nets MSNBC, CNBC, USA Network, Oxygen, E!, Syfy and Golf Channel along with digital properties Fandango, Rotten Tomatoes, GolfNow and SportsEngine. An official name for the new company, which will take about a year to separate from the rest of NBCU, is TBD.
NBCU execs past and present feel a bit resigned to the fact that the halcyon days of cable TV are over, and that it’s all about managing a slowly dying business at this point. No one is really surprised Comcast would be the first media conglom to go this route: The company has frequently killed off underperforming cable networks, like Cloo, Style and Esquire, rather than keeping them as zombie channels the way competitors have done.
There’s a sense of sadness that NBCUniversal could have continued investing in original fare for networks like USA and Syfy, but as the company shifted programming dollars to Peacock, “it does become a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy,” one exec said with a sigh. And that’s where the frustration comes in: Under different management, perhaps E! or Syfy could have made the transition the way Bravo did. “The mood is a little disappointed, to be sure,” this exec said.
Meanwhile, some who are set to disembark on the SpinCo boat are skeptical about the financial prospects of SpinCo, to be headed by CEO Mark Lazarus, formerly chairman of NBCUniversal Media Group. That’s despite Lazarus and Comcast execs touting the new company as positioned for growth and as a potential acquirer of other media properties.
“I don’t think the general employee base, me included, are sold on the robustness of this as a publicly traded entity,” said a longtime staffer at one of the networks in the planned cable spin.
That said, some employees feel that the cable networks have been “neglected” amid the broader Comcast-NBCU strategic priorities — and that as a stand-alone group, they will now get some “tender love care.” The cable networks, although viewership and revenue is dropping, remain profitable. However, those profits “have basically been thrown into Peacock and the theme parks,” one staffer said. “In terms of reinvesting, none of it is going back” into the cable networks.
Another employee at one of the SpinCo brands echoed that point: While “there’s a lot we’ll miss [about being part of NBCU], there is excitement about the potential for further investment in our businesses.” This staffer added that they have “a lot of respect for and belief in Mark Lazarus and Anand Kini, so with the new company under their leadership there is a lot of optimism.” (Kini, currently CFO of NBCUniversal and EVP of corporate strategy at Comcast, who is taking on the role of CFO and chief operating officer.)
Staffers admit to feeling a bit of whiplash, as some areas of the business decline and see less investment, yet NBCU just opened a stunning new campus on its Universal City lot — featuring loads of new amenities and perks for its workers.
At a meeting with CNBC employees last week, Lazarus spoke about the need to diversify the revenue base. The business news network operates CNBC Pro, a premium subscription service that offers an array of exclusive content. But it could do more. As part of SpinCo, there’s a possibility that CNBC could cut deals to bundle the network with partners that wouldn’t even be considered under NBCU’s Peacock-centric lens, said one CNBC staffer, suggesting a hypothetical deal with Warner Bros. Discovery’s Max.
Lazarus also met with MSNBC staffers last Wednesday, a group that included stars like Rachel Maddow and Katy Tur. Some in attendance were unsettled after Lazarus acknowledged that MSNBC may have to consider changing its name and familiar rainbow-peacock logo under the spin-off. He also didn’t have concrete answers about how MSNBC’s newsgathering process would be unwound from NBC News.
Currently, lots of NBC News personnel appear regularly on MSNBC’s daytime schedule, and there are many MSNBC programs that share the journalism legwork of NBC News. At CNBC, while it operates more independently of NBC News, there’s “been a push for more collaboration” between the two organizations; with the spin-off move, “I have kind of a resignation that we were asked to do all this integration with NBC and that was all for naught,” the CNBC staffer said.
Meanwhile, some employees at SpinCo are bummed they might lose perks extended to Comcast employees — including tickets to the Universal theme parks and free broadband and cable TV in Comcast’s cable service areas. Comcast chairman and CEO “Brian Roberts will still own a third of [SpinCo], so maybe we do still get free Comcast internet or whatever,” one staffer said.
Inside NBCUniversal’s production units, there actually isn’t much angst about the cable spin-off. For one thing, because most of the programming work has already been focused on NBC, Peacock and Bravo, the creation of SpinCo doesn’t mean much of a change of focus. And there is some relief at finally having clarity at who’s in charge of the entertainment side, now firmly under Donna Langley with Lazarus moving over to the cable spin-off. “There’s a clarity of decision-making at the top of the platform now,” one exec said. “That’s really helpful, especially when we’re creating shows and looking to get clarity.”
The new structure with Langley at the helm brings marketing and creative back together on the TV side, which helps with show launches. And having the network entertainment fare all under the oversight of one boss — primetime was Langley’s area, while late night reported to Lazarus — helps streamline things at NBC.
Last Tuesday (Nov. 19), a group of current and former NBCU execs gathered in Los Angeles over dinner to toast Bonnie Hammer, the TV veteran who during her long tenure built and ran the company’s general-entertainment cable networks, as she prepares to exit when her contract expires at the end of 2024. It was a complete coincidence that it was the same day that Comcast announced the cable spin-off. But to the evening’s assemblage, the symbolism of celebrating Hammer — once dubbed the “Queen of Cable” — was not lost amid the news of NBCU’s forthcoming cable schism.
— Brian Steinberg contributed to this article.
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