Comcast’s big spin
Comcast is positioning itself for the next round of merger and acquisition activity. That’s the media industry’s collective read of this morning’s spinoff news.
Comcast is going to spend the next year separating NBCUniversal and its European media arm, Sky, into a new publicly traded company. “Netflix, Apple and Amazon might want to look,” Business Insider’s Peter Kafka says.
As you know, industry analysts predicted further deal-making activity in the wake of Paramount’s deal for CNN’s parent, Warner Bros. Discovery. Of course, it’s much harder to predict what form that activity will take. Officially, Comcast says NBCU on its own “will be poised for growth,” with valuable assets like NBC, Bravo, Peacock and Universal’s movie and TV studio.
But Comcast executives clearly recognize that Wall Street is rewarding pure-play companies. So, 15 years after acquiring NBCU and hanging Comcast’s logo atop 30 Rock, they are dissolving the combination.
“This is not about separating what we built together,” Brian Roberts told investors, “it’s about positioning two exceptional businesses to move forward with greater focus, agility, and the ability to fully capitalize on the opportunities ahead.”
He noted, rightly, that “when we acquired NBCUniversal more than 15 years ago, the industry looked very different,” and “the cable networks were widely viewed as the center of value creation.”
Now most of the cable assets are owned by Versant, which Comcast spun off last year, in a miniature version of this big move. According to the WSJ, “Comcast executives began discussing the split in recent weeks as it became clear greater flexibility would help the company navigate the increasingly challenging broadband and media markets.”
Lightshed Research’s Rich Greenfield boiled it down this way on “Squawk Box” just now: Comcast’s stock “had not performed. Fourteen years, the stock hadn’t moved. They had to do something.”
Comcast shares traded up almost 25% in premarket trading, and are still up about 10% as of 10 a.m. Eastern. Tellingly, Charter shares are also surging this morning. Charter is America’s other giant broadband and cable provider. “Wall Street thinks this is a prelude to a Comcast-Charter merger, and it likes that idea,” CNBC’s Alex Sherman tweeted.
DealBook ran through some of the other possibilities here. M.G. Siegler caught my eye with this tweet: “While the obvious initial thought would be Netflix for NBCU, what if they’re trying to position SpaceX to buy Comcast Cable? Too crazy?” Siegler elaborated on that idea at his Spyglass website here.
>> The breakup will require regulatory approval. Here’s my full story for CNN.com.
>> Comcast co-CEO Mike Cavanagh wtill be the CEO of the new NBCUniversal, while former Comcast chief financial officer Michael Angelakis will rejoin the company to run the future version of Comcast.
>> “Our plan for NBCUniversal and Sky is to build and invest for growth,” Cavanagh told investors.
>> The Roberts family will retain control, and Brian Roberts “will remain actively involved with both companies, working closely with Mike and Michael where he will focus on the new areas of growth, creativity and opportunity that this new structure will create,” a memo to employees stated.
The Supreme Court is probably issuing opinions at the moment you’re reading this email. You can follow along with CNN’s live updates here.
Notably, the high court just denied President Trump’s appeal of the E. Jean Carroll verdict, “meaning he must pay $5 million to the former columnist,” CNN’s John Fritze reports.
And the court also “declined to take up an appeal from lawyer Alan Dershowitz, who accused CNN of defamation for its coverage of him” during Trump’s first impeachment trial. “The decision came over the dissent from two conservative justices, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch.”
As Melissa Quinn explained in this CBS story, “the dispute presented the high court with the chance to revisit its landmark 1964 decision in New York Times v. Sullivan, which set a high bar for public figures to win defamation lawsuits against media companies.” Thomas and Gorsuch “have criticized that decades-old decision, but no other member of the high court has shown an appetite to reconsider it.”
The AP’s Steven Sloan sits down with Kara Swisher and says she is “eyeing influence in the 2028 campaign”…
The NYT’s David Wallace-Wells rethinks the “MAGA vibe shift” talk that accompanied Trump’s 2024 reelection and wonders if it was just a mirage…
And is Bob Iger’s next move the NBA? Bloomberg’s Natasha Mascarenhas scoops that he and Joshua Kushner are exploring a bid for a Las Vegas expansion team…
Bill Maher received the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor at the Kennedy Center last night. “Believe me, when they asked me and called and said, ‘Would you accept this?’ I did not have to ask twice. Of course, after the president tried to get the show canceled, they actually did have to ask twice,” Maher joked during his speech, CNN’s Camila DeChalus and Isabelle D’Antonio wrote here.
Maureen Dowd posted on Instagram that she was there to see Maher “finally get what he deserves… while the place is still standing.” Maher made note of the center’s uncertainty, telling DeChalus in a red carpet interview, “It is a beautiful building. They keep talking about how they need to renovate. It looks perfectly fine to me. I don’t see one thing that needs a single thing changed.”
Speaking of Maher, I caught his interview with VP JD Vance when “Real Time” re-aired on CNN Saturday night. The sit-down was full of revealing and human moments like this one, when Vance told Maher, “I laughed my ass off backstage. That was a good monologue. Even though you were making fun of me, I kind of liked it!”
An interesting contrast between Vance and his boss there.
Maher then alluded to Trump’s complaints about “Real Time,” saying, “I know someone in your administration who watches the show… Because I always hear about it.” Vance knowingly laughed and responded, “You’re right, the second lady — she’s a big fan.”
Michael Grynbaum and Ben Mullin’s story in today’s NYT print edition is titled “Chaos Swept Across CBS. Is CNN Next?” The pair described “anxieties about the looming changes” as Paramount works to complete the WBD deal. They also noted that CNN is “far larger than CBS News and is a major profit center,” so the leadership question is, to borrow a word, paramount.
“Mark Thompson, CNN’s chief executive, has not yet heard from [David] Ellison’s team about what role he will play after the merger,” the pair reported, citing sources. “He recently told Paramount officials that he would not share oversight of CNN with another executive, the people said. He declined to comment.” Here’s the rest…
That’s the title of Jeffrey Toobin’s latest guest essay for the NYT. He takes a close look at the charges against Don Lemon and others in Minnesota and laments that while “the product of journalism, for decades, has enjoyed substantial protection under the First Amendment,” federal law, “offers no similar protections for the process of journalism.”
The Minnesota cases are about process. “The best hope” for Lemon et al. “may be to place their trust in the wisdom of a jury,” Toobin writes, pointing out that the “excesses of the Trump Justice Department have drawn feisty defiance from jurors around the country.”
Trump posted on Truth Social this morning about having the “highest poll numbers ever,” “even higher than election day,” in spite of all evidence to the contrary.
Speaking of his reality-free tangents, “Regime Change” is still firmly at #1 on Amazon’s best-selling new releases list — and the publisher is rushing to print more copies — while Trump derides the book as “mostly made up.”
Maggie Haberman ignored the insult but did address the book’s sold-out-on-Amazon status in a post on X last night: “There are still some hardcovers available at Walmart, and the ebook and audiobook are both available immediately. Thank you for patience.”
“The Supreme Court late Friday stayed an order that would have forced former Fox News reporter Catherine Herridge to either disclose a confidential source or pay $800 a day in court sanctions,” WaPo’s Scott Nover and Julian Mark wrote. “Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. paused a lower court’s ruling from taking effect to give the Supreme Court time to consider Herridge’s request for emergency relief…”
“The Weekend: Primetime” team signed off on Saturday as MS NOW switches to taped podcasts in those hours. Co-host Antonia Hylton will move to afternoons while the show’s other hosts, Ayman Mohyeldin, Catherine Rampell and Elise Jordan, “will remain with MS NOW and continue to contribute across our programming and platforms,” per an internal memo.
Meanwhile, “colleagues, journalists, and pundits took to social media to express their respect for MS NOW’s Alex Witt, who announced her plans to leave the network Friday after nearly 30 years,” Mediaite’s Jennifer Bowers Bahney wrote.
As Ali Vitali said, Witt is “a consummate pro” who also “built a whole generation of TV reporters… They don’t make ‘em all like Alex and we’re all better off for having her guide us through the news all these years.”
Fox News is all-in on Trump’s Great American State Fair. Many of the network’s shows have been broadcasting live from a platform overlooking the fair, including “Fox & Friends” this morning, even though the grounds aren’t open to the public until later in the day. While commentators all across social media poke fun at the relatively paltry crowds, Fox is happily promoting the fair and, by extension, Trump…
>> Speaking of the fair: The other day I highlighted Josh Shapiro’s statement that Pennsylvania businesses didn’t want to participate. Well, over the weekend the state’s senators got together and stepped in to fill the empty booth…
Fox News issued an exceptionally rare on-air apology over the weekend, seemingly in response to legal threats from people who were attacked by Kevin O’Leary last month. The apologies aired on four different shows (!) according to Natalie Korach, who wrote about it for Status here…
I visited with SF Standard culture editor Emily Dreyfuss on her “PST” podcast to analyze why “a certain 95-year-old Australian has set his sights on California.” Here are the takeaways from our conversation about the California Post, Steve Hilton, Roku and more…
As the knockout rounds of the World Cup begin, Fox and Telemundo can be crowned as two of the biggest winners off the field. Both networks broke viewership records during the group stage and expect even higher ratings in the coming days, with the US men’s national soccer team playing in prime time on Wednesday. Here’s my new story about the US ratings results thus far…
>> The Justice Department “has seized nearly 400 web domains used for illegally streaming matches,” Sergiu Gatlan reports for Bleeping Computer.
>> The aforementioned Scott Nover went “inside The Onion’s quest to turn Infowars into a comedic revenge story.” (WaPo)
>> Jake Kanter reported that the BBC is looking to enforce “its zero-tolerance approach to misconduct.” (Deadline)
>> Sam Spratford surveyed the state of conservative book imprints: “Publishers are riding the red wave.” (Publishers Weekly)
>> Hershal Pandya shared the “unglamorous financial realities of 5 indie filmmakers.” (Vulture)
>> With “Jackass: Best and Last” in theaters, T.M. Brown wrote about “how the show taught a generation of guys how to be friends.” (CNN)
>> Brand new reporting from Clare Duffy: “More than half of social media child safety features aren’t working as advertised, new research finds.” (CNN)
>> Meta “is pushing California state lawmakers to shield it from pending legislation that would increase legal penalties in child-harm cases,” Tyler Katzenberger scooped, citing sources. (Politico)
>> Lucas Shaw’s latest: “Some animators believe AI will make films better, not cheaper,” while others “believe it will bring costs down by 30% to 90%.” (Bloomberg)
“‘Supergirl’ is struggling to take flight at the box office,” Variety’s Rebecca Rubin reports, writing that it debuted to “a disappointing $38 million from 3,600 North American theaters and $68 million globally.”
“This weekend’s other newcomer, ‘Jackass: Best and Last,’ also stumbled at the box office with $8.4 million from 2,855 venues,” Rubin writes, meaning that “neither of the new releases was close to dethroning Disney and Pixar’s ‘Toy Story 5,’ which ruled again with $70 million in its second weekend of release.”
>> “After two months in theaters, Lionsgate/Universal’s ‘Michael’ now stands as the highest grossing biopic of all time with a $977.4 million box office, passing the $965 million record set three years ago by Christopher Nolan’s Best Picture Oscar winner ‘Oppenheimer,’” Jeremy Fuster notes at TheWrap.
This edition of Reliable Sources was edited by Andrew Kirell and produced with Liam Reilly. Email us your feedback and tips here.