Comcast gave NBCUniversal a $16.7 billion vote of confidence on Tuesday, agreeing to pay that sum to acquire General Electric’s remaining 49 percent stake in the entertainment company. The deal accelerated a sales process that was expected to take several more years.
Brian Roberts, chief executive of Comcast, said the acquisition, which will be completed by the end of March, underscored a commitment to NBCUniversal and its highly profitable cable channels, expanding theme parks and the resurgent NBC broadcast network.
“We always thought it was a strong possibility that we’d some day own 100 percent,” Mr. Roberts said in a telephone interview.
There had been some speculation back when Comcast was acquiring a controlling interest NBCUniversal that it might begin to, if not remove, at least reduce some of the overt Democrat-leaning bias at the network. GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt is a huge Obama supporter and the head of that jobs council that never met, so it wasn’t surprising that the network moved so hard to the left when GE owned it.
There hasn’t been much of a shift thus far but there is quite a difference between owning 51% and owning 100%. Everything NBC does now reflects only on Comcast. And the network hasn’t been much of success story lately. Ratings have tanked, The Today Show fell from a lofty perch it owned for a long time and MSNBC routinely gets slaughtered by the Fox News numbers. The only solace has been that they get better ratings than CNN. With former NBC head Jeff Zucker trying to revamp CNN, that might not last long either.
It remains to be seen if Comcast thinks the bias is even a problem in the first place. The word “conservative” is tossed around a lot in articles about the company, but that’s usually in reference to its corporate culture and not its politics.
NBC? Who watches NBC?
Apparently a few more lefties watch NBC than CNN. But since FOX is slowly absorbing the larger audience share CNN and NBC will be scrapping for an increasingly dwindling base. Comcast is either stupid or planning changes for NBC.
I refuse to watch anything NBC related until Comcast cleans it up.
And if they don’t do that soon, I won’t use Comcast (or any other provider) for anything at all. On Netflix, I can watch what I want with no commercials – and pretty soon, I’m signing up for MLB so I can stream baseball games.
So, if Comcast wants any of my money, they had better take a firehose to NBC/MSNBC and wash away the fecal matter toot-sweet. I’m not subsidizing this garbage with my money for very much longer, especially now that Comcast holds sole ownership.
My Dad still loves CNBC which seems to be less infected with lefties. NBC could have a valuable portfolio of channels if it was well managed.
From what I hear about the corporate culture at Comcast, it’s as liberal and PC as any.