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Comcast Cuts the Cord

The decision from Comcast will notably rip apart NBCU News Group boss Cesar Conde's kingdom, with MSNBC and CNBC being spun off.

Author

Oliver Darcy
November 19, 2024

The Comcast logo. (Photo by Jeff Fusco/Getty Images for Comcast)

Comcast is running away from the dying cable business.

The Brian Roberts-led company is expected to announce Wednesday that it will spin off its depreciating cable assets, a seismic move that is already sending shockwaves through the pay-television world and could significantly alter the landscape. It may also portend the future of the linear assets belonging to other media conglomerates.

The new venture is expected to include channels such as MSNBC, CNBC, USA Network, E!, Golf Channel, and more. The Wall Street Journal's Amol Sharma, who broke the news, reported that Bravo will not be part of the spinoff and will instead stay inside the flagship operation. The "Real Housewives"-maker is crucial to powering Peacock with reality-television content.

The move to cleave off the cable channels from NBCUniversal is a stark reminder of the inexorable decline that traditional television networks are facing as millions of Americans cut the cord each year in favor of streaming services. Over the summer, Warner Bros. Discovery wrote down $9.1 billion for its cable networks and Paramount Global wrote down nearly $6 billion for its cable assets.

Once considered to be treasured assets, cable networks, which do not have a promising future, have become increasingly burdensome for companies like Comcast in the age of Netflix. Shares in Comcast surged on the company’s announcement in after-hours trading.

The new NBCU cable television venture, which will be led by Mark Lazarus, will allow the cable networks to explore some strategic possibilities, such as a possible roll-up of linear assets with a company like Warner Bros. Discovery or Paramount Global to give them more scale and negotiating power. Even in such a case, it's difficult to see how the bulk of these assets survive long term, which is of course why Comcast wants to boot them from their balance sheets in the first place.

The decision from Comcast, which came only 19 days after president Mike Cavanagh disclosed to shareholders that the company was studying the possibly, will notably rip apart NBCU News Group boss Cesar Conde's kingdom. Conde, I'm told, will…

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The Information Wars

Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski. (Screen grab via SnapStream)

Morning Blues: Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski might be in the warm embrace of Donald Trump after their pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago, but their audience is giving them the cold shoulder. Immediately after the "Morning Joe" couple announced they had visited with Trump to "restart communications," droves of MSNBC viewers picked up their remotes and turned off the channel.

During the 6am-7am block, the show averaged 839K viewers, 113K of which were in the advertiser-coveted 25-54 demographic, according to Nielsen. In the hour after, the total audience number fell to 694K, a 17% drop. In the 25-54 demo, the ratings plummeted a staggering 38% to 70K. It's highly unusual for a morning show to hemorrhage viewers from the 6am hour to the 7am hour. The normal trend is for a program to see viewership grow as more people turn on the television later in the morning. And, to be fair, in the 8am hour, the ratings grew to 775k. But that’s much lower than usual and still down from the 6am number.

The figures indicate that…

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