As the Comcast-NBC Universal merger mixing the monolithic cable company with film and TV assets hits its one-year mark, it would be hard to deny how effectively one hand is washing the other.
Not that everything has gone swimmingly since the Jan. 29, 2011 marriage. The Peacock's first fall season under the new ownership has been mostly a snooze, with a handful of the new offerings already canceled.
Despite a few hits, the box office has seen a string of flops, led by the costly "Cowboys & Aliens." And charges of discrimination still haunt the halls.
But Comcast's traditional cable operation -- with an almost fully digital network in place and its combined video, voice and data customer growth proceeding nicely in low double digits -- gives the company an ever-wider reach into America’s homes, while the core cable networks are unmatched in reach.
And the film studio and the network are part of a burgeoning On Demand content supply that includes 30,000 choices on TV, many more online, and a healthy supply on the XFINITY app.
What's more, there’s a comfortable logic in how the merged company handles its winnings. The NBCU cash flow is largely set aside to handle future payoffs to former owner G.E., while the Comcast side is pouring most if its cash into returning capital to shareholders -- over $900 million worth.
“Our primary focus,” CEO Brian Roberts told Wall Street analysts and the usual online audience of shareholders in early November during a third-quarter earnings call, “has been on great operational execution and on extending our industry leadership.”
And by Street measures, it’s hard to find fault with the big picture over the past 12 months. As Standard & Poor’s entertainment analyst Tuna Amobi says, the company’s share price “has actually increased meaningfully since the deal was closed a year ago, it’s up about 15 percent in 12 months.”
THE BIG SCREEN
Though the film studio's marginally successful 2011 slate made it across the billion-dollar mark, you can't call it a terrific year. Hits including "Fast Five," which took in $626 million worldwide at the box office, were offset by a series of high-price flops like "Cowboys and Aliens" ($174.8 million worldwide on a $163 million budget) and “The Dilemma” ($69.7 million worldwide with a production budget of about the same.)
Still, the willingness of the brass to renew the deal of key film and parks honcho Ron Meyer through 2015—still reporting to Steve Burke, the NBC Universal CEO since the merger went through—and his able colleague and film chairman Adam Fogelson, who reupped through 2014 and is in turn keeping colleague Donna Langley on board with a re-up to 2014, demonstrates a certain faith in the future.
"The films figure has been very volatile, but I think they knew what they were buying," Amobi told TheWrap.
