While the Comcast/NBC-Universal marriage won’t be consummated for a year or more, Jeff Zucker and co. have already started putting the merger into motion, announcing on Thursday that two teams of executives from both companies will start planning the integration after the holidays.
What’s interesting is that though Comcast did the acquiring in this deal, it’s looking like NBCU’s execs are going to take the lead in figuring out how the companies will fit together operationally.
In a memo to staff, Zucker, the NBCU CEO, says there will be two transition teams — one operational, with an NBCU exec at the helm; and one administrative, with a team leader from Comcast.
The operational team is led by Salil Mehta (left), NBCU’s president of business operations, strategy and development. The administrative team is led by Comcast’s Bob Victor, senior vice president of strategic and financial planning.
The teams will meet weekly until the deal closes, which could take place next year — though it’s just as likely to be 2011 before it clears all the regulatory hurdles. Both groups will be overseen by Zucker and two Comcast honchos: COO Steve Burke and CFO Mike Angelakis.
The operations team "will focus on planning all aspects of how the two programming and digital groups will operate together after the deal closes. We will look to Salil and his team to develop an overall schedule, identify programming and marketing opportunities, recommend organizational structures, etc.," according to the email, obtained by TVNewser.
The admin team’s job is to "address benefits, accounting, taxes, cash management, information services, polices and other legal matters, etc."
