Comcast Corp. CEO Brian Roberts has a penchant for lining up a huge deal around every five years or so. It was 2018 the last time he made a big acquisition, and Wall Street is ready for his next dramatic move. Gaming and streaming could be in the cards.
It seems more and more likely that Disney is going to fully own Hulu. It just comes down to price. Speaking Tuesday at MoffettNathanson’s Technology, Media and Telecom Conference in New York, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts addressed Comcast selling its 33% stake in the streamer. “I think it’s more likely than not,” Roberts said.
Less than two hours after Walt Disney Co., CEO Bob Chapek said he’d like to exercise his right to buy out Comcast’s 33% stake in SVOD pioneer Hulu sooner rather than later, Comcast chief Brian Roberts said he’d buy the streamer outright if it were available.
Comcast Has Been Awfully Quiet. Are Brian Roberts And Jeff Shell Itching To Make A Deal?
Is Comcast poised to make a big move? The cable and media giant has missed out on some snazzy acquisitions in recent years, failing to outmaneuver Disney to buy the bulk of 21st Century Fox’s entertainment assets and falling just short of nabbing WarnerMedia. Losing out on the latter stunned Comcast CEO Brian Roberts and NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell, who were enmeshed in planning how WarnerMedia would be integrated into their operations until Discovery landed their prize.
Comcast CEO Brian Roberts recently proposed spinning off the company’s NBCUniversal media unit in order to merge it with videogame giant Electronic Arts.
Jeff Shell, CEO of Comcast-owned NBCUniversal, saw his total compensation climb to $21.6 million last year, up 30% over the year prior — the biggest pay bump among Comcast’s top execs in 2021. Comcast Chairman-CEO Brian Roberts’ pay package rose 3.7% in 2021, to $34 million. The disclosures came in the cable and entertainment giant’s proxy statement filing with the SEC Friday.
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Comcast CEO Brian Roberts met with ViacomCBS Chairman Shari Redstone in recent weeks to discuss a potential streaming partnership for international markets, according to people familiar with the matter, a sign the media companies see opportunities to join forces. During the meeting, which was held around the end of June in New York, and which also included ViacomCBS CEO Robert Bakish, the executives discussed a variety of possible business partnerships that would allow the companies to enter non-U.S. markets together, the people said.
Brian Roberts is out to prove that having content and distribution under one roof can turn his cable colossus into a major streaming contender. He is also wrestling with whether to build or buy to reach that goal.
Comcast also disclosed $32.7 million in 2020 compensation for its chairman and CEO Brian Roberts.
NBCUniversal streaming service Peacock has reached more than 15 million sign-ups, Comcast Chairman-CEO Brian Roberts told a virtual conference on Tuesday. And Comcast Cable is trending to add more than 500,000 broadband subscribers in the current third quarter, which would be a new record, he also said during an appearance at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia Conference.
Comcast CEO Brian Roberts on Monday said the company is committing $100 million to fight social injustice and inequality. In a memo to employees, he said the funds — made up of $75 million in cash and $25 million in media — will be part of a multiyear program.
Comcast Chairman-CEO Brian Roberts expressed cautious optimism that the summer Olympics in Tokyo will proceed as scheduled despite growing fears that the coronavirus outbreak could force a postponement to the games set for July 24-Aug. 9. “What I know is it’s full-steam ahead,” Roberts said Tuesday. If the Tokyo games are postponed, NBCU has insurance to mitigate the losses for the company, Roberts said.
Less than a week before Comcast and Department of Justice lawyers will face off against Byron Allen in the Supreme Court in the Entertainment Studios boss’ $20 billion discrimination lawsuit against the NBCUniverisal owner, Rep. Bobby Rush now wants the telecommunications giant brought down to size.
Comcast also reported Chairman-CEO Brian Roberts made $35 million in 2018, up from $32.5 million a year earlier.
During today’s earnings call, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts said the company is offsetting the TV losses and then some through its growing broadband business. “We’re benefitting more from that [OTT] competition than we are losing.”
Streaming video services such as DirecTV Now may have “scary implications” for some programmers, who could see some channels left behind, and operators, who might lose subscribers. But they shouldn’t take a big bite out of Comcast, says CEO Brian Roberts. “Our view was that scale matters,” he says. “When we just owned E! and Golf Channel and Comcast SportsNet, it wasn’t enough. Now we have MSNBC, CNBC, USA, Syfy, Bravo — that’s a hell of a footprint.”
Comcast CEO Brian Roberts’ compensation rose 10% to $36.2 million, according to the company proxy just filed at the SEC. NBCUniversal CEO Steve Burke’s compensation declined 0.7% to $33.7 million. And Senior EVP David Cohen, the company’s point man in the Time Warner Cable effort, got at 32.6% raise to $17.9 million.
Comcast Corp. this morning issued a statement that its merger with Time Warner Cable has been terminated. Chairman-CEO Brian L. Roberts: “Today, we move on. Of course, we would have liked to bring our great products to new cities, but we structured this deal so that if the government didn’t agree, we could walk away. Comcast NBCUniversal is a unique company with strong momentum. Throughout this entire process, our employees have kept their eye on the ball and we have had fantastic operating results. I want to thank them and the employees of Time Warner Cable for their tireless efforts. I couldn’t be more proud of this company and I am truly excited for what’s next.”
NBCUniversal Chief Executive Steve Burke received a slightly more handsome compensation package in 2014 than his boss, Brian Roberts, who is the chairman and chief executive of Comcast Corp. Burke’s take was $33.9 million vs. just under $33 million for Roberts.
Comcast still expects to close the deal with New York-based Time Warner Cable by the end of March, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts said. If the acquisition is approved, Comcast will have more than 32 million Internet service subscribers. As part of its commitment to getting the Time Warner deal done, Roberts said Comcast still intends to spend about $20 billion during the next two years to improve its Internet service and other products.
The Comcast CEO is looking to fortify his company for an increasingly competitive era. He believes that the $45-billion takeover of Time Warner Cable will help do that, particularly as major technology companies, including Google Inc., Apple Inc. and Amazon.com, try to crowd into America’s living rooms to control the TV-watching experience.
Leslie Moonves, Philippe Dauman, Robert Iger, David Zaslav,.Jeffrey Bewkes and Brian Roberts make the annual list.
The company that owns the largest collection of cable systems plus NBCUniversal has about 3.6 times the market value of CBS — yet CEO Brian Roberts made less than half of what CBS paid Les Moonves in 2013? No need to shed any tears: After all, Roberts’ family controls Comcast, and it gave him his best payday in years for a period when the stock value appreciated 39.1%.
Comcast Corp. CEO Brian Roberts ranks in the middle of the media pack in terms of salary and perks. Roberts received $29 million in compensation last year, an increase of 8% over 2011, according to a regulatory filing by the company Friday. One of Roberts’ ranking lieutenants, Steve Burke, CEO of NBCUniversal, got a double-digit bump, receiving $26.3 million in compensation in 2012, an 11.3% increase over the previous year.
The Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division and the Federal Trade Commission made the announcement today. Justice is filing a civil suit against the Comcast chairman, but with the proposed settlement agreement that includes the fine. Officials went after him because this is the third time Roberts failed to report that he had been granted stock above a government-set threshold that required him to make an official disclosure.
Comcast To Link Xfinity To The Cloud
On Thursday at the NCTA conference in Chicago, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts unveiled the latest generation of the Philadelphia cable giant’s Xfinity TV system, which includes applications to connect viewers via the cloud to their Facebook page, traffic and weather reports and Pandora Internet radio.
Comcast CEO Brian Roberts received a performance-based cash bonus of $10.9 million in 2010, boosting his total compensation package to $31.1 million, a 14% increase over the previous year.
Brian Roberts says he is hopeful that the NBC network will start making money over time, but emphasizes that NBC entertainment chairman Bob Greenblatt has “a very tough job.”
In a Town Hall meeting today, the two companies are officially merging. Each employee is given 25 shares of Comcast stock (worth $582.50) and a free family pass to a Universal theme park.
