You know the old business expression, "Buy low, sell high?" Comcast is so desperate to get rid of its cable properties — including MSNBC — that it might be willing to turn that expression on its head.
Cable giant Comcast got into the content game in 2011 with its purchase of a 51% stake in NBCUniversal from GE for $13.8 billion. NBCU included NBC, MSNBC, Telemundo, Bravo, USA, and other channels. (Do we still call them channels?) In 2013, Comcast bought the remaining 49% for a whopping $16.7 billion. In two years, the value of NBCU increased by roughly 10%. That's not too shabby for a collection of established media properties.
Before the election, Comcast said that it was looking to get rid of its NBCU properties. Comcast-owned CNBC reported last month that "the logic for Comcast is fairly straightforward" because "NBCUniversal’s cable networks aren’t growing anymore." The business news network concluded, "Carving out the cable portfolio could placate Comcast investors by removing declining assets from the balance sheet."
After the election, Comcast made it official today that they're spinning off NBCU.
There's one teensy little problem:
MSNBC ratings collapse:
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) November 12, 2024
Joy Reid - down 54.6%
Ari Melber - down 49.6%
Chris Hayes - down 47.2%
Alex Wagner - down 53.6%
Morning Joe - down 39.6%
Stephanie Ruhle - down 67%
Andrea Mitchell - down 39.7%
https://t.co/MwnpkM791w
Even before her viewers fled post-election, Andrea Mitchell prepared for a major demotion. She announced in October that "she will exit her namesake MSNBC show after the inauguration, but will remain as a correspondent at NBC News."
"After sixteen years of being in the anchor chair every day, I want time to do more of what I love the most: more connecting, listening, and reporting in the field,” Mitchell said at the time. I find it difficult to believe that a 78-year-old has any desire whatsoever to leave the comfy anchor desk and go back out into the field.
This all comes despite "Morning Joe" hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski making peace with President-reelect Donald Trump while somehow portraying themselves as brave resistance fighters venturing into the belly of the beast to give him a piece of their minds.
Hell, maybe ratings crashed because Mika and Joe bent the knee, and now even their fellow lefties are sick of their transparently self-serving crap. Who can tell these days? Or as my Hot Air colleague Ed Morrissey put it earlier today, "Can MSNBC recover from its post-election cratering in viewership? Comcast answered this morning: who cares? It's not their problem anymore."
But it is a problem for Comcast shareholders. “The transaction will be structured as a tax-free spin to existing shareholders,” Comcast President Mike Cavanagh said in a memo seen by NBC News. So Comcast shareholders will soon own shares in two companies. One will be Comcast, the other the spun-off NBCU networks. The hope is that Comcast shares will rise, freed from NBCU ballast.
What happens to the value of those NBCU shares? Presumably, we'll find out the true value of various discredited, leftwing infotainment networks and their high-priced on-air talent.
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