Comcast chairman and CEO Brian Roberts says he’s hopeful about continuing to do business in the U.S. market, despite gathering political and economic disruption.
“I continue to be an optimist and obviously look at the world around us. And there’s instability. We’ve pretty much focused most of the company in the U.S. There’s still some external things happening,” Roberts told the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference on Tuesday.
U.S. President Donald Trump imposing sweeping tariffs on goods imported from Canada and Mexico on Tuesday has led to continuing market turmoil and a possible global trade war. Roberts did cite Comcast’s Sky business based in Britain, but otherwise focused his remarks on the American market. “Most of the businesses are here. And this is still the best country where you can grow your business,” Roberts argued.
The Comcast boss also talked up the future of NBCUniversal after a coming spin-off of select cable networks. He spoke ahead of NBCUniversal putting cable channels like MSNBC, CNBC, Syfy, E!, Oxygen, Golf Channel and USA Network into a separate spinoff company.
That will leave six companies in NBCUniversal, including Peacock, the premium streaming service, and broadband, wireless, business services and theme parks. “These businesses, the six, have healthy margins, healthy growth, that are creative, and that’s the future of our company. So I feel very good about the core of the business and the growing core,” Roberts told investors.
At the same time, he argued his media conglomerate was responding to increased competition and industry disruption without complacency. “I think we see places where we can improve. And there’s a sense of urgency right now throughout the whole company to be thoughtful, however, and deliberate,” Roberts added.
The conglomerate that owns NBCUniversal is getting set to separate its less lucrative cable networks from its film and TV studio entertainment and parks businesses to deal with a declining pay TV space. “What we’ve seen is a drum beat to more and more entertainment, and sports in particular, going to streaming,” Roberts said as he looked ahead to NBCUniversal no longer being dragged down by a once-dominant cable TV business.
Roberts said the spin-off transaction wasn’t his idea, and instead came from Comcast president Mike Cavanagh. He argued the cable brands that are part of Spin Co. were not contributing to the Peacock streaming service to the extent expected, and needed another way to survive and thrive.
“Then you look at remaining NBCU, of about $40 billion in revenues, having the scale to be a strong company,” Roberts added about what may emerge after Comcast splits its cable channels from the rest of its media assets. On the filmed entertainment side, NBCUniversal is operating its film and TV businesses together.
“If you haven’t seen Day of the Jackal or The Americas on NBC, there’s some fantastic content, and then we sell a lot of that content off to Netflix or to Amazon or Apple or Max,” Roberts said. He also addressed NBC and Peacock getting NBA rights for the first time since 2002 this year under a new deal with the pro basketball league.
“We looked at the NBA and said we had a big hole in the Peacock schedule in order to slow churn and to build something for the long term,” he argued.