Comcast Should Pursue NBCU Merger With Warner Bros. Discovery: Analyst
Comcast should pursue a merger of its NBCUniversal assets with Warner Bros. Discovery and hire Turning Point USA head Erika Kirk, the widow of conservative media personality Charlie Kirk, to oversee the combined CNN/NBC/MSNBC news unit, LightShed's Rich Greenfield wrote Monday. "At first blush it sounds crazy, but Trump loves a deal, and [Comcast CEO] Brian Roberts needs to think big and differently" in light of the company's stock struggles in recent years.
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NBCUniversal and Warner Bros. would have significant synergies, Greenfield said, noting that Universal's theme parks already use Warner Bros. intellectual property, so having it under the same ownership would let the combined company use additional WBD IP and content across its parks. Separating NBCU from Comcast should let Comcast shares trade more in line with other cable ISP and telco peers, he added.
At the FCC's October meeting Tuesday (see 2510280024), Chairman Brendan Carr said he didn't anticipate that a WBD merger would come before the agency because there likely wouldn't be significant licenses involved in such a transaction. Commissioner Anna Gomez also said there probably wouldn't be licenses transferred in a WBD deal and thus no FCC role.