Comcast now owns 100% of NBCUniversal

[Dalton]

7 years early, Comcast has bought the remainder of NBC Universal from GE for $18.1 billion. This not only includes all NBC Universal properties, but also the properties at Englewood Cliffs (CNBC) and 30 Rockefeller Plaza. The GE building will go bye bye; it will now be the Comcast building.

CNBC.com

Comcast announced on Tuesday that it will buy General Electric's entire 49 percent common equity stake in NBCUniversal for approximately $16.7 billion.

Also, NBCUniversal, the parent company of CNBC and CNBC.com, will purchase the properties it uses at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York and CNBC's headquarters in Englewood Cliffs, NJ for about $1.4 billion.

Comcast shares jumped more than 8 percent in after-hours trading. What's the stock doing now? (Click here for the latest after-hours quote.)

The deal, which is expected to close at the end of the first quarter, will be funded with $11.4 billion of cash on hand, $4 billion of subsidiary senior unsecured notes to be issued to GE, $2 billion of borrowings under Comcast and/or bank credit facilities, and $725 million of subsidiary preferred stock to be issued to GE.

"We believe the terms of the transaction are attractive and have planned for this event by taking a number of financial steps to prepare our balance sheet," Brian L. Roberts, Chairman and CEO, Comcast said in a press release. "We believe we are in a strong and unique position to continue to grow and build value in our combined company."

Comcast also released its earnings a day early. Fourth-quarter earnings rose 19 percent to 56 cents a share from 47 cents a share a year ago.

Revenue climbed 5.9 percent to $15.9 billion from $15 billion a year ago, while operating income rose nearly 13 percent to $3.3 billion.

Comcast also increased its dividend by 20 percent to 78 cents per share on an annualized basis and will repurchase $2 billion in stock in 2013.

[Phantasee]

Poor Jack Donaghy.

[Dalton]

Actually a bit surprised that nobody else gives a fuck.

[RogueIce]

Aside from Comcast being a cable/internet provider I hear people bitch about every so often, I don't see why it's a huge thing. Well okay maybe for the novelty of NBC getting bought out, but it seems like lots of stuff gets bought out these days.

So what's it mean? Are they going to force MSNBC to ditch the "Lean Forward" thing or something? Are the two seperate?

[Flagg]

I think it's a big deal because it's the first cable provider to buy a broadcast network tv company. Plus it makes it a huge fucking media empire that I think now outdoes Fox in the US as far as outlets on tv goes.

[Alyeska]

Service Providers should not be combined with Content Providers. It leads to horrible abuses to Network Neutrality.

[Sea Skimmer]

They've owned a controlling stake for as long as the company existed, they are merely completing a buyout announced years ago early. This is not very shocking news. Its also par the course for the whole strategy of Comcast, buy up content, don't improve the network at all costs because they've already fallen behind too much to care. Its going to destroy them in certain marketplaces in the long run, it already has to some extent, but they figure they are the single source provider in enough areas to be okay.

The best part is they actually have an major project in the works to make just about all the content they have available on demand, far beyound anything Comcast 'On Demand" does now, and exactly what consumers do want, and yet it isn't clear they'll ever actually be able to field to everyone in the HD standards people have come to expect.

[FSTargetDrone]

The best part is they actually have an major project in the works to make just about all the content they have available on demand, far beyound anything Comcast 'On Demand" does now, and exactly what consumers do want, and yet it isn't clear they'll ever actually be able to field to everyone in the HD standards people have come to expect.

I hope it is an improvement. The fact that a lot of Comcast's On Demand HD content can look markedly worse than my DVD content is a big issue for me. Conan The Barbarian comes to mind as an example of something I looked at awhile back because I was too lazy to pop in the DVD. With its blurry picture and compression artifacts in general, the experience was miserable and I ended up getting off my ass and digging up the disc to finish watching the movie. I borrowed a Leaf HD antenna from my sister that she was using after she moved but before her cable service was installed. Using that $40 antenna, the picture quality of the stuff I was able to pull in is far superior to Comcast's. That and the slow, tedious-to-use interfaces on their garbage digital box and other issues mean that I use Comcast for nothing but a high speed cable internet for the most part. I've long since stopped using Comcast for TV viewing. I no longer watch anything "live" on TV, other than live local sports or the odd PGA tournament. I use Netflix to burn though seasons of older series I am interested in and for shows I want to catch up on during the current season, I go to other streaming services (free Hulu, etc.). Waiting a day or so for it to show up is not a problem. Though they are not without faults of their own, the experience is far superior in all the ways that matter to me.

[Sea Skimmer]

Comcrap has a system to throttle the bit rate of content depending on what the network, as well as the box and the TVs desired encoding can support. The new on demand stuff will involve new boxes. Also works on the Xbox I think. In my experience some of the Comcast boxes are much better then others already, thanks to how fubar the network is even within the city of Philadelphia the software in the boxes and even some hardware can be different, even if some externally look the same.

[Crown]

Poor Jack Donaghy.

Transparent dishwashers, he'll be fine!

[Dalton]

They've owned a controlling stake for as long as the company existed, they are merely completing a buyout announced years ago early.

Comcast didn't have a controlling stake until 2011 when they bought 51% of NBCU from GE. Originally they had 7 years to decide to buy out the other 49% but they did it five years early, which is a bit of a surprise to me and makes me wonder if something happened to spur what seems like an impulsive decision. Especially since they bought the buildings. They may not move their HQ up here but I wonder if somebody thought it'd be great to have a big-ass Comcast Building in the middle of Manhattan.

I can't speak to the quality of their cable/phone/internet service, but I do hope they expand out to Long Island soon (which may also tie into the above) only because I'm tired of paying through the nose for my current service.

So what's it mean? Are they going to force MSNBC to ditch the "Lean Forward" thing or something? Are the two seperate?

No, but from what I've heard there are rumors that they were behind Olbermann's departure.

[Magis]

Something else that hasn't been raised yet in this thread is how suspicious the approval of the merger was. When the merger was proposed, I remember reading several articles by competition law experts that doubted the merger would be approved by the FCC, which made the subsequent approval surprising.

Four months after the approval, the FCC commissioner that approved the deal, Merideth Baker, vacated her position at the FCC and was hired as a senior vice president of Comcast/NBC.

[FSTargetDrone]

Especially since they bought the buildings. They may not move their HQ up here but I wonder if somebody thought it'd be great to have a big-ass Comcast Building in the middle of Manhattan.

Are you saying you think there is even a chance that Comcast might move their headquarters from the Comcast Center in Philadelphia, where they have been the lead tenant in a tower that has been open for business less than 6 years?

[Dalton]

Especially since they bought the buildings. They may not move their HQ up here but I wonder if somebody thought it'd be great to have a big-ass Comcast Building in the middle of Manhattan.

Are you saying you think there is even a chance that Comcast might move their headquarters from the Comcast Center in Philadelphia, where they have been the lead tenant in a tower that has been open for business less than 6 years?

Nothing that drastic, no. They do own the building now, and it will be renamed (to what I don't know), and it leaves me wondering if this is the first phase of some larger strategy.

[Sea Skimmer]

Comcast has a long term lease on almost the whole floor area of the Comcast center, so it'd be rather expensive to move and breakout of that. However not all Comcast operations in Phily even fit into it anymore, so some of the extras could move more easily. On the other hand they might just lease the place out, its rarely a bad idea to diversify once your company becomes this large, and just because they bought the building in a total takeover deal doesn't mean they actually wanted it.

[Dalton]

Would they drop 1.4 billion for shit they didn't want? Maybe it was cheaper or easier to do that rather than lease the buildings from GE. Maybe it was part of the deal as I don't think GE would want to hang on to an SD television facility that housed only CNBC and Master Control.

[Sea Skimmer]

Comcast made several billion dollars in profit last year, and every year before that for a while, so yeah I think they would drop that kind of money if that was what it took to get the company early, and they plainly wanted the company badly to speed up a deal this big.

I checked, the lease on the Comcast Center was for 15 years and it opened at the end of 2007, so they have a long time left at that place. With 90% of the building occupied, well I honestly don't know what rent is like but surely breaking the lease plus moving expenses sounds like would run into the hundreds of millions of dollars on its own. Meanwhile it'd be more expensive to operate out of NYC for the business and the employees, meaning more pressure on wages, and no functional advantage since software engineers and such can do the job from anywhere. Plus Philadelphia has bent over backwards for Comcast again and again on all manner of issues. This is all why Comcast is about the only major company left headquartered in the city, while around two dozen others have moved out or just close down for various reasons.

[Phantasee]

We've been seeing similar in Canada. Shaw (cable provider) has been buying up networks, same with Bell and Rogers. I don't remember if Telus has bought any television networks.

[Havok]

Poor Jack Donaghy.

Damn you... I was gonna say that.