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UPDATES As Rumors Swirl & GE Probes, Vivendi See IPO Possibility For 20% NBCU
I've learned that last week, during a visit to the West Coast, NBC Universal chief Jeff Zucker told both Universal and NBC, "We have to be ready in case Vivendi exits for an IPO of that 20% stake." This is why, as I reported last week, the brass have been asking for more and deeper financial information than years past prior to the Vivendi put coming due.
Meanwhile, the rumors keep coming fast and furious. The latest (#3, if you're keeping count) is also one of the most persistent despite denials on all sides: that some deal negotiation is underway between Time Warner and GE over all or part of NBCU. Yes, that rumor has been around a long time, and sources insist that Time Warner and GE were in talks before the economic crash. But it's recently surfaced again, triggered by the Vivendi put, and it's believed by some top people in Hollywood. Time Warner folks say it's just not true, especially since Jeff Bewkes maintains a very disciplined approach to acquisitions because of the goodwill writedowns that haunted Time Warner in the past. On the other hand, a good case could me made for a very synergistic combination of assets. -test
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A potential Time Warner/NBCUniversal merger would be a disaster in the making for both entities.
Would the competition regulators really allow Time Warner to swallow all NBC-U’s cable channels to sit with their current TNT lead portfoilo?
What the hell would Time Warner do with MSNBC? They don’t even know what to do with CNN and they own that already?!
Would the iconic Universal Studios really be ‘absorbed’ by the all consuming, all powerful (and my awesome name) ‘Warner Borg’? That would leave Universal to join New Line in the bowels of Warner’s belly slowly being digested? There is no way that Bewkes will want Time Warner running two big studios side by side.
But in saying that, it will take some massive act of corporate shopping to rescue NBC from Zucker’s abusive hands and if anyone can turn it around it’s going to be Time Warner.
On the other hand, a good case could me made for a very synergistic combination of assets.
Wasn’t that kind of talk all the rage when Time-Warner merged with AOL? We all know how well that turned out.
Anyway, such a merger would create something that would literally be too big to manage. Time Warner doesn’t need NBC-U, and any merger would be done solely for the sake of making a big 90s style merger.
Something does need to be done to shake up NBC-U, it’s operating like it’s under a gypsy curse or something.
NBCU is the creator of its own curse. Even at its profitable, well-branded USA network there’s self-made trouble brewing.
Can NBCU make it as a public traded company?
The shut-down of Universal’s development spending jives with this. Corporations undergoing due diligence with suitors do all they can to minimize exposure on the expense side.
The same practice of expense and debt reduction, plus increasing cash reserves is undertaken for simple DD when attracting new investment.
Apparently execs at Uni are being asked to provide financial and contractual information at a level commensurate with a purchase not an IPO. But it may be Vivendi itself that is looking to buy back NBC/U rather than Time Warner.
Not clear how picking up NBCUni would help WB, seems more like adding east germany to west
NBC/Uni IS under an evil gypsy curse. The gypsy is named Zucker.
NBC has been in a tailspin for years now, they need viewers badly, so what did these lamebrains choose to do, they fired the the leads of Criminal Intent, replacing the great Vincent D’onofrio with the befuddled imp Jeff Goldbloom. Way to keep the viewers on your side NBC.It’s decisions like this that make us see just how stupid the people who run this network are, they just don’t get it, when you have a dedicated, loyal audience for a show generating big bucks, don’t mess with it. They will never learn, but when we leave the show with Vincent I hope ( but doubt) maybe they will reverse course and give us back our show. Hope springs eternal!
Before someone thinks it’s Goldblum’s fault that CI is being evicerated (it’s not) let me point out that the rumors are flying that the 3 leads in question (Erbe Bogosian & D’Onofrio) were offered insultingly low salaries (think 50% off) so they’re most likely leaving because ‘they got offers they *had* to refuse’.
Anybody here want to take 50% off their salary? Volunteers?
Clearly the execs working at GE/NBCU/USA don’t, but they think it’s okay to balance the conglomerate’s colossal financial screwups on the backs of the people who actually do the real work (and yes I even mean the staffers and the crews). WTF?!?
That tiny minority of actors and other ‘militant unionists’ who were fighting to not lose ground on the minimums weren’t so hair on fire crazy after all, folks…if the ‘other than name’ talent can financially make it to 2011 it’s going to be a miracle and the ‘names’ are going to have to outplay the players to get better than scale. Good luck with that without a strong union or in the case of the individual a spine.
This time though things are different in that it’s as easy for an outsider (including mere audience members & fans) to get real entertainment business information online as it is to read celebrity puff pieces. The audiences know that these companies have screwed up big time and the best they can do is have their social media PR drones pitch hissy fits at those who call them out for their incompetence (the USA CI Twitter account is a travesty and should be a textbook case for how not to run a social media campaign).
The one true constant is that if you put off, lie to and ultimately abuse your audience it won’t come back. The companies need the viewers but the reverse is hardly true and in an ever burgeoning world of amusement options, such conduct is suicidal.
Not a regular on these comments and blogs.
What one sees with a quick scan is what derision is directed towards Jeff Zucker.
Any deep alliance with Time Warner is seemingly out of the question and why anyone could think that is beyond me.
Actually the puzzling thing when one reads deep on all this is understanding the math.
The Vivendi buyout was about $ 4 or $ 6 billon; in the news on Comcast and a new joint venture it was written that GE would contribute (loan) some bigger sum such as $ 8 or $10 billion but that it would also get a payment back then after lending of some $ 3 or 4 or 5 billion. (the deals become less about “sums” than about tax treatment and read about Sam Zell and his sales of assets with respect to taxes ).
All this news continues to reflect how screwed up things are in the global economy and specifically in Hollywood. In the stories of Universal it mentions that the two execs did contribute either the two best Uni years; or among the very best and they have been in the jobs what three or four years? Is Iger really sane to get rid of a deep resource like Dick Cook to get a TV guy without a day in his career in theatrical features?