US telecoms and media giant Comcast will be spinning off its NBCUniversal (United States) and Sky (Europe) broadcasters, it has been revealed.
The media heavyweights will now form one publicly listed firm under the NBCUniversal name and branding.
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Comcast will retain its broadband and wireless business, while the new NBCU media and entertainment spin-off will contain – as well as NBCU's Peacock (streaming) and Telemundo (Spanish-language) operations – the Comcast film and TV studios, and entertainment network Bravo.
The new publicly traded firm will have Mike Cavanagh, Comcast's current president, as its new chief executive (CEO), while former Comcast chief financial officer Michael Angelakis will come back to head up the remaining Comcast elements.
From a sports broadcasting point of view, NBCU would control Sky's pay-TV operations across Europe, with the broadcaster's UK and Italian divisions all holding rights to a wide range of top-tier sporting properties, both in their domestic markets and international competitions. Sky Deutschland in Germany was recently sold to RTL for just under $80 million.
Comcast has said the spin-off is expected to be complete in around 12 months, subject to the usual shareholder and regulatory approvals.
The current parent company will also continue to hold a stake of just under 20% in NBCU for up to a year, following this completion.
Last year, Comcast spun off its cable networks, such as US broadcasters MSNBC and CNBC, as well as Golf Channel, into a new umbrella company, Versant (which is also publicly traded).
The US heavyweight has claimed that housing NBCU and Sky under one roof will allow a solidified media empire to follow a centralized strategy.
Brian Roberts, current co-CEO of Comcast, has said the separation will "unlock a more entrepreneurial management approach” for each sector of the business.
He added: "This new company [the spin-off] will be well positioned to pursue the significant opportunities that lie ahead, to partner across the media and entertainment ecosystem, and will be poised to grow.”
Comcast first acquired Sky for £31 billion (now, $41 billion) eight years ago.
This also comes with Sky reportedly close to officially unveiling a takeover of the media and entertainment divisions of UK commercial free-to-air broadcaster ITV, for £1.6 billion.
In terms of recent moves of similar significance in the world of broadcast ownership, earlier this month, the US Department of Justice gave its approval for the acquisition of the Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) media and broadcast giant by Paramount Skydance.
The anti-trust division of the DoJ spent months reviewing the proposed merger – which is costing Paramount $111 billion – and ended up concluding that it will not hurt the competitive nature of the US broadcast market.
Now that the merger has passed this stage of regulatory scrutiny in the US – although other challenges do still lie ahead in the UK – it looks set to lead to the creation of a sports rights behemoth across the US and globally.
