Comcast President Says Company Has Damn Good Hand in Media, Despite Losing Warners Deal

Comcast president (and soon-to-be co-CEO) Mike Cavanagh says that his company “did not expect that we had a high likelihood of prevailing” in its bid for Warner Bros. but that “I think we’re better for having taken a look” at the company.

Cavanagh made the comments at a UBS conference in New York Monday morning.

“It’s our job, so we thought better to take a look and do the work and see where it leads … and so that’s what we did,” Cavanagh said, confirming that Comcast proposed a deal to spin out NBCUniversal into a publicly traded company that would merge with Warner Bros.

“Had that come to be I think it would have been interesting play,” Cavanagh said. “It probably would have changed our streaming aspirations to be global streaming aspirations by necessity, but otherwise, we respect and understand the decision of the Warner Bros. board obviously to prefer the certainty of high levels of cash or collared stock.”

Comcast, of course, was one of three companies vying for Warner Bros., alongside David Ellison’s Paramount and Netflix. Paramount launched a hostile tender offer for Warners Monday morning at $30 per share.

Comcast’s plan, sources say, was to spin out NBCUniversal into Warner Bros., using that structure to create a new entertainment giant. Netflix, of course, ultimately swooped in with a higher bid.

With Comcast out of the mix, Cavanagh will need to help the company chart a path forward, perhaps seeing what other deals could be out there, or pouring more resources into their existing assets in pursuit of growth.

He made that case at the UBS summit.

Cavanagh outlined Comcast’s ambitions as being “unique in media,” combining theme parks with broadcast TV, film and TV studios and streaming, and touted the potential of their current strategy.

“NBC is a tremendous asset. I mean, walk in and out of 30 rRock and you just feel the legacy of the place our power in creating scripted content, both from the movie studios and on the TV side, whether it’s on our platforms or others,” Cavanagh said. “One of the things that’s interesting about Peacock is we were very slow to get in the game, doing wholesale to drive subs. So now that we’re later in the game, one of the opportunities we’ve had, and you’ve seen us in some of our recent deals with Amazon, with Apple, with YouTube, starting to allow our streaming service to be packaged in ways that capture the value that we’ve created through such a strong sports portfolio, and so I think the business has made great strides.”

He also touted the deal for Taylor Sheridan, telling the conference that “I think it makes the point that our studio is able to is an attractive place for creators to bring their work, and that’s a large part of what being great in that business and being perceived as adding value,” and praising Donna Langley and the studio team.

“I think our team in studios is excellent, so I think all we need to do is invest behind that team,” he added. We always look for more IP for them to use. We’ve done that through partnerships with Nintendo since we got Super Mario, and there’s ways to continue to do that.”

“We look at strategy for each of those pieces in the whole together as that’s the hand we’re playing, and we think it is a damn good hand,” he said.