cable channel

NBCUniversal owner Comcast is indeed interested in some of Warner Bros. Discovery’s assets.

On a Thursday call with analysts to discuss third-quarter earnings, Comcast President Mike Cavanagh suggested the Philadelphia giant might bid for certain Warner assets, primarily the Warner Bros. film and television studios and its streaming service HBO Max.

Sources had previously said Comcast was angling to join the Warner Bros. Discovery auction after that company’s board formally opened the process last week. The Warner board has unanimously rejected three unsolicited bids from David Ellison’s Paramount, which has offered $58 billion for all of Warner Bros. Discovery.

Comcast isn’t looking to acquire the entire company or Warner’s large portfolio of cable channels that include CNN, TBS and Food Network. Instead, Cavanagh suggested that Comcast’s interest would be more narrow.

He noted that NBCUniversal and Warner Bros. have compatible businesses. Comcast wants to grow its studios business and its struggling streaming service, Peacock, which lost $217 million during the quarter.

“You should expect us to look at things that are trading in our space … It’s our job to try to figure out if there are ways to add value,” Cavanagh told analysts.

But he added a note of caution, saying the company didn’t feel that a merger was “necessary.”

“The bar is very high for us to pursue any [merger] transactions,” he said.

The Warner Bros. Discovery auction comes amid deep turmoil in the industry. Traditional entertainment companies, including Warner and NBCUniversal, have long relied heavily on cable programming fees to boost profit but consumers have been scaling back on pay-TV subscriptions amid the move to streaming.

To address that challenge, Comcast is spinning off its cable channels, including CNBC, MSNBC, USA and Golf Channel, into a separately traded company called Versant. That process is expected to be complete this year.

As part of the transition, the liberal-leaning MSNBC is changing its name to MS Now and dropping the peacock from its network logo, reflecting its pending exit from NBC, which will remain part of Comcast.

Cavanagh suggested that Comcast would not double down in a declining cable channel business that it was already exiting.

But Warner has other compelling businesses, including HBO and its Warner Bros. film and television studio. The Warner Bros. studio has released a string of movie blockbusters this year, including “Superman” and “A Minecraft Movie.”

Warner and NBCUniversal are investing in their respective streaming services but both lag Netflix, YouTube and Walt Disney Co. in terms of subscribers and engagement. Peacock has 41 million subscribers; the service has lost billions of dollars since Comcast launched it five years ago.

To shore up Peacock and the NBC broadcast network, Comcast has doubled down on sports, including striking a $27-billion, 10-year deal for NBA basketball, a contract that kicked in this month with the new season. (Nielsen ratings for the inaugural NBA game on NBC last week were strong — nearly 5 million viewers).

Most analysts believe that Ellison’s Paramount is in the best position to win Warner Bros. Discovery. They point to the Ellison family’s determination, wealth and political connections. Tech titan Larry Ellison, who is backing his son’s bid, is the second-richest man in the world behind Elon Musk, and President Trump views the elder Ellison as a good friend.

In contrast, Trump has displayed a dim view of Comcast Chairman and Chief Executive Brian Roberts, in large part, because of Comcast’s ownership of MSNBC, which Trump has accused of being an arm of the Democratic National Committee.

The tension has led observers to conclude that Comcast would face a stormy regulatory review process with Trump overseeing the Department of Justice, which would likely perform an anti-trust review of any major transaction for Warner Bros. Discovery.

Concerns about Comcast’s ability to get deals through the Trump administration may be overblown, Cavanagh said.

“I think more things are viable than maybe some of the public commentary [suggests],” Cavanagh said.

Charter Communications is returning the Walt Disney Co.-owned cable channels that were dropped from its Spectrum TV service in 2023 after the two sides negotiated new terms for carrying ESPN and ABC.

The companies announced Thursday an “expanded distribution agreement” that will give Spectrum TV Select customers the ad-supported version of streaming platform Hulu and eight linear TV channels: Disney Jr., Disney XD, Freeform, FXX, FXM, Nat Geo Wild, Nat Geo Mundo and BabyTV. They will be added at no additional cost for subscribers.

The cable channels were dropped in 2023 when the companies were unable to agree on terms for carrying ESPN and ABC, which led to a 10-day blackout for Spectrum customers.. The standoff kept tennis fans in Spectrum homes from seeing ESPN’s U.S. Open coverage and threatened access to the season premiere of “Monday Night Football.”

At the time, Charter resolved the dispute by agreeing to pay higher fees to keep the rights to carry the main engines of Disney’s TV lineup — including ESPN and ABC — but had to sacrifice some of the company’s smaller channels. Charter had sought to get free access to Disney’s streaming channels for its customers as well.

The terms of the expanded deal to return the dropped channels and add Hulu were not disclosed beyond saying it was “financially net positive for both companies.” It’s likely Disney needed to maintain the distribution of the channels to Charter’s nearly 15 million cable homes to keep them viable for advertisers.

“These channels expand Spectrum’s entertainment offering and create meaningful value for both companies by boosting advertising reach and strengthening audience engagement across platforms,” Charter said in its announcement of the deal.

The Disney-Charter pact is a sign of how both programmers and cable and satellite services are being more flexible as they contend with the steady decline of pay TV customers. Pricing is a key reason consumers have abandoned traditional TV for streaming.

Separately, satellite TV provider DirecTV announced Thursday it will offer a new slimmed-down package of channels called MyKids, designed for younger viewers. The package offered for $19.99 a month will provide access to kid- and teen-oriented channels from Disney, Paramount Global, Warner Bros. Discovery and Weigel Broadcasting.

MyKids, which includes Nickelodeon, Disney Channel, Cartoon Network and MeTV Toons, is one of the newest lower priced genre-based packages DirecTV is offering to customers. In addition to MyKids, DirecTV customers can select packages with news, entertainment, sports and Spanish-language channels, all priced well under the monthly cost of subscribing to the entire channel lineup.