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Comcast to invest $300M more in NBCU this year
The company, which bought a controlling
interest in NBCUniversal in January, said $200 million will be spent
mainly on new NBC shows to fill the 10 p.m. slot where Jay Leno briefly
hosted a variety show every weeknight. It was a moneysaving move that
was abandoned within months, after local stations complained that low
ratings were hurting their 11 p.m. news.
Another $100 million will be spent on new shows on cable channels, which include Bravo, Oxygen, SyFy and E! Entertainment.
The company did not say how much NBCUniversal spent on shows last year.
NBCUniversal
CEO Steve Burke disclosed the figure Wednesday on a conference call
with analysts following Tuesday's release of Comcast Corp.'s upbeat
first-quarter results.
"The real key to turning around NBC is not necessarily increased investment. The real key is making better shows," Burke said.
The network already has a potential hit with "The Voice," a singing competition show that debuted last week.
The
company ordered 21 pilots of potential shows, the same number as last
year, and will announce to advertisers in New York this month which ones
it will order for the fall lineup.
Burke said the turnaround of
the fourth-ranked network will take several years but is worth the
investment. He said that even raising NBC to third place would mean
hundreds of millions of dollars more in operating profit annually.
Although
Comcast says it bought NBCUniversal for its lucrative cable channels,
Comcast promised government regulators that it would invest in
programming at the broadcast network.
Philadelphia-based Comcast
on Tuesday reported first-quarter net income of $943 million, or 34
cents per share, for the first three months of the year. That's up 9
percent from $866 million, or 31 cents, a year ago.
Excluding
costs related to its acquisition of NBCUniversal from General Electric
Co., earnings came to 36 cents per share. That topped the 34 cents
average expected by analysts polled by FactSet.
Revenue rose 32
percent to $12.1 billion. That also beat the $11.45 billion expected by
analysts. Comcast's first-quarter results include two months of
NBCUniversal's, which weren't included last year.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This
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