Comcast to Split Off NBCUniversal and Sky Into a New Company

Comcast, one of the biggest media and technology companies in the United States, has announced plans to spin off its entertainment arm into a brand-new, separate company. The new business will include NBCUniversal, which runs Hollywood movies, TV channels, theme parks, and the streaming service Peacock, as well as Sky, a major broadcaster in Europe. The split will take about one year to complete. Once it is done, Comcast itself will focus mainly on providing broadband internet and mobile phone services to about 65 million homes across the U.S.

Brian Roberts, the co-chief executive of Comcast, said that separating the two companies will help each one work better on its own. He believes the split will help unlock a more independent and creative way of managing each business. Mike Cavanagh, who is currently also co-chief executive of Comcast, will lead the new entertainment company. Roberts said the new company will be home to some of the most valuable brands in entertainment, sports, news, and theme parks.

One big question the split raises is what will happen to Sky News, the 24-hour TV news channel. When Comcast bought Sky for £31 billion back in 2018, it promised to keep funding Sky News for ten years and to increase its budget each year. That promise is getting close to its end date, and Sky News costs around £100 million a year to run, but is thought to lose as much as £80 million annually. People in the news industry are now wondering whether the new company will continue to fully pay for Sky News once the original commitment expires.

Leaders at Sky News say they are not too worried for now. David Rhodes, the executive chair of Sky News, has said that Comcast's commitment gives Sky News more security than most news organizations have. He added that the parent company has been supportive of Sky News's independence every step of the way. Still, the spin-off has renewed speculation — or guesswork — about Sky News's long-term future.

There have been other big changes linked to Sky News in recent months. Comcast chose not to renew a deal that allowed the Sky News brand name to be used in Australia, so Sky News Australia is being renamed News24 later this year. Last month, Sky also left a joint news venture with the United Arab Emirates called Sky News Arabia, which had faced criticism over how it covered the war in Sudan. These moves show that Comcast has been quietly scaling back some of its international news operations.

The new entertainment company could soon become a major player in British news for a different reason. Sky is about to announce a £1.6 billion deal to take over ITV's media and entertainment businesses, which include free-to-air TV channels and the ITVX streaming platform in the UK. If regulators approve that deal, the new spun-off company would own 40% of ITN, the company that makes news programs for ITV, Channel 4, and Channel 5. That would make it the single largest shareholder in ITN.

Comcast has been making many large changes to its business in recent years. Earlier this year, it already spun off several U.S. cable TV channels — including MSNBC, E!, and SYFY — into a new separate company called Versant, as fewer people watch traditional television. Since buying Sky, Comcast has also written down Sky's value by nearly one quarter and sold Sky Deutschland to the European broadcaster RTL. On a more positive note, NBCUniversal is building its first European theme park near Bedford, England, called Universal United Kingdom Resort, which is expected to open in 2031 and welcome around 8.5 million visitors in its very first year.