“When you put your investment in content — which is what we have done and will continue to do — you’re not betting on any one technology. You’re betting on them all,” NBC Universal chairman and CEO Bob Wright told the New York York Times in an interview about the G.E. unit’s programming and digital strategies. Wright, a G.E. vice chairman, oversees the smallest of the six units.
Broadband is a top priority for NBCU with the creation of NBC Universal Digital Media. Jeff Zucker offered the Times an example of the ways the company expand build on broadcast/cable content — original broadband-only bits featuring Triumph the Insult Comic Dog. (I’m guessing the bits could be delivered via mobile, too.)
The news operation, which includes CNBC and the Microsoft MSNBC/MSNBC.com joint venture, needs an overhaul. Newsweek’s Johnnie Roberts reported this weekend that NBCU has been talking to three execs outside of NBC: ESPN’s progamming whiz Mark Shapiro, Time Warner’s Patricia Fili-Krushel (the first woman to run a broadcast net, ABC, and part of the Disney brain drain) and, perhaps for a more senior position, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia CEO Susan Lyne — an architect of ABC’s programming turnaround. Any of the three would be a major catch for NBC, particularly Shapiro because that would hurt a rival at the same time. (That would also be the most surprising to me.) Programming across multiple networks and platforms is the priority, hence the lack of emphasis on news background. Meanwhile, as we’ve written here, Microsoft and NBCU continue to look for ways to remake their deal.
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