I had the chance to chat with Beth Comstock and Jeff Gaspin this afternoon after new NBCU CEO Jeff Zucker revealed his top corporate structure. As we reported earlier — and as expected, their roles, along with that of Marc Graboff, have been expanded. At the same time, the org chart has been streamlined (as Gaspin put it, “We often had two leaders for every one business.”) and, for the first time in decades, content and distribution are paired instead of kept apart. In separate interviews, Comstock, now president, NBC Universal Integrated Media, and Gaspin, now president, NBC Universal Cable and Digital Content, explained their roles and how they intersect when it comes to NBCU’s digital strategy. At its most simplistic, he’s content and brand extension, while Comstock and her digital team, headed by Chief Digital Officer George Kliavkoff, are deals and expansion.
Gaspin: “I’m the content guy. I’m the clearinghouse.” When a deal is proposed or made or internal ideas involve content, his group works on making it happen. Comstock: “The difference is pretty clear to us. Jeff’s responsibility is content for the existing brands. … think of what Jeff does as extending the brand.” … The central digital media team “develops distribution, new platforms, new businesses.” J.B. Perrette, president of digital distribution, reports to both divisions — to Gaspin for cable, to Kliavkoff for digital deals. Gaspin: “It’s very hard to separate traditional distribution from future distribution yet, in many ways, it’s a very different set of relationships.”
Neither sees this as a major change for digital; that started in late 2005 when Comstock’s return from GE corporate marked a seismic shift. Gaspin: “On the digital side this is the structure we have been evolving too, so it
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