NBCUniversal’s long-awaited transfer to spin off most of its cable belongings and reorganize the studio’s prime management impressed loads of questions in regards to the media conglomerate’s future – and, for a lot of within the trade, a case of Donna Langley déjà vu.
The veteran movie govt who had been chief content material officer throughout all of NBCUniversal has but once more expanded her function on the firm, this time to Chairman of NBCUniversal Leisure and Studios. The promotion provides her sole greenlight energy over content material and advertising spending throughout movie, TV and streaming. Comcast veteran Matt Strauss was named chair of NBCUniversal’s media group, overseeing advert gross sales, distribution and affiliate relations.
“It is a coronation for Donna,” mentioned one elite dealmaker who works with actors and administrators. “Properly, one other one.”
The agent isn’t fallacious, nor are quite a few Hollywood gamers that Selection spoke with who questioned what the distinction is between her new function and the Chief Content material Officer function she took on 16 months in the past. It was then, in July 2023, Langley was given reign over all inventive endeavors on the firm. However at a company as byzantine as NBCU, there’s palace intrigue behind each peacock feather. This time round, the massive chess piece that slides onto Langley’s aspect of the board is Bravo.
For the previous yr and a half, tensions flared up inside the teams led by Langley and the previous NBCU media group chairman Mark Lazarus, an govt who will now function CEO of the cable spinoff firm (that can boast belongings together with USA Community, CNBC, Syfy, MSNBC and E!).
Whereas Langley had dominion over all manufacturing operations, Lazarus stored oversight of NBC programming and NBCU’s most respected cable asset within the streaming period: Bravo, because of its sticky model of unscripted hits together with the “The Actual Housewives,” “High Chef” and “Under Deck” franchises. These exhibits carry out properly through streaming on Peacock with millennials and Gen Z, which is why Bravo is the one linear cable channel that can stay with the mothership. The cut up between Lazarus and Langley brought about confusion to sellers and their deal brokers from the outset, sources mentioned.
“Why do I want two yeses if Donna is the one in cost?” one other prime agent questioned aloud earlier this summer time. The uncomfortable state of affairs additionally created some complications for Francis Berwick, who had been chairman of NBCUniversal Leisure overseeing the content material and technique for NBC and the cable channels. She had technically reported to 2 bosses as she helped NBC schedule its “Chicago” dramas and Bravo serve up its “Housewives” tea – and even stronger stuff on the widespread Bravocon in-person fan conventions which have turn into a profitable enterprise for NBCU of late.
Langley performed a yearslong ready recreation to reach at her place of energy – a uncommon seat of autonomy for a girl on the studio stage – and earned her oats by producing blockbuster movie franchises and luring star expertise together with the highest filmmaker of his era, Christopher Nolan, who’s sticking round to make his subsequent film after bringing Common a greatest image Oscar and an almost $1 billion in international field workplace haul for 2023’s “Oppenheimer.” She’s additionally held within the highest regard by the administrators and producers she shepherds from improvement to the display and, more and more, to streaming “bridge content material” primarily based on IP like “Jurassic World” and “Quick and Livid.”
Protecting Langley has result in some contraction within the C-suite. Additionally in July 2023, Comcast president Michael Cavanagh (who has been NBCU’s de facto CEO since Jeff Shell’s exit in April 2023) dismissed his then-TV and streaming head Susan Rovner. Modifications like that might theoretically give Langley a wider berth to execute her imaginative and prescient – however Lazarus was not so simply shaken off, three insiders near NBCU mum or dad firm Comcast informed Selection. Significantly after he helped ship what Comcast brass thought-about a sterling Paris Olympic video games this summer time, an occasion synergized throughout all NBCU properties with the subtlety of a firehose. However by September, insiders mentioned, the winds modified. Rumors of Lazarus getting siloed into advert gross sales, sports activities and operations kicked up. An NBCU insider mentioned no such modifications have been thought-about till final month, when Lazarus was provided the gig operating the spinoff firm. The insider additionally downplayed any private battle between Langley and Lazarus, although they conceded the earlier construction wanted extra “readability.”
With Strauss, Langley will get a accomplice she will implement new processes with whereas managing her personal steadiness sheets, added one other high-ranking insider aware of the corporate. Strauss is taken into account a trusted star by the Philadelphia set, mentioned one other supply, having earned the belief of Comcast CEO Brian Roberts over time by his labors on the Comcast aspect of the home that cable constructed. However relating to inventive, the lifeblood of NBCU, Langley will run the present.
Whereas this newest “coronation” firmly installs Langley on the prime of the pyramid, don’t count on the NBCU intrigue to decelerate. Lazarus’ new spun off entity can have free reign to return after current NBCU expertise, and NBCU might should dig deep to maintain core gamers hooked up to what’s inarguably a smaller media empire after Wednesday. There may also doubtless be casualties within the type of redundancies throughout each firms.
This symphony (additionally the title of NBCU’s beloved vertical integration program) will want much more tuning.