Comcast CEO Brian Roberts
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Comcast CEO Brian Roberts has weighed in on the carriage dispute showdown between Hollywood giant Walt Disney and cable giant Charter Communications, while also talking about his company’s one-third stake in Hulu being set to be sold to Disney.
Roberts reported that Sept. 30 will mark an initial deadline to set in motion Disney using a put option that would require the studio that owns the remaining two-thirds in Hulu to take over its minority stake. “As of Sept. 30, after some short period of time, Disney can call, we can put, and I believe that’s what will end up happening,” Roberts told the Goldman Sachs Communcacopia + Technology Conference.
He also talked about the valuation for the Hulu stake, which would likely have a floor of just under $30 billion, when only factoring in synergy and churn benefits. “I think we are excited to get this resolved and the minimum of $27.5 billion, that was just a hypothetical we picked out five years ago. The company is way more valuable today than it was then,” Roberts said.
He added the put call can be triggered around 30 days after the start gun is fired on Sept. 30, but that both parties were appraising the value of the Hulu stake and more possible suitors may step forward. “That’s a scarce kingmaker asset,” Roberts said of the Hulu stake set to go up for an unprecedented auction.
“If you were selling all of this, as is, there’d be a line of bidders around the block to actually buy all the content, all the bundling, of Hulu. That business we’ve never seen,” he insisted as Goldman Sachs, earlier hired by Comcast to explore strategic alternatives for the Hulu stake, gets set to initiate a formal sales process with Disney.
“It will take a little time for this to play out. But both companies wanted to get it behind us. So we pulled the date forward,” Roberts said. He also talked about the Disney-Charter showdown during his investor conference appearance.
“This dispute is putting tension around some issues. I hope they work it out. It’s in the interests of consumers,” Roberts insisted. With cord-cutting and streaming losses continuing to impact media and entertainment companies, Charter has complained that the rising affiliate fees they have to shell out for TV networks reaching fewer and fewer viewers makes less business sense.
“I look at our company. We don’t look at it as linear or streaming. We look at it as linear and streaming. With Peacock and NBCUniversal and Xfinity, we are the best aggregator. We have all the streaming apps, all the linear in one place,” Roberts argued as he pointed to Peacock, NBCUniversal ad-supported streaming platform as bolstering his company’s content offering to consumers alongside NBC and live sports.
“Each company is dealing with their version of this transformational moment. You’re going to see some tension,” he said. Roberts added Comcast’s expanding broadband capability will feed through to more live sports in the streaming space and other innovations.
“That needs bandwidth and it doesn’t not need freezing with the ball in the air,” he added, as rival Disney looks ahead to ESPN pivoting to the streaming space.