As NBCUniversal weathers the stunning departure of Jeff Shell, veteran Comcast executive Mike Cavanagh steps into the showbiz spotlight

As Comcast weathers the shock and sudden departure of NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell, the company has appointed senior executive Mike Cavanagh to the helm on an interim basis.

Cavanagh, who was promoted to Comcast president last October, will play a pivotal role in navigating the board transition and trying to keep NBCU on track. Although well-known and respected in business and financial circles, the Philadelphia-based executive has a much lower profile in Hollywood.

The unexpected new responsibilities land on Cavanagh’s board just months after he received a vote of confidence from CEO Brian Roberts and the company’s board. His promotion from chief financial officer to president made him the first person to hold that title outside the Roberts family, and with the new title came a contract extension through 2027.

Cavanagh joined Comcast as CFO in 2015 after 20 years in the financial services industry, including at JPMorgan Chase and the Carlyle Group.

Insider advertising has been more of a feature at Comcast than much media, and the company has a number of candidates expected to watch. However, a person familiar with the internal consultations stressed to Deadline that a formal search procedure has not yet begun. Cavanagh is seen as a highly skilled operator who has delved deep into NBCU’s operations, and no one is in a rush to trade in a new chief in the wake of Shell’s surprise departure.

Ralph Roberts (Brian’s father) founded Comcast in 1963 after purchasing American Cable Systems, a 1,200-subscriber provider in Tupelo, MS. Officially named Comcast in 1969, it has roots in Philadelphia and became a public company soon after. Comcast then acquired control of NBCU in 2011 and full ownership in 2013. While the deal was surrounded by a wall of skepticism at the time, it paid off over time and became a key pillar of the company during a decade of decline for the traditional cable business. . In contrast to AT&T’s spectacular failure to acquire Time Warner in an attempt to combine content with distribution, Comcast’s acquisition of NBCU was a mostly positive experience.

The parent company and NBCU have no shortage of internal candidates for the Shell job. In addition to the NBCU boss, Sky CEO Dana Strong and Comcast Cable CEO Dave Watson are key executives from other Comcast businesses. NBCU itself has a number of veteran executives, including Donna Langley, president of Universal Filmed Entertainment Group; Matt Strauss, President of Direct-to-Consumer and International; and Mark Lazarus, president of NBCU Television and Streaming.

As president, Cavanagh strengthened his ties with CEO Brian Roberts, often channeling corner-office thinking, speaking out publicly on a range of issues, and infusing his strategic acumen with dry wit. Last month, for example, he said at a Wall Street conference that the company would be “happy” to sell its one-third stake in Hulu to Disney, which owns the rest. At another conference in 2022, he gave a characteristically colorful but within-the-lines response when asked about the impact of the turmoil in the media landscape, from the turbulence of streaming to Windows debates to the unpredictable world of advertising. “None of the turmoil that’s going on has anyone at our company walking around with their hair on fire wondering if we should change our plans,” Cavanagh said. “We bury our heads and will do what we have to do for years to achieve great results organically.”

Whoever ends up taking the reins at NBCU must put streaming at the core of their strategic vision for the company, and that’s no easy puzzle to solve. Peacock, the company’s 3-year-old direct-to-consumer entrant, ended 2022 with 20 million paying subscribers and has steadily picked up steam after a slow start. Shell took its premium subscription tier after it began emphasizing the free, ad-supported, basic service tier. Cavanagh declared 2022 to be Peacock’s “peak loss” year as the company aims to break even by 2025.

The long-term fate of NBCU as a Comcast subsidiary is also at stake, though Cavanagh and other executives steadfastly refused to address it. The company emerged from a series of M&A talks involving Roku, WWE and Electronic Arts, and its $40 billion acquisition of Sky in 2018 and smaller deals for Xumo showed a healthy appetite for buying . Many Wall Streeters see it as a potential dance partner for Warner Bros. Discovery, as both face challenges funding their streaming ambitions while managing dwindling legacy TV assets.

Pivotal Research Group’s Jeffrey Wlodarczak is a proponent of the WBD combination scenario and believes it could be the keystone of a number of other deals. “We continue to believe that Comcast will make acquisitions that are more likely to lead to the content side of the business (in part because there are no distribution assets to buy), with a WBD 24 deal remaining a viable possibility,” he wrote in a recent post. to customers.

Billionaire John Malone, the architect of Discovery and WarnerMedia’s $43 billion merger, sparked a flurry of NBCU merger speculation in 2021 after that deal was announced. He called it “the icing on the cake” in an interview with CNBC. Furthermore, the WBD board member said he discussed a number of scenarios with Comcast’s Roberts, and the couple concluded that “all kinds of relationships between this company that we’re building and Brian’s company could be considered.” until regulatory approval is obtained.