Peter Kafka

Recent Posts by Peter Kafka

NBC U's Okay Quarter Just Fine for GE

GE doesn’t really care much about NBC Universal, which is why it’s happy to hand it off to Comcast (CMCSA) once regulators sign off. But for the record, the cable/broadcast/movie conglomerate posted an okay quarter: Revenues were up five percent and operating profit was up 13 percent, the company said this morning.

Bear in mind that a year ago, those numbers were down eight percent and 41 percent, respectively. So Jeff Zucker and company are still digging out of a hole. But whatever: Sometime, in the next 12 months or so, this will be come Brian Roberts’ and Steve Burke’s problem.

For the record, here’s how GE (GE) describes the unit’s performance to investors (click image to enlarge). As usual, NBC U’s real star is its cable business, though GE said the NBC broadcast unit had a strong upfront sales cycle, up 18 percent:

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Another gadget you don’t really need. Will not work once you get it home. New model out in 4 weeks. Battery life is too short to be of any use.

— From the fact sheet for a fake product entitled Useless Plasticbox 1.2 (an actual empty plastic box) placed in L.A.-area Best Buy stores by an artist called Plastic Jesus