Comcast president Mike Cavanagh addressed the ongoing SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes during Comcast’s second quarter earnings call Thursday.
The WGA work stoppage has been ongoing since May 2, while SAG-AFTRA went on strike July 14.
“We are committed to reaching a fair deal with the guilds as soon as possible,” Cavanagh said. “Beyond that, for all involved in the industry, broadly, a prolonged work stoppage and the longer it goes, the worse it’ll be. It is obviously going to have a negative impact all around.”
The strikes have brought scripted film and TV production to a standstill across Hollywood as the actors and writers unions continue picketing against the studios repped by the AMPTP.
“As you look at Peacock, I wouldn’t point out anything in particular related to strikes and its effect in 2023, the second half of the year,” Cavanagh said. “Obviously, the longer a strike, the more that could have an effect, as you look into 2024 and beyond. And that would be for ourselves and others, obviously, so it’s a level playing field. But to comment on Peacock in particular, in the second half [of the year], we’ve got a lot of strong content coming. We’ve got the NFL coming back. Obviously then, on top of that, we have an exclusive NFL Wildcard Game. We’re going to air Big 10 for the first time, which is fantastic, on Saturday nights. In movie slates, we’ve got ‘Super Mario Bros.’ coming to Peacock shortly, we’ve got ‘The Exorcist,’ ‘Five Nights at Freddy’s’ coming from Blumhouse and then on TV, some originals, including ‘The Continental,’ which is related to the ‘John Wick’ franchise. So we feel very good about the strength of what we have coming in the second half of the year content-wise.”
On July 6, Cavanagh announced NBCUniversal’s reorganization into four key units: NBCUniversal Studio Group, led by film chief Donna Langley, NBCUniversal Media Group, run by chairman of TV and streaming Mark Lazarus, NBCU News Group, run by existing news boss Cesar Conde, and the Universal Destinations and Experiences Group, headed up by parks boss Mark Woodbury.
The shakeup in leadership, which included the ousting of TV chief Susan Rovner, exits the company was the first major restructuring move made by Cavanagh since he took direct oversight of subsidiary NBCU upon the ousting of CEO Jeff Shell in April.
On Thursday, Comcast chief said there “nothing to quantify in the context of our company” regarding the dual strike’s potential effect on free cash flow, and “it’s all manageable,” however, “it will shift studio working capital out of the near term and into the future.” “So probably for 2023, a little bit of lower working capital, higher free cash flow and the flip side of that in 2024,” Cavanagh said.
Cavanagh also says Comcast is “not quite halfway through” its mission to convert Comcast subscribers over to a paying subscriber status on Peacock, following the end of its complementary sub package in June. “So when you look at the doubling of Peacock subs year over year, I’m optimistic about what the second half of the year brings feel pretty good about Peacock,” the Comcast president said.
More to come…
Peacock to Focus on Sports, Movies Amid SAG Strike
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