It happened quietly... But it happened. We just found out that last year, Comcast-owned NBCUniversal sold its entire stake in Snap Inc — the Hollywood Reporter found the break-up note tucked away in a Comcast financial filing.
- When Snap went public 3 years ago, NBC revealed it had invested $500M.
- The OG content king wanted an in with the digital (non-cable) world of entertainment — Snap was that in. But now...
NBC has a new love interest... Streaming. And it's not just a fling. NBC has devoted over $2B to develop/launch its own streaming service, known as "Peacock". By dipping out of its Snap investment, NBC can splurge more on its own Millennial-friendly service. This drop the side-hustle, DIY-move could be a trend among content OGs:
Traditional media has a distribution problem... Think of media as a two-sided coin: content + distribution. A company can only be successful if it has both. NBC has spent 81 years racking up great content (cough, The Office) — but the way it traditionally distributes that content is shifting. It's main distribution channel (TV) is becoming outdated — that's why it's putting so much into its own streaming backbone.