The Sunday before polling day, NBCUniversal Corporate synergy was in full swing.

30 Rockefeller Plaza played – for at least one day – the long-running public affairs show Meet the presswith moderator Kristen Welker grilling Sen. Raphael Warnock and Gov. Doug Burgum.

She was also joined by her colleagues to kick off the election: Steve Kornacki worked on the interactive “Big Board,” explaining the polls, and during the panel discussion, MSNBC host Jen Psaki served as a liberal voice .

It was a synergy that may never happen again if parent company NBCU Comcast successfully separates its cable channels from the rest of its media assets.

The cable giant announced Wednesday that it plans to officially move forward with its proposed spinoff, which will see MSNBC, CNBC, E!, Syfy, USA, Oxygen, Golf Channel, Fandango and Rotten Tomatoes transform into their own company, which is headed by Mark Lazarus.

But the SpinCo deal comes with plenty of complications, and executives appear to have few answers for now. What happens once the split is complete could reshape the networks — and the TV industry as a whole.

Nowhere are the questions more acute than on Comcast’s cable news channels, MSNBC and CNBC. An MSNBC source described the mood at the network as “depressed,” while a CNBC source described the mood as “bored, but probably good.”

It’s a dynamic that makes sense. MSNBC has benefited enormously from its close ties to NBC News, with its own talent gaining exposure on television and many NBC anchors taking up time on the cable channel. MSNBC relied on the extensive reporting capabilities of NBC News, which it supplemented with its own, more opinion-oriented programming.

CNBC, meanwhile, has long operated with a high degree of autonomy. Its executive offices, newsroom and studios are in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey (it has satellite studios at the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq), and only since then has Cesar Condé took over the NBCUniversal News Group in 2020 as CNBC’s resources began to be integrated into the broader news operation.

Employees aren’t sure what’s in store for them (no longer expect discounted theme park vacations), but they are more confident in their ability to perform outside of the larger NBCU company. CNBC began reporting on Lazarus yesterday, getting a head start on the new structure.

Lazarus met with top MSNBC talent on Wednesday, joined by MSNBC President Rashida Jones, according to a source close to the company. Lazarus was optimistic but acknowledged the complexities and uncertainties of the deal, some of which will be very close to who MSNBC is.

Consider: Will the channel continue to be called MSNBC? Will he still be able to use the Peacock emblem? Will the network reach a financial agreement with NBC News to continue using its reporting, or will it pursue other options? These are big questions with no clear answers, and at MSNBC in particular, the devil is in the details.

In a memo to NBCUniversal staff after the deal was announced, Comcast Chairman Mike Cavanagh introduced the new company in the context of news, sports and entertainment. The USA and Golf Channel, he writes, will be the home of the sport, with rights to WWE, NASCAR, the Premier League, golf, college basketball and the Olympics.

But will they really do it?

It’s NBCUniversal that owns those rights, and while the companies are almost certain to reach some sort of deal to continue allowing those sports to appear on cable channels, the spinoff also creates significant uncertainty in the long run. term as to whether SpinCo will retain these rights. those rights the next time NBCU renews them…or if it seeks to acquire its own rights.

Rick Cordella, president of NBC Sports, said during a Sports Affairs Journal just hours after the deal closed, he said the deal was “probably just a microcosm of our broader industry…when NBCU was first acquired by Comcast, (the cable channels) were the crown jewel, and now we look at things a little. differently in this fragmented media world in which we live.

Like Lazarus, Cordella had few details about how the split would work, something NBC’s sports rights partners are likely eager to learn more about.

“I can’t speak to all the logistics of how this is all going to happen, but from a sports standpoint, the partners we have on the cable assets like Golf Channel and USA, we’re going to fulfill all of our obligations, all the promises we made for them,” he added.

It’s worth noting that Golf Channel is similar to CNBC in that it operated independently in Orlando before integrating with NBC Sports in 2021. Perhaps it will return south as part of the spinoff.

But a sports source speculated that the new company could become a sports player itself, seeking to acquire whatever new rights it can, given what could be a short shelf life for the company’s old sports content. NBC.

The new SpinCo will feature plenty of entertainment, with USA, E!, Oxygen and Syfy all present to varying degrees. NBCU was in the process of bringing more scripted fare to the United States when the deal was announced.

But there’s no doubt that in recent years the bulk of NBCU’s entertainment investment has gone to Peacock, the NBC broadcast network, and to a lesser extent Bravo, with the cable channels doing what they could with fewer resources.

Will the new structure allow them to make more investments in entertainment? Maybe. It could also allow them to buy from more producers, giving them an option. The standalone company could also presumably strike its own streaming deals, allowing it to license its own entertainment to other streaming platforms. But cable simply isn’t the place for entertainment anymore, as NBCU’s own actions demonstrate. Suits was a hit in the United States, but it became a phenomenon on Netflix. However, the company’s upcoming spin-off will air on NBC and Peacock, leaving the US in a pickle.

An oddity in the matter: NBCU maintains only one cable channel: Bravo.

That makes sense. Bravo has arguably forged the strongest brand in the company’s cable portfolio, with its reality shows generating not only a substantial television audience, but also an audience on Peacock. If any brand were to survive the shift to streaming within the company, it would be Bravo.

But the deal raises questions about how long the Bravo cable channel will survive, or whether NBCU wants to move faster to integrate it into Peacock (or for that matter, NBC, where Bravo-branded shows could air).

Although Bravo will have the NBC network to help it retain its distribution (more on that below), it will be left without its cable channel siblings in the broader portfolio (putting aside the Telemundo channels, this activity remaining intact).

There is no doubt that NBCU’s cable channels have benefited from being connected to the NBC broadcast network. When carriage deals are struck, NBC is about as inescapable as it gets, and the company had leverage to continue carrying the rest of its channels.

This deal severs that connection and will force the SpinCo channels to negotiate for themselves, without NBC’s hammer.

As S&P Global Market Intelligence analyst Scott Robson notes, Comcast has arguably been more aggressive in the cable business than any of its competitors when it comes to recognizing the business’s economic challenges.

“Comcast has been more aggressive than any other media company in shutting down basic cable networks over the years, shutting down 7 networks since 2015,” Robson says. “As a result, it is not very surprising that Comcast is divesting itself from the cable networks. Cable networks are more vulnerable to future declines than broadcast networks due to the shrinking pay TV universe.

S&P estimates that next year the biggest channels, including USA, Bravo, E!, MSNBC and Syfy, will be in about 60 million homes, and others like CNBC and Oxygen in slightly fewer. But which channels will be the pillars of the spin-off? USA? If so, what influence will it really have in the negotiations?

Consolidation is the biggest question of all.

Comcast has no qualms about what it sees the new company doing, with Cavanagh noting that SpinCo will be able to “play offense” and operate “as a potential partner and acquirer of other media companies complementary”.

Immediately, the buzz in Hollywood focused on Paramount, where new management is expected to take over in the new year, with plenty of interest in studio Paramount, streaming and CBS, but less enthusiasm for cable television brands like MTV and Comedy Central. .

Independent brands like AMC Networks or Hallmark also come to mind, as does Warner Bros.’ suite of channels. Discovery, although executives appear focused on executing their strategy or pursuing a bigger deal.

Comcast’s turn will trigger major changes that aren’t entirely clear yet, but it’s almost certain to become the long-awaited rollable vehicle for the industry. The only question is who is in and who is out.