Does NBC want to expand overseas?

Most investors don't like the idea that General Electric (NYSE:GE) owns NBC Universal. They can't figure out how it fits with the company's industrial and finance businesses. And there is a reason for that. The unit has no relationship whatsoever to anything else that GE does.

The NBC Universal division of GE is a bit of a mess. For the first six months of 2007, revenue fell from over $8.3 billion in 2006 to slightly more than $7.1 billion this year. Operating profit ticked up a bit from $1.536 billion to $1.595 billion, slightly less than 4%. But the profit from all of GE's divisions improved over 13% for that period, so the entertainment unit was a drag.

Now it appears that GE wants to double down on its NBC bet. According to Reuters, GE is considering buying Sparrowhawk Media, which owns the Hallmark channel. The price would be $351 million. Sparrowhawk is based in the UK.

The thinking behind the possible purchase seems to be that NBC Universal wants to have a larger portion of its business overseas.

But the entertainment business has not been good to GE, so why make matters worse?

Douglas A. McIntyre is a partner at 24/7 Wall St.