The Hollywood Reporter had an article about NBC Universal, a unit of General Electric (NYSE: GE). It seems that the powers-that-be at NBC are bullish on cable television, to the degree that they believe it warrants its own structure. To that end, execs have decided to separate cable production from the broadcast network. NBC Universal Cable Studio, to be overseen by Bonnie Hammer (who now sports the title of president, cable entertainment and cable studio), will take care of content decisions at popular channels such as USA and the Sci Fi Channel (memo to Hammer: I am a huge fan of Doctor Who, don't ever cancel it).

A move like this might be understandable. The action on television these days definitely can be found on the cable outlets. How can you not like their model? The programming tends to be cheaper, there are reality shows everywhere, and content can be repeated to an ad nauseam degree a lot easier than it can be on a major network. Consider Viacom's (NYSE: VIA) MTV and VH1 -- if I miss that Celebrity Fit show on Thursdays, I have a good chance of catching it on some other evening. In fact, I'm sure we've all noticed that networks are starting to behave like cable outlets these days -- there's a good reason for it. Cable is important economic drivers for all media companies, including Disney (NYSE: DIS), News Corp. (NYSE: NWS), and Time Warner (NYSE: TWX). Plus, they are great incubators for ideas that can spread to other platforms.

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NBC Universal is serious about cable originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 26 Mar 2008 09:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.