General Electric reported profit of $5.4 billion for the quarter ended June 30, up by more than 10 percent from $4.9 billion in the same quarter last year and on target.
NBC Universal generated $3.6 billion in revenues and profits of $904 million, up 2 percent compared to a year ago and up for the third consecutive quarter.
Compared to the double-digit growth shown by some divisions of parent company General Electric, NBC’s performance was modest, but “we really are very positive” about NBCU in the second half of the year, parent company General Electric Chairman Jeff Immelt said during a briefing of analysts Friday.
GE chief financial officer Keith Sherin cited three consecutive quarters of revenue and profits growth from NBCU and said: “We feel really good about the progress here.”
In a follow-up e-mail to NBCU employees, NBCU President Jeff Zucker said the quarterly financial performance “doesn’t tell the full story. The fact is, we have a tremendous number of exciting developments across every area of this company. We’re on a solid growth trajectory, with significant progress in every one of our strategic initiatives: content, international, digital, diversity and costs.”
While acknowledging, not for the first time, that “our most visible challenge continues to be NBC prime time,” Mr. Zucker noted it is under the newly named management of NBC Entertainment co-chairmen Ben Silverman and Marc Graboff and that there has been good news in the upfront ad sales for the 2007-08 season.
“We have just about wrapped up the television upfront sales season, with $4 billion in ad sales commitments from advertisers, including a nearly $1 billion deal with major media buyer GroupM, which marked the first time a deal has been done based on a metric which pays us for DVR viewing,” Mr. Zucker said.
(Editor: Horowitz)