As Disney Retreats, AT&T and Comcast Have Options
Comcast's cable business goes from humdrum to happening, as its entertainment assets fail to entertain.
Comcast’s steady cable business is looking better by the day.
Photographer: Joe Raedle/Getty Images North AmericaCovid-19 has roiled the entertainment industry in ways that threaten to leave a permanent mark. Now, corporate giants such as Comcast Corp. and AT&T Inc. that have staked their futures on the space — from television and cinema, to amusement parks and sporting events — are left facing an uncomfortable choice: retrench or stay the course against increasing investor opprobrium.
Comcast, the cable giant that acquired NBCUniversal’s TV networks, film studio and theme parks in 2013, is now the target of an activist shareholder, Nelson Peltz’s Trian Fund Management. The hedge fund is known for pushing needlessly bulky companies to slim down by shedding their weakest assets. In this case, that would be NBCUniversal as well as Sky, Comcast’s recently acquired European satellite-TV unit. Last year, AT&T also attracted an activist, Elliott Management Corp., concerned with the trajectory of its own satellite-TV and Hollywood assets. What the two campaigns appear to have in common is a desire to make better sense of a mishmash of businesses undergoing seismic change that have since been grievously affected by the pandemic. Disney, Universal’s theme-park rival, said Tuesday it would let go of 28,000 workers from its U.S. parks.