We come in peace
Comcast chief Brian Roberts launches charm offensive after his £30billion takeover of Sky
BrIan roberts is far from the typical buccaneering media tycoon. Softlyspoken and engaging, the Comcast proprietor cuts a less intimidating figure than some of the industry’s more aggressive players.
The 59-year-old is on a whistle-stop tour of Sky’s operations in europe having bought the TV giant from under the nose of rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox for £30bn.
On Monday it was Sky’s offices in Munich and Milan. Yesterday it was the broadcaster’s vast shiny campus at Isleworth, west London.
In a joint interview with Sky chief executive Jeremy Darroch, roberts is anxious to calm fears among his new British workforce that there is going to be huge change.
Indeed, he concedes that Comcast, founded as a cable company by his father, has a huge amount to learn from Sky in terms of streaming of content, the flexibility of Sky’s advanced Q box and the introduction of voice controlled remote controls.
Promising to ‘do no harm’ to Sky, he says: ‘There is a simpatico. There is voice technology for the remote control and the integration of new products such as netflix and streaming. Sky is ahead of the US, frankly. Sky’s a great business.’ This is music to Darroch’s ears. ‘The whole journey of Sky has been about broadening it, getting it into on demand, getting it into new forms of content and new services,’ says the Sky boss, who is staying in his job. ‘If you only put your chips in one place, such as Premier League football, you’re going to be exposed.’
Their enthusiasm is echoed later at a ‘town hall’ session with Sky staff.
APPearIng alongside Darroch, Comcast finance chief Mike Cavanagh and nBC Universal chief executive Steve Burke, roberts declares that Sky could ‘go faster’ with the backing of its new £133bn US parent.
There has been concern Comcast might have overpaid for Sky following a protracted bidding war with Fox. It is also feared that Comcast has taken too much debt and the only way to make it pay will be heavy cuts and integration. roberts is dismissive. ‘We already have sold all the bonds in what was the most oversubscribed deal in the company’s history, and the credit agencies maintained an a minus rating, which is the best we have ever had,’ the Comcast chairman and chief executive says. ‘ We raised $27bn and we did it in one day.’
One of the great fears in Britain is that in typical american fashion Comcast will plunder Sky, whisk off its intellectual property and technology and seek to micro- manage Britain’s pay broadcaster from the US.
But roberts makes it clear that he and his family are in it for the longer term, running an empire in which the individual units, including Universal Studios and the nBC television network, work independently, and he regards news as sacrosanct. The Comcast chief believes the traffic will go both ways.
‘nBC Universal will be here at Sky next month as will the team from Comcast cable. Jeremy and the senior Sky team have already been to Philadelphia [Comcast HQ] and to new York. We are excited that Jeremy’s leading the team and we want to go into this future together.’
roberts and Comcast intend to focus on the US and europe for the moment rather than making a big push into asia.
‘We have presences in four of the top economies in the world now,’ he notes.
The main occasion when the arms of Comcast come together is when there is a major studio launch, such as Universal’s Christmas 2018 fantasy-musical offering The grinch, starring Benedict Cumberbatch. It has been launched in the US and is already available on some Sky networks.
as we chat, Sky workers pour out of the studios, technical centres and surrounding buildings for the ‘town hall’ meeting in the atrium at Sky Central.
among the great regulatory concerns was that the new own- ers might seek to axe the highly respected Sky news channels, an important aspect of the UK’s media plurality.
roberts makes clear that as the owners of america’s top terrestrial news broadcaster nBC, he really believes in independent public affairs television and he has willingly given assurances to Britain’s telecoms regulator Ofcom that Sky news will live on for at least another decade. In fact he sees it as an important marketing tool.
roberts is extraordinarily proud that after the recent atrocity at the Pittsburgh synagogue, nBC’s nightly news became the first broadcaster to lead its bulletin with a recitation of the Kaddish, the Hebrew prayer for the dead, as the names of the 11 shooting victims were listed. as someone with a Jewish background, he plainly was emotionally moved by the nBC approach.
The Comcast chairman is also proud that his is a family enterprise started by his father.
He added: ‘I think we are telling employees that every decision which is made is as if you owned the business, not if you are renting it.’