Comcast CEO On Hurricane Milton, M&A And Hulu

Universal CityWalk, a lagoon-front dining and retail complex, may open as early as tonight with the Universal Orlando theme park back in business tomorrow, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts said, as the area continue to deal with fallout from Hurricane Milton, which made landfall yesterday.

“Great news for that is we’ll be open tomorrow and maybe even tonight with CityWalk,” Roberts said at a media conference today. He note that Comcast Cable is also in the area, in Fort Myers, “right where the storm came in. So a lot of devastation, as we all have witnessed.”

Disney has also shut down Walt Disney World through today.

“We just had this storm a couple weeks ago in Georgia and Florida. It’s awful this time of year. So hopefully everybody is safe. The media did a great job of warning people, and it was taken quite seriously,” he said during a Q&A at the Bloomberg Screentime event in LA that touched on M&A, Hulu and the NBA.

In a consolidating media landscape, Comcast has eyed its share of deals, JVs and other transactions, Roberts acknowledged. “Obviously, people are going to say, here’s a changing landscape. What can I do that would advance myself? So conversation is always going to happen … all the time. I think it’s a tough thing to actually get executed.”

Paramount is now spoken for — Roberts said Comcast did not bid. Asked about ongoing speculation around a possible hookup with Warner Bros. Discovery, he said, “I don’t want to comment on any specific deal. They are a wonderful set of assets. And David Zaslav is doing … working really hard, trying to figure…”

“You were about to say doing a good job,” interrupted Bloomberg’s Lucas Shaw.

“How can you read my mind?” Roberts countered. “But in all seriousness, they’re trying to do something very different than” what Comcast is doing. “And therefore, I think we’re going to do our thing.”

“There’s always going to be conversations around, how do we remain very relevant globally. But where we have our own distribution, our own platforms, our own set of skills, I think that’s what we’re focused on.”

On the NBA, with whom Comcast just inked a package (and WBD did not), the CEO sad it may “theoretically” hurt profitability short term but is one of the best things to happen to the company as a big driver for streamer Peacock. “It’s about once every 25 years, 20 years that there’s a place at the right time,” he said. “And we really admire what the NBA is going to do, has done ,and we’re excited to be a part. Couldn’t be more excited.”

On Hulu, he said, “We’re going to figure it out eventually.” Disney is buying out Comcast’s stake and made a hefty initial $8+billion base payment as the two sides haggle over valuation and what, if any, is still due.

“We worked out an amicable way to extricate [the company]. We’ve already taken [many] billions of dollars out on a several hundred-million dollar investment, and maybe more to come, we hope.”