Comcast Spinoff Company with 7 Cable Channels Named ‘Versant’ – What It May Mean for Streaming
NBC parent company Comcast is slimming down. The company is banishing 7 cable channels to a new company that will be called Versant. This means Comcast will no longer own USA Network, CNBC, MSNBC, Oxygen, E!, Syfy, and Golf Channel. Versant will also take control of digital assets including Fandango, Rotten Tomatoes, GolfNow, GolfPass, and SportsEngine.
Comcast will keep control of NBC, Peacock, Bravo, Universal Studios, and its theme parks.
Versant is set to spin out of Comcast before the end of 2025. CEO Mark Lazarus says Versant will not launch its own streaming service.
What Does This Mean for the Cable Channels and Streaming?
We hope Versant spends some money to prop up its brands. Comcast seemingly turned its back on each of these brands in recent years. CNBC and MSNBC is mostly a collection of talking heads, so we don’t expect much there.
Syfy used to be home to fun original series like the “Battlestar Galactica” reboot, “Mystery Science Theater 3000,” and “Farscape.” It would be nice to see innovation and investment for science fiction fans again.
E! is another channel that has fallen from grace. It wouldn’t be hard to produce some inexpensive programming that supplemented coverage of entertainment.
Expect Versant to partner with an existing streaming service to provide its content. One option would be a free service like Pluto TV that could air reruns of older shows in the Versant portfolio. Hulu would make sense as a destination for next-day on-demand streaming — it already has a great TV lineup.
The desperate move (and one that might pay off best) would be to sign on with Netflix. We’ve seen a history of little-seen shows getting a huge boost from Netflix’s audience. “Breaking Bad” is the rare show that grew its live audience every season. That’s because Netflix subscribers had an easy way to sample and binge the show leading up to each subsequent season premiere. “Outlander” followed this pattern as well. “Suits” never performed all that well during its run on live TV, but it became enormously popular on Netflix.
A more depressing option is for Versant to coast along with reruns. It’s the unfortunate strategy Comedy Central and MTV have taken. It’s hard to imagine Lazarus would want to pursue this strategy, but plenty of once-great channels have given up lately.
In an era of consolidation when giant companies are failing to innovate, a media spinoff could breathe new life into some older media brands. Here’s hoping Versant is ready to make a name for itself as a standalone media company.
