General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt praised NBC Universal for growing profits in Q4 for the fifth straight quarter. NBCU revenues were up 8% to 4.55 billion and profits gained 10% to 923 million. GE is expecting NBCU profits to be up 7-10% this quarter, so the writers strike isn’t having much impact on the bottom line.
“I think the fact that the directors came back [and signed a new contract] is a positive sign. I think we were pleasantly surprised by how well the reality programming has done,” Immelt said of how NBC is performing as the WGA strike goes on.
“The network results were up in the 4th quarter. That’s because our TV content revenue from monetizing our programming more than made up for the ratings pressure,” said CFO Keith Sherin. “There’s been a lot of discussion of the writers strike. There was no noticeable impact in the 4th quarter. We do have fewer new shows, but we also have lot lower costs,” he added.
Q4 for GE as a whole was in line with Wall Street expectations. Revenues were up 18% to 48.6 billion and earnings were up 15% to 6.8 billion.
