NBCUniversal’s entertainment business is getting new management and a new org chart that will further emphasize its shift toward streaming and away from traditional TV distribution.
The company announced Thursday, as reported by the Wall Street Journal’s Joe Flint, that it will carve up that branch into direct-to-consumer and entertainment units.
Matt Strauss, who now manages NBCU’s new Peacock streaming service, will take over the first unit, which will fold in that OTT offering as well as Fandango and NBCU’s international networks.
And Frances Berwick, today the boss of NBCU’s Bravo, E! and Oxygen lifestyle channels, will now run the second unit and handle deal-making across NBC’s entertainment business.
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The WSJ story said both Strauss and Berwick will report to Mark Lazarus, elevated in May to be chairman of NBCUniversal Television and Streaming.
Meanwhile, NBC Entertainment chairman Paul Telegdy will not be part of this picture—the company announced his departure Thursday.
Last week, the Hollywood Reporter’s Kim Masters and Lesley Goldberg reported numerous complaints by current and former NBC Entertainment employees that Telegdy routinely “engaged in racist, sexist and homophobic behavior.”
(Telegdy, who earlier developed such NBC hits as “The Voice,” told THR that “The nature of these allegations flies in the face of everything I stand for.”)
This reorganization condenses the executive structure atop NBCU’s entertainment unit. This won’t be the only pruning going on at NBCU: That Comcast-owned company has begun a round of layoffs that will hit under 10% of its 35,000-odd employees after a pandemic-punished quarter in which consolidated revenues plunged by 25.4% to about $6.1 billion.