Brian Roberts, Chairman and CEO of Comcast, attends the annual Allen & Co. Media and Technology Conference in Sun Valley, Idaho on July 9th, 2025.
David A. Grogan | CNBC
Comcast clued investors into its potential M&A aspirations on Thursday. In short, executives think a deal could get done, despite recent naysaying.
Comcast is among the interested parties in a potential deal for Warner Bros. Discovery. WBD, the owner of TNT Sports, CNN, HBO, Warner Bros. studio and other media assets, officially put itself up for sale after “receiving interest from multiple parties,” WBD CEO David Zaslav said in a statement last week.
Several pundits and analysts have posited that Comcast has little to no chance to do a deal from a regulatory perspective, given President Donald Trump’s pointed words for Comcast CEO and controlling shareholder Brian Roberts. Others say the path forward may not be doomed.
On Thursday, alongside the company’s third-quarter earnings report, soon-to-be co-CEO Mike Cavanagh shed some light on how executives view the situation (without specifically naming Warner Bros. Discovery as a potential tie-up).
“I think more things are viable than maybe some of the public commentary that’s out there,” said Cavanagh on Thursday.
Trump in April called Comcast and Roberts “a disgrace to the integrity of Broadcasting” in a post on his social media platform, Truth Social. Trump has also called Roberts a “lowlife” and has referred to Comcast as “Concast.”
Some equity research analysts have predicted that the Trump administration would block a Comcast acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. WBD is still moving toward a planned separation into two publicly traded entities while it expands its strategic review.
Paramount is trying to buy the whole company, before it could split, and WBD has thus far rejected three separate offers from the David Ellison-run company.
“It is almost certain that the Trump DOJ would not allow CMSCA to buy WBD and the result would be decided in court,” New Street Research analyst Blair Levin wrote in a note to clients, citing Trump’s public comments about Roberts.
“We along with our cable colleagues believe [Comcast’s] political standing in this administration is very low and believe CMCSA would think long and hard about whether a deal is worth the long, arduous process of creating enough goodwill to close the deal,” wrote Raymond James analyst Ric Prentiss.
Structuring a spin-merge
Cavanagh reminded investors Thursday that just because the company takes a look at assets that are up for sale in the media industry, it doesn’t necessarily mean a deal, or even an offer, could materialize.
“I think we’ve said repeatedly, and I’ll say it again, that the bar is very high for us to pursue any M&A transactions, given how strongly we feel about the businesses we have, the strategies we’re pursuing and the opportunities we have ahead of us,” Cavanagh told investors.
Comcast’s NBCUniversal is in the process of spinning off its portfolio of cable networks, including CNBC, into a new entity called Versant.
Assuming an offer for WBD or other media assets were to come together, it would have to make strategic sense for the future NBCUniversal, which will be led by the broadcast TV network NBC and streaming service Peacock.
Many of NBCUniversal’s moves to date have been to boost Peacock’s place in the streaming ecosystem. The company reported Thursday Peacock had 41 million customers as of the end of last month, a subscriber base that has remained flat throughout the year.
Cavanagh noted the company would be looking for media assets that complement its post-spin NBCUniversal business.
“So in this case, it would be streaming assets and studio assets, since there are no other parks assets out there,” he said.
Warner Bros. Discovery’s planned split would separate out exactly those businesses: streaming and studios in one company, which would also house streamer HBO Max, and its global networks into a another.
While Paramount’s interest is in the entirety of Warner Bros. Discovery, negating a split, other prospective bidders have considered acquiring just some of the assets, CNBC has reported.
Cavanagh said, “in light of that, what we’d be looking for and what we’re going to look like post-Versant spin,” a deal isn’t as far-fetched as some view it.
In a hypothetical situation in which Comcast were to also spin off NBCUniversal, which is currently slated to remain with the company following the Versant transaction, and merge it with WBD, LightShed analyst Rich Greenfield predicted that deal could get through regulators.
Wolfe Research’s Peter Supino proposed a plan under which NBCUniversal would issue new stock to WBD at an exchange ratio (eliminating Roberts’ voting control over the new company) and appoint a chairman and CEO “not named Roberts.” That combination could lead to a deal, he wrote in a note to clients.
“The primary problems facing a Comcast bid — financing and politics — might be solvable,” Supino wrote.
While Comcast may shy away from pursuing a transaction that could be blocked by the Trump DOJ, even that may not be a dealbreaker.
In the first Trump term, his DOJ blocked AT&T’s acquisition of Time Warner, an earlier iteration of Warner Bros. Discovery. In June 2018, a U.S. District Court judge approved the $85.4 billion sale, ruling the government failed to prove the deal would harm consumers.
If it pleases the president
Some Comcast executives think the regulatory concerns are either overblown or, at least, far too early to ascertain, according to people familiar with the matter, who have knowledge of Comcast’s strategy but spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal thinking. There’s some evidence suggesting Comcast’s executives may have a point.
A Comcast spokesperson declined to comment for this article.
Skydance Media received long-awaited Federal Communications Commission approval for its merger with Paramount after the CBS parent agreed to a $16 million settlement with Trump over a “60 Minutes” episode.
While a deal for WBD won’t require FCC review, because Warner Bros. Discovery doesn’t own a broadcaster, a takeover of this size — WBD’s market capitalization is about $53 billion plus another $30 billion in debt — could still draw the scrutiny of Trump’s Department of Justice.
Trump’s reputation as a dealmaker suggests Comcast may be able to avoid any interference by endearing itself to the president.
Comcast is one of 37 companies donating to Trump’s efforts to build a $300 million ballroom for the White House through the Trust for the National Mall.
Trump’s public dislike toward Roberts and Comcast may be bloviation linked to Trump’s assertions that MSNBC, currently owned by NBCUniversal, is left-leaning. It’s unclear if Trump explicitly cares about Comcast or NBCUniversal owning any of the WBD assets other than CNN, which Trump has also routinely criticized.
If his primary issue with Comcast buying WBD is CNN, a divestiture or deal without the network could circumvent those issues. MSNBC will also be spun out into the Versant portfolio.
While Roberts will still be a shareholder of Versant, MSNBC will no longer be a part of Comcast once Versant becomes its own publicly traded company at the start of 2026.
Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal, which owns CNBC. Versant would become the new parent company of CNBC upon Comcast’s planned spinoff of Versant.
