Comcast Stock Surges After The Company Says It Is Spinning Off NBCUniversal

Comcast announced Monday morning that it will separate into two independent publicly traded companies through a tax-free spin-off of NBCUniversal and Sky, splitting the company's broadband and wireless business from its media and entertainment assets after 15 years of operating them together.

Comcast stock surged as much as 26 percent in premarket trading before settling around 9 to 22 percent higher as the market digested the announcement.

The deal is expected to close in approximately one year.

Comcast shareholders will own shares in both companies when the separation is complete.

The new NBCUniversal will include NBC, Telemundo, Peacock, Bravo, Universal Pictures, Universal theme parks and the European broadcaster Sky.

The remaining Comcast will be a pure-play connectivity company focused on broadband, cable and wireless services, the business that generates the cash flow that has underwritten everything else.

On the leadership front, current co-CEO Mike Cavanagh becomes CEO of NBCUniversal.

Comcast's former CFO Michael Angelakis becomes CEO of Comcast.

Brian Roberts, whose family founded the company, remains actively involved in both.

The announcement ends a consolidation strategy that Comcast bet heavily on in 2011 when it acquired control of NBCUniversal from General Electric for $30 billion, the same logic that drove AT&T to spend $85 billion on Time Warner in 2018, a deal that also ultimately unwound.

Comcast had already spun off its cable TV channels including CNBC and MSNBC into a separate entity called Versant in January 2026.

Monday's announcement completes the separation of content from connectivity.

"Connectivity and media are no longer naturally moving at the same speed," one analyst told Reuters.