The upcoming spinoff of communications giant Comcast’s (CMCSA) linear television arm, which will form a new operation called Versant, will not come without a certain tumult. Some of that tumult hit today as Comcast announced plans to rebrand MSNBC so that the “NBC” part was no more, dubbing it MS Now. The move left investors mildly pleased, and shares notched up fractionally in Monday afternoon’s trading.
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This is the first major, public-facing change since the spinoff plans were announced, reports note. Better yet, it turns out MS Now is an acronym that stands for “My Source News Opinion World.” The last few months have seen NBCUniversal leaders a little more determined to distance MSNBC from NBC, especially given that the two would no longer be connected formally.
Interestingly enough, MS Now has been on a hiring binge of late, picking up fully 100 new staff to help bolster a newsroom no longer supported by NBC infrastructure. MS Now even has its own Washington, D.C. bureau, a first for the network. But this is more where it begins, as opposed to ends. Several other properties, like GolfNow, SportsEngine, and CNBC, will be getting new logos removing the NBC peacock from them.
Tackling Subscriber Losses
Meanwhile, Comcast is taking a hard look at its internet subscriber losses, and frantically figuring out a way to stanch the flow. One of its latest moves was to roll out guaranteed pricing, a move that might help endear it to some of the lost customers.
Yet even these moves seem like forlorn hope. Jason Armstrong, Comcast’s Chief Financial Officer, noted, “We’re not offering predictions around when they’ll get back to positive adds. But everything we’re doing now is designed to put us back on a much better trajectory.” Basically, Comcast has no idea if these plans will ever work, but it certainly hopes they will. And that might be a problem; competitors in the field are growing like weeds that discovered crack. There are more options now than ever, and Comcast’s ability to serve customers gets very limited outside of the range of its infrastructure.
Is Comcast Stock a Good Buy Right Now?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Moderate Buy consensus rating on CMCSA stock based on eight Buys, nine Holds and one Sell assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 16.92% loss in its share price over the past year, the average CMCSA price target of $39.20 per share implies 17.15% upside potential.
