On Tuesday, Versant Media Group reported its first earnings as a publicly traded firm. The portfolio of networks, which incorporates CNBC, MS NOW (previously MSNBC), USA Community, E! and Fandango, was spun off from Comcast in January.
Versant Media reported $6.69 billion in 2025 income, representing a 5% year-over-year decline. Promoting income particularly was $1.6 billion – a 9% YOY drop.
Comcast created Versant to separate out its declining cable property from the high-performing digital property just like the Peacock streaming service. However that definitely doesn’t imply that Versant is content material to go away its cable networks out for useless.
“We’re positioning Versant as a platform for progress, and are dedicated to proceed investing within the enterprise,” CEO Mark Lazarus, former NBCUniversal Media Group chairman, instructed buyers in the course of the firm’s earnings name on Tuesday.
Versant’s survival will depend on its potential to modernize its TV networks. Which implies – unsurprisingly – a concentrate on streaming.
Living proof: In the course of the convention name, Versant confirmed plans to create a subscription streaming service for CNBC tailor-made to retail buyers. The corporate additionally shared plans in December to launch standalone streaming platforms later this yr for Fandango and MS NOW.
Extra than simply pay TV
As for the corporate’s cable networks, whilst cord-cutting rises and pay TV profitability plummets, the numbers weren’t all doom and gloom.
In response to Versant, content material inside its sports activities and CNBC programming slates noticed notably promising engagement – and never solely as a result of CNBC and USA Community each simulcasted the Winter Olympics final month.
Altogether, Versant’s full footprint reaches roughly 100 billion viewers per 30 days. “Roughly 60% of our viewers [viewership] comes from information and sports activities – which is most valued by audiences and advertisers in 2025,” Lazarus mentioned. Packaging collectively scale and engagement ought to enhance Versant’s odds of “producing sturdy advertiser demand” all through the remainder of the yr, he mentioned.
Versant’s new streaming providers earmarked for CNBC, MS NOW and Fandango are one of many important methods it plans to pave a path to profitability by extending past pay TV into digital channels, particularly streaming. Final yr, 19% of Versant’s income got here from non-pay TV platforms, and “our goal is 33% over the following three to 5 years,” Lazarus mentioned. Over time, he added, the last word purpose is that at the least 50% of Versant’s income comes from channels aside from pay TV, together with streaming.
“Income combine is a crucial indicator of our strategic transformation,” he mentioned. These new streaming providers ought to “join us with a youthful, extremely engaged viewers.”
Versant is upgrading its content material slate to make sure it could actually entice that youthful viewers.
Unsurprisingly, sports activities is on the high of that programming record. PGA of America prolonged its media rights agreements with USA Sports activities by at the least 2033, the corporate introduced this week. USA Community additionally not too long ago signed an airing rights settlement with the WNBA to develop its basketball protection, which is energetic by 2036.
The corporate additionally nodded to its December acquisition of Indy Cinema Group, a cloud-based working system for film theatres, which is able to now function as a part of Fandango to assist it monetize and develop its content material slate.
For instance, Versant plans to proceed increasing its presence within the free ad-supported TV (FAST) house as a part of the corporate’s plans to “prolong our footprint past conventional pay TV,” Lazarus mentioned. He additionally talked about that Versant is actively in talks with programming companions about doubtlessly distributing a few of its FAST channels, though he didn’t share particulars.
For now, Versant is concentrated on increasing and promoting its content material slate because it advantages from its two-year settlement with NBCUniversal. NBCU will promote advert stock for content material underneath the Versant umbrella by at the least two upfront cycles.
Over time, Versant expects to develop into “extra concerned in programmatic gross sales,” largely as a result of it has “lots of knowledge and details about our prospects to focus on promoting in TV and digital areas,” Lazarus mentioned.
