Versant CEO Mark Lazarus is Running a Post-Cable Cable Company

About this episode

Mark Lazarus discusses the challenges and opportunities facing Versant, a new company spun off from Comcast, as it navigates the declining cable industry.

Versant is the new company Comcast created when it spun off CNBC, MS NOW, USA and other cable networks it no longer wanted inside the mothership. That makes Mark Lazarus’ job pretty simple to describe and very hard to do: take a business built around cable TV — an industry in obvious decline — and use the cash it still generates to build new businesses.I talked to Lazarus on the day Versant reported its first real earnings as a standalone company — and the day its stock bounced after getting hammered out of the gate. He says the early selloff was predictable; that Comcast didn’t “ditch” Versant; and that independence gives him the chance to invest in assets instead of kicking the cash up to the bosses in Philadelphia.We talked about what Versant is supposed to become, whether MSNBC -- now MS NOW -- can build a Fox Nation-style subscription business; why CNBC is getting into investor tools; how long NBCUniversal will keep selling Versant’s ads; what kinds of companies Lazarus wants to buy; and why he’s not buying the Vox Media Podcast Network yours truly works with.The bottom line: Lazarus says he needs about three years to prove this works. Let’s see if Wall Street is that…

People in this episode

Host: Peter Kafka

Guest: Mark Lazarus

Topics covered

• cable industry
• business strategy
• media companies
• subscription models
• investor tools

Keywords

• Versant
• Mark Lazarus
• Comcast
• cable networks
• MS NOW
• subscription business
• NBCUniversal
• investor tools

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Versant, Comcast, CNBC, MS NOW, USA, NBCUniversal, Fox Nation, Vox Media Podcast Network

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