NBCUniversal Shakeup: Bonnie Hammer to Head Studios, Paul Telegdy Goes Solo at NBC (EXCLUSIVE) – Variety

A gigantic administration shakeup is coming near at NBCUniversal that will check up on Bonnie Hammer shift from launching the Peacock streaming platform to overseeing all broadcast and cable studio operations. Comcast previous skool Matt Strauss is joining NBCUniversal as the new head of Peacock, while Paul Telegdy will change into the solo chairman of NBC Entertainment, a pair of sources terminate to the difficulty beget confirmed.

George Cheeks, who has spent the previous 12 months as co-chair of the NBC Entertainment broadcast division alongside Telegdy, will shift to a vice chair characteristic below Hammer operating NBCU’s consolidated order studio.

NBCUniversal declined to roar.

The restructuring is declared to be pushed by NBCU’s desire to consolidate oversight of its parallel broadcast and cable manufacturing operations, a glide made by a quantity of NBCU’s competitors in fresh years. Hammer will proceed to file to NBCUniversal CEO Steve Burke. After spending the previous nine months getting Peacock off the bottom as chairman of advise-to-client and digital enterprises, Hammer will shift her focal level to supplying unique order to Peacock and NBCU’s various retail outlets, as properly as third-occasion merchants.

Universal Tv, which produces for NBC as properly as streaming and cable retail outlets, and Universal Cable Productions will live positive entities bustle by their latest presidents: Pearlena Igbokwe and Destroy of day Olmstead, respectively. There could be liable to be consolidation and sharing of resources in overlapping befriend-do of residing of job and administrative gains.

The latest NBCU senior administration restructuring comes 10 months after Burke made spacious changes in dividing the film and TV resources alongside West Wing and East Wing lines below Jeff Shell, chairman of NBCUniversal Film and Entertainment, and Imprint Lazarus, chairman of NBCUniversal Broadcast, Cable, Sports and News. Within the meantime Hammer shifted from overseeing NBCU’s linear entertainment cable portfolio to an project from Burke to begin Peacock. Finest month, Hammer’s crew unveiled the title and initial programming slate for the service NBC targets to begin in April.

Telegdy and Cheeks had been named co-chairs of NBC Entertainment in September 2018, following the exit of Robert Greenblatt after an eight-yr bustle. Telegdy is the properly-cherished British showman who scored in his tenure at NBC with “The Bid,” “The United States’s Got Capability,” “American Ninja Warrior” and various unscripted hits. He joined NBC from the BBC in 2008 and has headed replacement programming since 2011. He continues to file to Shell.

While provocative most of his focal level to Universal TV and UCP, Cheeks will proceed to oversee behind-evening programming matters for NBC, as he did earlier than his promotion to co-chair in September 2018. Cheeks beforehand straddled responsibilities at NBC and UCP in his characteristic as co-president of UCP and NBC’s president of behind-evening. He joined NBC in 2012 from Viacom.

Strauss, a longtime Comcast government, is quandary to be named chairman of Peacock, the selling-supported streaming platform that NBC targets to begin in April. Strauss will file to Burke.

Strauss has been with Comcast since 2004. He’s labored in new media pattern as properly as managing Comcast’s Xfinity order platform and bright the firm’s substantial on-search recordsdata from choices. Most no longer too long prior to now, he used to be exec VP of Xfinity services and products for Comcast Cable, overseeing all of Comcast’s residential cable and broadband services and products.

(Pictured: Bonnie Hammer, Matt Strauss, Paul Telegdy and George Cheeks)