Belloni: Comcast C.E.O. Brian Roberts has been pretty quiet this summer. That usually means something’s cooking. Besides $1 billion in cost cuts at his TV networks, which Bloomberg says are coming, what would you guess it is?
Cohan: My money is still on the combination of NBCUniversal with WBD. It just makes too much sense for the two moguls, Roberts and Zaz, not to be thinking through it. In fact, it’s borderline irresponsible if they don’t kick the tires on this deal. Aside from that, I’m not sure what else Comcast can do. Paramount Global is probably out because of the NBC-CBS overlap. I suppose some sort of gaming deal could be in the offing, perhaps in the realm of Electronic Arts, market value of $35 billion, or TakeTwo Interactive, market value of $20 billion. But I’m not sure I see Comcast getting into this kind of content. His better bet, it seems to me, is Comcast owning 51 percent of the combined NBCU/WBD, with Zaz running it. That feels like a winner, and will allow WBD to spread out its debt over more EBITDA and confuse the stock analysts for another couple of years while everything gets figured out.