Jeff Shell left his role as NBCUniversal CEO on Sunday after he admitted an “inappropriate relationship” with a girl in the corporate, corporate parent Comcast announced.
“Today is my last day as CEO of NBCUniversal. I had an inappropriate relationship with a girl in the corporate, which I deeply regret. I’m truly sorry I let my Comcast and NBCUniversal colleagues down, they’re probably the most talented people within the business and the chance to work with them the last 19 years has been a privilege,” Shell said in a press release.
Comcast hired outside counsel to start an investigation following a grievance. The grievance was filed by the lady with whom Shell said he had an “inappropriate relationship,” in accordance with people accustomed to the matter. They declined to be named attributable to the sensitive nature of the developments.
An organization email said Shell’s team will report back to Comcast President Mike Cavanagh. The corporate hasn’t been interviewing or trying to find a alternative, and has no plans to achieve this immediately, said an individual near the matter. Shell, in addition to other leaders at NBCUniversal, have already been reporting into Cavanagh for a while and he knows the business well, the person said.
“We’re disenchanted to share this news with you. We built this company on a culture of integrity. Nothing is more essential than how we treat one another. It’s best to count in your leaders to create a protected and respectful workplace. When our principles and policies are violated, we’ll all the time move quickly to take appropriate motion, as we’ve done here,” Cavanagh and Comcast CEO Brian Roberts said in a separate statement Sunday.
Roberts will even get more involved with the NBCUniversal business alongside Cavanagh, the person said.
Shell, who’s married, took over as CEO of NBCUniversal in January 2020. He oversaw the corporate’s theme parks, its Peacock streaming service, sports production operations, television stations group, and entertainment and news television networks like NBC News.
Much of his time as CEO was shaped by the Covid pandemic, which forced the U.S. and far of the world to shut down weeks into his latest position. During that point theme parks and movie theaters were shuttered, and the entertainment industry was upended as film and TV production shut down.
Shell, who succeeded Steve Burke, ushered within the launch of Peacock in mid-2020, NBCUniversal’s answer to the streaming wars. While Peacock was formulated under Burke, the streaming service grew and added more subscribers and content with Shell on the helm.
Peacock’s losses have weighed on NBCUniversal’s overall business. Through the company’s last earnings call, Cavanagh said Peacock’s 2022 losses were consistent with its earlier outlook of $2.5 billion. Comcast has said it expects Peacock’s losses to be as much as around $2 billion in 2023. Comcast is attributable to report earnings Thursday. Shares of Comcast are up about 8% up to now this 12 months.
Just months after taking the CEO post, Shell reshaped NBCUniversal’s business and broke down the fiefdoms within the TV segment, with the aim of streaming and traditional TV working more closely together.
As a part of the restructuring, layoffs took place that had been expected to effect lower than 10% of the then-35,000 full-time employees. Cuts had been made across all of NBCUniversal’s business segments.
NBCUniversal has also assessed its portfolio of cable TV networks under Shell. In 2021, the corporate shut down NBC Sports, shifting much of its sports programming to USA Network and Peacock. Peacock has also develop into the streaming home of the Olympics.
Through the same time, longtime NBCUniversal executive Ron Meyer left the corporate after disclosing he was under extortion threat attributable to a non-public settlement he reached with a girl after an extramarital affair.
On the time, Shell informed employees of Meyer’s exit, saying, “Ron Meyer informed NBCUniversal that he had acted in a way which we consider just isn’t consistent with our company policies or values.”
Shell had risen through the ranks of Comcast and NBCUniversal over time.
One among his earliest roles was as president of Comcast’s programming group, where he managed national and regional TV networks, including E! He had also previously served because the chairman of NBCUniversal International, and later served because the chairman of the Universal Filmed Entertainment Group from 2013 to 2019. Before taking the helm as CEO, Shell was chairman of NBCUniversal Film and Entertainment.
Disclosure: Comcast owns NBCUniversal, the parent company of CNBC.
