Beth Comstock, NBC Universal’s integrated media boss, is being returned to the General Electric mother ship, The Post has learned.
GE Chief Executive Jeffrey Immelt is bringing Comstock back to head marketing and digital media for the parent company, sources close to the situation said. An announcement is expected early this week.
Comstock will be given an expanded version of the chief marketing officer position she held before she was parachuted into NBC in 2005. In her new role, she will also handle digital media initiatives across the corporation.
An NBC spokesman declined to comment.
The Post exclusively reported in September that Immelt was planning to bring Comstock – who sources describe as one of the CEO’s favorite executives – back to his management team.
Immelt and Comstock began discussing different roles for her at GE last fall but waited until they could find a way to make the move look like a promotion before making it official, sources said.
Handing Comstock corporate responsibility for digital media isn’t likely to win applause from all corners, however.
At NBC, Comstock has come under criticism for her lack of digital expertise at a time when the entertainment industry is trying to figure out how to make the transition to the Web.
One of Comstock’s first big moves – acquiring female-focused Web site iVillage.com for the rich price of $600 million – only compounded the criticism.
Few outside of NBC believe the property has the vitality to be the cornerstone of a major media company’s digital strategy. An iVillage-branded show based on the site drew minuscule ratings and has been cancelled twice.
Comstock hasn’t been a digital dud, though. She played a key role in the creation of the video-streaming Hulu.com, a partnership with News Corp., and in NBC’s hardball negotiations with Apple. (News Corp. owns The Post.)
She also helped negotiate the deal to make NBC content available for download on Unbox, Amazon.com’s video service.
What’s more, Comstock and other NBC top brass have taken to touting that they won’t miss their goal of $1 billion in digital revenue in 2008, a year earlier than planned.
The decision to move Comstock back into the GE executive suite is in keeping with the company’s history of deploying key executives into its various business units for a stint before returning them to the parent. With reporting by Holly M. Sanders