Comcast’s Steve Burke (above) is going to get $2.8 billion for the firm’s stake in the A&E media company, home to shows like “Storage Wars.” (Getty Images)
The “Hatfields & McCoys” are helping Comcast strike gold.
The cable company is selling its NBCUniversal unit’s 15 percent stake in A&E Television Networks for $2.8 billion, The Post has learned.
That’s 40 percent more than the value Comcast attributed to the collection of cable TV stations in a regulatory filing just two months ago — on May 2.
Then, Comcast said A&E Television Networks, which includes the History Channel, Lifetime and A&E, was worth $2.019 billion.
But that was before the History Channel’s “Hatfields & McCoys” drew an average of 14 million viewers during its May 28-30 airing.
That may have helped boost the value of A&E Television Networks.
AETN owners Disney-ABC and Hearst Corp., which each own a 42.5 percent stake, are buying Comcast’s slice and splitting it equally.
Comcast was expected to close the sale at the end of the second quarter, but negotiations are continuing.
While a price has been agreed to, other details are still being hammered out, a source told The Post.
The outstanding issues most likely relate to talks between Hearst and Comcast over retransmission fees.
Hearst owns NBC-affiliated stations. Independently stations give a portion of their carriage fees back to the network.
Comcast was selling the asset because it needed cash, one source said.
Separately, Comcast is also reportedly looking to buy out Microsoft’s 50 percent stake in the co-owned website, MSNBC.com.
The Philadelphia-based cable operator also has to build capacity to fund equity redemptions by General Electric in advance of mid-2014.
At that time, GE is expected to exercise an option to sell half its 49 percent stake in NBCUniversal to Comcast.
“Comcast always said the [NBCUniversal-GE] deal would pay for itself out of its current operations,” said one source. “You have movie studios and the network and stations that are sucking cash, so it’s the cable networks that are the most obvious place to look.”
The money to pay Comcast will come out of AETN coffers rather than its owners.
JPMorgan Chase is representing A&E Television Networks to raise the cash to close the deal, sources said.
The deal gives A&E Television Networks a valuation in the $20 billion range, just $10 billion less than NBCUniversal’s total worth at the time of Comcast’s deal to acquire it in 2010.
AETN has two top-five cable networks in the 25-54-year-old demographic: History Channel and A&E.
It also operates overseas in 150 countries.
Current revenue is estimated to be $3.2 billion.
The company has experienced an astounding rise over the past few years.
The mini-series “Hatfields & McCoys” broke records garnering 14 million viewers in May, making it the biggest entertainment program on ad-supported cable.
Back in 1993 when NBC, ABC and Hearst bought a stake from Radio City Music Hall, the A&E Channel was pegged at $575 million.
Representatives for all parties declined comment.