The Worst Media Deal in History?

Jeffrey Immelt
Photo by Erik Freeland via Getty Images
William D. Cohan
January 12, 2022

Back in October, I shared the story of the first professional masterstroke of David Zaslav, the new King of Hollywood, who was part of the team of legendary GE executives, along with Jack Welch and Bob Wright, who first saw the promise of cable television through their ownership of NBC. In 1989, with Wall Street still enduring one of its periodic post-crash malaises, NBC paid $140 million for half of Chuck Dolan’s Rainbow Properties, a goodie bag of cable assets that contained Bravo, AMC, and other sports broadcasting entities. Welch, Zaz’s mentor, also pushed for deals to acquire Court TV and The History Channel. Welch and Zaslav, among a few others, were also the driving forces behind the creation of both CNBC and MSNBC. When everyone else was playing the linear game, the GE executives foresaw the dawn of the next epoch.