NBCUniversal Inc CEO Jeff Shell has stepped down after acknowledging an inappropriate relationship with a woman in the company, following a complaint that prompted an investigation, parent company Comcast Corp said on Sunday.
“I had an inappropriate relationship with a woman in the company, which I deeply regret,” Shell said in a statement. “I’m truly sorry I let my Comcast and NBCUniversal colleagues down.”
Shell, who had been with Comcast for about two decades, left immediately. He did not respond to a request for comment.
Photo: Reuters
The former chairman of NBCUniversal Film and Entertainment took over as CEO in 2020, replacing Steve Burke. He oversaw the media company’s broad portfolio of businesses, including the Universal film studio and television business, the Peacock streaming service and Universal’s theme parks.
Comcast did not immediately name a successor.
At a time when rival studios were investing heavily in streaming in a race to add subscribers, Shell adopted a conservative approach.
Peacock, conceived under his predecessor, attempted to preserve the familiar television advertising instead of relying exclusively on subscription revenue. The subscription approach has been embraced by Netflix Inc, which has avoided commercials.
Peacock has made gains, although it is smaller than rival services. It surpassed 20 million subscribers in the fourth quarter of last year, thanks to the FIFA World Cup and the addition of NBC shows. The division’s losses also deepened from a year earlier.
That is one challenge Shell’s successor must confront, along with the decline of the traditional television business.
Shell’s senior team now reports directly to Comcast president Mike Cavanagh, Comcast said in a company-wide e-mail.
“When our principles and policies are violated, we will always move quickly to take appropriate action, as we have done here,” Cavanagh and Comcast CEO Brian Roberts said in the e-mail.
Comcast said the investigation into the complaint against Shell is being led by outside counsel. It did not provide other details.
In 2020, NBCUniversal vice chairman Ron Meyer left the company after disclosing a settlement with a woman with whom he had a consensual affair years ago.
Shell joins other high-profile executives who have lost their jobs in recent years over accusations of improper conduct or sexual harassment.
In 2019, Warner Bros Entertainment Inc chairman and CEO Kevin Tsujihara resigned as one of Hollywood’s most powerful studios investigated a report that he improperly helped an actress obtain roles at the studio.
In Italy’s storied gold-making hubs, jewelers are reworking their designs to trim gold content as they race to blunt the effect of record prices and appeal to shoppers watching their budgets. Gold prices hit a record high on Thursday, surging near US$5,600 an ounce, more than double a year ago as geopolitical concerns and jitters over trade pushed investors toward the safe-haven asset. The rally is putting undue pressure on small artisans as they face mounting demands from customers, including international brands, to produce cheaper items, from signature pieces to wedding rings, according to interviews with four independent jewelers in Italy’s main
Macronix International Co (旺宏), the world’s biggest NOR flash memory supplier, yesterday said it would spend NT$22 billion (US$699.1 million) on capacity expansion this year to increase its production of mid-to-low-density memory chips as the world’s major memorychip suppliers are phasing out the market. The company said its planned capital expenditures are about 11 times higher than the NT$1.8 billion it spent on new facilities and equipment last year. A majority of this year’s outlay would be allocated to step up capacity of multi-level cell (MLC) NAND flash memory chips, which are used in embedded multimedia cards (eMMC), a managed
In the wake of strong global demand for AI applications, Taiwan’s export-oriented economy accelerated with the composite index of economic indicators flashing the first “red” light in December for one year, indicating the economy is in booming mode, the National Development Council (NDC) said yesterday. Moreover, the index of leading indicators, which gauges the potential state of the economy over the next six months, also moved higher in December amid growing optimism over the outlook, the NDC said. In December, the index of economic indicators rose one point from a month earlier to 38, at the lower end of the “red” light.
The global server market is expected to grow 12.8 percent annually this year, with artificial intelligence (AI) servers projected to account for 16.5 percent, driven by continued investment in AI infrastructure by major cloud service providers (CSPs), market researcher TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said yesterday. Global AI server shipments this year are expected to increase 28 percent year-on-year to more than 2.7 million units, driven by sustained demand from CSPs and government sovereign cloud projects, TrendForce analyst Frank Kung (龔明德) told the Taipei Times. Demand for GPU-based AI servers, including Nvidia Corp’s GB and Vera Rubin rack systems, is expected to remain high,
RSS