• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, August 8, 2005

The troubles at NBC Universal's NBC network always seemed a bit organized.

But now it seems that isn't the case - not when Chairman Bob Wright is talking about $400 million in cuts. And, not when NBC Universal seems to want to build up more entertainment assets - especially in buying the live action film unit of DreamWorks.

A lot has been made of the General Electric effect that will take over the companies it acquires. Now is the true test of what becomes of NBC, Universal, and its other entertainment properties.

GE typically only has businesses that are either No. 1 or 2 in their field. Before it was just smaller businesses such as MSNBC that were suffering. But today, many of NBC Universal's bigger businesses are well below that of the top competition. The NBC network is in fourth place and Universal Studios is in fifth place in U.S. box office revenues.

What gets lost in the examination of NBC Universal is that unlike other media conglomerates, it's a tiny fraction of a bigger company. NBC Universal pulls in $15 billion a year against the huge $170 billion that GE grabs from its other businesses - mostly unglamourous, such as jet engines, appliances, and of course, light bulbs. NBC may have the glamour, but not the weight.

Still, Wright wants to make his mark - again.

Even though NBC network held the top spot for many years, Wright has to figure out how to get back there, and then some. That includes figuring out how to get back into the online advertising space, something NBC tried and failed to do with Snap.com and other efforts. Instead, brands which seemingly didn't have the value of NBC - Yahoo! and Google -- grew.

The question is will all executives have to play it GE's bottom-line business way? Wright says GE's methods can be applied to all its businesses. That would mean a change for dreamy DreamWorks, which was conceived as an independent studio in an anti-big studio, anti-corporate way - that would included its cute Hollywood way of not giving its executive titles.