• by David Goetzl  @dgoetzl, April 16, 2007

NBC may struggle to post prime-time ratings successes by mid-May that will impress buyers and reverse the somewhat dour vibes of its recent upfronts--but executives at parent General Electric say its TV business is robust.

While first-quarter revenues for NBC Universal dropped 22% to $3.5 billion, the company said the decrease is due to the vicissitudes of its film business. (The drop is only 8% if the $700 million from last year's Olympics are stripped out.) The Universal film side saw a 26% revenue fall due to declining DVD sales, which were propelled by "King Kong" in the same quarter a year ago.

Overall, NBCU's profit was up 6% to $691 million, which General Electric CFO Keith Sherin said on a conference call marks "a turnaround story."

The TV operations were profitable across the board, more so with the dependable cable engine than in the broadcast arena. Profit for the subset, which includes the flagship network, the owned-and-operated local stations and the NBCU production operations, increased just 1% in the first quarter. However, the cable group, with USA, CNBC and others, increased 8%. GE did not provide actual revenue breakouts for those groups.

"Entertainment and info cable is really performing tremendously well," Sherin said.

At NBC, Sherin said the company would like the flat-ish prime ratings to "be a little better than it is, but we have some positive signals there," namely "Heroes." The freshman hit is expected to take center stage in the upfront presentation in several weeks. The return of "Sunday Night Football" in the fall is likely an added source of optimism, though its ratings success failed to buoy the network as a whole into the spring.

Sherin did tout one area that could lose prominence for NBC--citing "Nightly News With Brian Williams" as the continuing leader, although ABC's Charles Gibson has been showing signs of moving ahead.

On the digital front, he expressed optimism that NBCU's emerging operations would propel growth later this year, with the impending launch of a video distribution site in partnership with News Corp. and increased activity in the mobile space.

"The turnaround is on track," added Sherin, "and the team is performing really well."