• by David Goetzl  @dgoetzl, May 11, 2011

Even as Jeff Bewkes oversaw the separation of Time Warner and Time Warner Cable, he said that Comcast combining its cable business with NBC Universal is a similar maneuver.

Bewkes said by splitting Time Warner off from the cable operator, the importance of its content could be better evaluated.

"It's actually the same thinking because in both cases, it's a bet on content," said Bewkes, Time Warner CEO, at an investor event. "We thought that the value of content would be clear by making that separation, and I think it has -- the market [has] borne that out. The Comcast cable corporation thought that the media business -- networks and production and NBC -- was a very attractive business, and they wanted to participate."

CBS Corp. CEO Leslie Moonves agreed that Comcast saw the growing importance of the content business, particularly in a digital world, where the Internet provides a distribution pipeline.

Comcast was doing well with the cable business, Moonves said, but it was "still wires into the home." It had the "foresight to say ... we can be in the wire-into-the-home business all we want -- the future is in content. We need to be in it. We need to be in it in a big way."

Moonves said the NBCU acquisition was an "extraordinarily good deal" for Comcast and "pretty phenomenal" at the price it is paying.

Regarding movie theater owners' concerns about films being released in other windows sooner, Bewkes said preventing piracy plays a role. But by shortening release windows, the chance that consumers will pay for content at a solid price goes up, which can help the movie business at all points.

"There's been too much excitement about this, [these are] not interests that are opposed to each other; these are interests that are actually aligned," Bewkes said of the home video and theatrical distribution businesses.

Moonves added that the majority of film revenues come in the first four weeks, so "the windows, because of technology, should be changing ... to maximize profitability." The exhibitors need to adapt to technology like every other business has had to, he said.