Jeff Zucker: NBC Will Not Be Spun Off

SUN VALLEY, Idaho — General Electric has no plans to sell its NBC Universal media unit even as the conglomerate moves forward with spinning off slower-growing businesses, NBC Chief Executive Jeffrey Zucker said Thursday.

GE Chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt "has made it clear that NBC-U is an important part of the GE portfolio," Zucker told The Associated Press at the annual Allen & Co. media conference at this mountain resort.

Earlier Thursday, GE announced it wants to spin off its iconic lighting and appliance businesses in a move to reshape the Fairfield, Conn.-based company's portfolio of industrial, financial and media assets. Last year, GE shed its underperforming plastics business by selling it to a Saudi Arabian company for $11.6 billion.

The shake-up led to speculation that GE might put NBC Universal on the block, but Zucker denied recent reports saying he might be seeking to make a deal at the annual confab that brings together media titans and Web heavyweights for a week of closed-door sessions and dealmaking.

"In the last 12 months, GE has been incredibly supportive," Zucker said, even as the unit's NBC broadcast network continues to languish in the prime-time ratings race and other businesses struggle to stanch the loss of advertising revenue to the Web.

"There's no question that consumer-facing businesses are struggling right now," Zucker said. "I think it'll hold up pretty well for us, and the flip side is that we're making acquisitions."

GE has shelled out billions in the past year to bolster NBC's programming and cable presence. On Sunday, the company plunked down $3.5 billion to acquire the Weather Channel from Landmark Communications Inc. NBC paid about $875 million last October for Oxygen, the cable channel designed to appeal to women.

The company is also expected to bring in more than $1 billion in advertising revenue during the two-week broadcast of the Summer Olympics from Beijing. NBC networks also include USA Network, Bravo, SciFi, CNBC and MSNBC.

GE shares traded up 45 cents at $27.64 Thursday afternoon, near the low end of their one-year range of $26.15 to $42.15.

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[westcoastsc]

Is Zucker part African American?