NBC Universal Execs Meet With Employees

Ron Meyer, president of Universal Studios, knew he faced a skeptical crowd.

“You’ve been through a lot of change over the past 10 years,” Meyer told about 4,000 employees of the newly formed NBC Universal as they gathered Thursday for a town hall meeting at Universal Studios.

“Some of them were good for us and some of them were not so good for us,” Meyer said, referring to Universal’s previous owners. “Frankly, some of them were ... ,” he said, using a mild expletive and prompting cheers from the crowd.

NBC Universal Chief Executive Bob Wright followed up with a message that aimed to be reassuring: The new media company’s parent, General Electric Co., would bring a new level of stability and financial flexibility to the studio, which has seen four previous owners in 13 years.

“You’ve had a number of meetings like this where an executive has told you how excited he is and how wonderful it is to be here, and things haven’t always worked out that way,” Wright said. “Let me make it very clear from the start that this is a very different company.”

The remarks came the day after GE completed its $14-billion acquisition of Vivendi Universal’s U.S. entertainment assets, including its film studio, theme parks and TV businesses.

The meeting, with NBC News’ Brian Williams as host, was an opportunity for employees to meet the new brass and ask pointed questions about everything from the level of layoffs to why the top executives of the new company did not include any women or minorities.

Wright said that he was committed to diversity and that the new media company included a number of senior female executives and minority executives.

He dismissed fears of mass layoffs, saying the job cuts would be limited to 3% of the new company’s 15,000 employees, and stressed that the company’s two cultures were complementary.

GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt joked in a taped statement that he had been particularly committed to buying Universal because the classic comedy “Animal House” is his favorite movie.

Later, he added: “I know sometimes we look like suits, but we don’t act like suits.”