September 13, 2025

RE: The Future of MSNBC for Comcast/VERSANT

Dear Brian,

My name is Jon Ogg. As of today, I am writing an open letter that goes above and beyond the ongoing and critical media coverage during and in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s tragic assassination. This letter acknowledges your first effort to reign in the MSNBC team’s use of words and critical opinions at MSNBC. It also comes with a solution which may bring longer-term gains despite short-term goals.

You were quoted in the media Friday as ending with the words “We should be able to disagree, robustly and passionately, but, ultimately, with respect. We need to do better.”

Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ: CMCSA) has had and continues to have a real world problem on its hands with MSNBC. The harsh reality is that your actions and ultimate decisions regarding the future of MSNBC from today forward could make or break the future of two major corporations (Comcast/VERSANT) under your watch.

There is a way “to do better,” but that way forward is a future for Comcast and VERSANT without MSNBC or any future iterations of the newly-named MS NOW (“My Source for News, Opinion and the World”) cable channel. The name change to MS NOW under the soon-to-be VERSANT entity will not likely be enough to change MSNBC’s stripes here. The time has come for MSNBC to be closed.

I cannot help but wonder whether or not any members of Comcast’s Board of Directors or any strategic advisors have ever dared to address this potential behind closed doors as a possibility of closing MSNBC permanently.

The reason for sending this open letter only addressed to you personally in an open format is because of the dual-class of stock structure giving your Class B shares a non-dilutable 33 1/3% of the combined voting power of both A/B share classes. As the 2024 Comcast Annual Report says: “Brian L. Roberts… has considerable influence over our company and the potential ability to transfer effective control.” In short, the buck ultimately stops with you due to voting power and dual roles of CEO and Chairman. This, along with lining up calls with top shareholders (see below), almost even puts Comcast within striking distance of Closely Held Corporations.

This open letter names no specific people inside your organization. It is not intended to prop up your competition in media. This is not an effort to attack your people personally and it is not an effort to block their freedom of speech nor their freedom of expression. As a policy, I openly welcome and encourage opposing views from media and information sources. MSNBC’s model of “attacking at any cost and with strongly biased information” is just not a good business model for any public company.

Determining whether MSNBC is news, information or just a “cable channel” is no easy task for your media consuming customers. One of the “wikis” refers to MSNC as a cable news channel in its first sentence. The 2024 Annual Report lists MSNBC as a “Cable Network” and classifies its description of programming as “News, political commentary and information.” Many of those media consumers believe they are watching actual news and are receiving accurate information despite the a very left-leaning bias and some of the strongest views expressed by major media outlets and channels. By showing soundbites and snippets, immediately followed by a strongly biased report of what it “means,” is not really the definition of news. And, yet, MSNBC still has White House correspondents whom most media consumers think of as reporters. And MSNBC’s ongoing efforts for “inclusion” are actually exclusionary for any person or topic that does not line up with Comcast’s narrative of the day.

MSNBC risks the entirety of Comcast’s entities, as well as to the upcoming planned spin-off of VERSANT. Firing a contributor and reassigning and changing the names and faces at MSNBC quite simply has not worked over time. The new faces still operate under the same umbrella with the same corporate and social culture inside. The new members simply pick up where the prior left off.

Customers and business relationships have many choices. They can leave, or they can choose to stay and ride out any storms. Lawsuits can enjoin related entities, or they can focus on a single point. The media consuming public can stage boycotts to go “spend where their beliefs are best satisfied.” Staying on the course for a new iteration of MSNBC opens the real possibility that one day soon all of Comcast’s properties and VERSANT’s properties may become directly enjoined in anti-MSNBC behavior. And any politicians or event owners may simply ban any MSNBC representatives at their events.

Imagine one day in the coming weeks or months that millions of Comcast customers wake up and decide to stop supporting anything and everything that is currently and was recently tied to MSNBC. They could decide to skip the NBCUniversal theme parks (at a listed price of $159 per day). The cable and bundle customers can suddenly choose to opt for a new fiber optic bundle provider and ditch the Comcast/Xfinity services entirely. There are many other streaming options. And they can also choose to get information from CNBC, Telemundo and your other key properties simply by changing the channel permanently.

If advertisers believe that MSNBC poses a moral hazard, they will have an ability to exercise Force Majeure to suspend or outright exit their contractual obligations with Comcast and VERSANT entities. Past examples of a few major corporations have shown how devastating efforts such as this by customers and advertisers can be to their stockholders. And analysts on Wall Street currently have overall cautious to negative ratings on Comcast as a new investment.

Here is where the big picture is worth much more than MSNBC’s posed risks to Comcast and VERSANT. Comcast’s combined operating units generated $123.7 billion in annual sales and a record adjusted EBITDA of $38 billion in 2024 alone. And, at the present time, Comcast’s underperforming stock was -11.9% year-to-date and -15.5% over the last year. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 has generated gains of +12% year-to-date and +19.8% over the trailing year. And according to longer-term performance metrics, Comcast has negative stock performance for both the last 3-year and 5-year periods — and is up only about 18% versus ten years ago. The networks division that included MSNBC was shown in 2024 to have generated trailing 12-month revenues of $7 billion at the first Spin-Co announcement date (2024). Does it seem possible (or even likely) that the weight burden of MSNBC may be at least part of that significant stock underperformance for your investors?

At the time of this open letter, Comcast Corporation had approximately $122 billion in market capitalization (ranked 90th in the S&P 500). And at the end of June-2025, Comcast’s balance sheet was loaded up with $95.8 billion in long-term debt within its total liabilities of $176.4 billion. Again, it is very possible that allowing MSNBC to exist in any form or future iteration of the planned MS NOW could jeopardize the entirety of Comcast’s value for its common shareholders and to its creditors (and to VERSANT’s).

Comcast also indicated in its latest quarterly earnings report that it had returned $2.9 billion to shareholders in Q2-2025 alone, through a combination of $1.2 billion in dividend payments and another $1.7 billion in buybacks via common stock repurchases. The income statement also showed more than $1.1 billion spent in quarterly interest payments on that debt. That’s roughly $4 billion per quarter spent solely to pay shareholders and debtholders.

The day has arrived that MSNBC needs to be permanently closed and sent to the annals of media and business history. Again, this letter does not aim to restrict any freedom of speech, nor is it about freedom of expression. It is not even about “deplatforming” or “canceling” some of your team members, most of whom would likely land elsewhere or with new ventures. The media consumers who still use MSNBC as of now already have many other existing options that can satisfy their own needs for biased news and information of their choosing.

MSNBC has a long history that has brought this to head up to the present time. MSNBC has been accused of favoring political candidates whose primary races have not even been determined. MSNBC was one of the key sources of “mostly peaceful” concerning riots in cities in recent years, while looting raged and fires burned  The rhetoric has magnified with ongoing critical coverage of President Trump’s every move (including attacking him after Charlie Kirk’s assassination), attacking most Republican agendas, and in particular the callous coverage of the Charlie Kirk assassination that resulted in a public termination.

MSNBC’s reporting of “new polls” has been a travesty to the point that those polls often mirror fiction rather than any known reality. MSNBC was even asked once if Hamas was writing its script in the critical coverage during and after the October-2023 terror invasion in Israel. MSNBC allows guests and on-air talent to make reference to Republicans and politicians as Fascists and Nazis without challenge, nor even pointing out the true nature to some who may need history reminders that Fascists and Nazis murdered millions of innocents and dissenters before and during World War II.

The future of Comcast Corporation is potentially at stake if MSNBC is allowed to continue in operations. It also brings uncalculated risks for the new VERSANT entity on its own. It is my understanding that USA, CNBC, MSNBC, Oxygen, E!, SYFY and Golf Channel will be under VERSANT, along with the digital properties of Fandango, Rotten Tomatoes, GolfNow, GolfPass and SportsEngine. Imagine if all of the VERSANT units are targeted for public boycott and if their advertisers begin to withdraw and cancel contracts in short order — and right ahead of or immediately after the spin-off takes place. It sounds like it would most likely not be a good day for shareholders.

These risks above, and many other instances not referenced to above, should at least help to ease the burden of the potential financial charges and efforts of closing down MSNBC permanently. The following are the top 5 entities who held Comcast’s public shares as of June 30, 2025:

• Vanguard — 369.44 million shares, a 10.03% stake
• Blackrock — 302.04 million shares, a 8.20% stake
• State Street — 172.77 million shares, a 4.69% stake
• Capital World Investors — 128.81 million shares, a 3.50% stake
• Dodge & Cox — 111.27 million shares, a 3.02% stake

Copies of this open letter are being sent to the portfolio managers who are responsible for investing decisions, analysts who rate Comcast for their firms and to certain outside media outlets and to other concerned entities. There is a significant opportunity for you to make this bold and powerful decision of closing down MSNBC and its future plans. It may even greatly help Comcast and Versant shareholders and creditors without these ongoing distractions.

Lastly, I do understand that this will not be an easy decision to make. I also understand that it would bring financial charges upon the closure and after the closure — but closing MSNBC and any future iteration of it is the right decision to make. And if this change is made, perhaps I will consider becoming a shareholder after the change occurs.

Sincerely,

JON C. OGG