The first-quarter earnings for General Electric (GE) were recently released, and as far as they connect to NBC Universal, they weren't very good.
Last January, GE CEO Jeff Immelt told investors that the company would be flat for the quarter, but rather than flat, it dropped a pretty big 22 percent, but when you disallow the Olympics, it still dropped a hefty 8 percent. I wouldn't consider that flat by any stretch of the imagination.
NBC Universal is made up of Universal Studios on the movie side and the SCI FI channel, Bravo and the USA network on the cable side.
The NBC broadcast network isn't doing much better as it's significantly behind its major competitors lingering far behind in fourth place. There only so many times they can mention the success of "Heroes" and the NFL; they've got to grow and 
build upon them, not use them to distract from their overall poor performance.
The pressure will be on for the next couple of quarters, as there is a growing restlessness among investors for the company to improve its performance.
About the only good news for NBC is its operating profit, which has increased by 6 percent, a little higher than company guidance given in January. That's a sign that some of the cost cuts at the company have had a positive impact. Originally it was thought that it wouldn't grow more than 5 percent.
Every quarter that passes without improvement will generate increasing pressure from GE shareholders for the parent to get rid of NBC. I don't think there is going to be a lot of patience left if by the end of the year if there aren't significant signs of a turnaround.
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