Washington Post / NBC Deal Boosts MSNBC

A content sharing and marketing agreement between NBC and the Washington Post will benefit MSNBC, the cable TV and Internet joint venture owned by NBC and Microsoft. The deal makes MSNBC more attractive as a potential spin-off at a time of rising speculation that the NBC broadcast network itself could be for sale.

NBC and the Post will share news content but remain independent news organizations. They will also share promotional and technology resources. Their Web sites, TV channels, and print publications will promote each other, and sales teams in their subsidiaries, including MSNBC, will sell cross-media advertising. In addition, the Web site for Newsweek, a magazine owned by the Washington Post Company, will be tightly integrated with MSNBC.com.

The Washington Post, based in the nation’s capital, is one of the top three daily newspapers in the United States. NBC, owned by General Electric (GE) since 1986, is one of three major broadcast TV networks in the United States. NBC and Microsoft each own 50% of the MSNBC joint venture, which is both a 24-hour cable TV news channel and an MSN news site. The cable channel, headquartered in Secaucus, NJ, reaches 53 million households and employs some 500 staff. On the Internet, the most recent Media Metrix ratings report 7.2 million unique visitors to MSNBC.com in October. About 200 staff, headquartered in Seattle, produce the Web site.