I had the chance to chat with Beth Comstock and Jeff Gaspin this afternoon after new NBCU CEO Jeff Zucker revealed his top corporate structure. As we reported earlier—and as expected, their roles, along with that of Marc Graboff, have been expanded. At the same time, the org chart has been streamlined (as Gaspin put it, “We often had two leaders for every one business.”) and, for the first time in decades, content and distribution are paired instead of kept apart. In separate interviews, Comstock, now president, NBC Universal Integrated Media, and Gaspin, now president, NBC Universal Cable and Digital Content, explained their roles and how they intersect when it comes to NBCU’s digital strategy. At its most simplistic, he’s content and brand extension, while Comstock and her digital team, headed by Chief Digital Officer George Kliavkoff, are deals and expansion.

Gaspin: “I’m the content guy. I’m the clearinghouse.” When a deal is proposed or made or internal ideas involve content, his group works on making it happen. Comstock: “The difference is pretty clear to us. Jeff’s responsibility is content for the existing brands. ... think of what Jeff does as extending the brand.” ... The central digital media team “develops distribution, new platforms, new businesses.” J.B. Perrette, president of digital distribution, reports to both divisions—to Gaspin for cable, to Kliavkoff for digital deals. Gaspin: “It’s very hard to separate traditional distribution from future distribution yet, in many ways, it’s a very different set of relationships.”

Neither sees this as a major change for digital; that started in late 2005 when Comstock’s return from GE corporate marked a seismic shift. Gaspin: “On the digital side this is the structure we have been evolving too, so it’s not a sea change for digital. ... Overall for the company, it’s all predicated on the fact that we had a big change at the top. The goal was to be more nimble, more clear.” Comstock: “I don’t see anything significantly different; it’s an evolutionary approach … we continue to expand our brands digitally [and we] continue to test our business models.”

Business models: The two are keenly aware that, while experimentation is still key, digital media has to move squarely into the money-making phase. Gaspin: “It’s gotten to the point where we want to know what the business models are, what the right business models are ... 18 months ago, it was pretty chaotic. ... Some models have really emerged as legitimate.” Now, digital is an expected part of planning, That wasn’t the case a year ago, when most had to be urged to include new media aspects. Gaspin: “We were all burned in the late 90s because the advertisers didn’t follow.” But the viability and vibrancy of online advertising in the mid 2000s has NBCU focused on trying to take back some of those online dollars. Comstock: “We have to grow the digital business like crazy ... we also have advertising that supports development and that’s a key goal.” Comstock isn’t done experimenting: “I don’t think it all has to pay off.” She sees “encouraging signs” in wireless and international—two areas she singled out for near-future growth. Also, Apple iTunes, “it was a good year for all of us to see that business start to gain roots.”
What’s next? Comstock repeated the projection of $1 billion in digital revenue by 2009, adding, “I hope we can exceed our goal pretty handily.”