Burke Creates NBCU News Group to Oversee NBC News, MSNBC, CNBC

NBCU EVP Patricia Fili-Krushel tapped to be chairman of new unit

By Andrea Morabito -- Broadcasting & Cable, 7/19/2012 2:02:40 PM

NBCUniversal is restructuring its news division, creating the new NBCU News Group to encompass NBC News, MSNBC, CNBC and The Weather Channel and be run by Patricia Fili-Krushel.

NBC News president Steve Capus and CNBC president Mark Hoffman will still run their respective divisions, but will now report to Fili-Krushel, who will be chairman of the new group, instead of NBCU CEO Steve Burke. MSNBC president Phil Griffin will continue to report to Capus.

"I am confident that placing all of these assets into one group will accelerate their growth, individually and collectively," Burke said in an internal memo announcing the changes Thursday obtained by B&C. He stated the new structure would "help foster even more cooperation" among the news properties.

The restructuring is similar to what NBCU did with its sports properties last year, combining the broadcast NBC sports division, NBC Sports Network and Comcast's regional sports networks under one corporate umbrella, the NBC Sports Group. It also comes days after MSNBC.com was renamed NBCNews.com, bringing the network's online home under the same brand as the news division.

Fili-Krushel had been executive VP at NBCU, overseeing media works, business strategy, human resources and legal since the close of its merger with Comcast. Before that she was executive VP of administration at Time Warner, Inc., president of ABC from 1998-2000, where her purview included ABC News, and president of ABC Daytime, where she helped launch The View.