Versant stock price sinks on Nasdaq trading debut as Comcast spinoff tests investor appetite for legacy cable TV
Is cable television truly dead? The markets are about to test the hypothesis.
Shares of Versant Media Group began trading on the Nasdaq Monday under the ticker symbol VSNT, effectively completing Versant’s spinoff from parent company Comcast Corporation.
Versant comprises a bundle of cable television networks and similar digital businesses, with notable properties including MS NOW (formerly MSNBC), CNBC, USA Network, Golf Channel, Oxygen, E!, and SYFY.
It also includes online platforms such as Fandango, Rotten Tomatoes, GolfNow, GolfPass, and SportsEngine.
Peacock, the popular streaming service owned by NBCUniversal, will remain under the Comcast umbrella, as will the NBC broadcast network and the cable channel Bravo.
How is Versant performing on its first trading day?
Before trading commenced on Monday, Versant shares were trading at $46.65. Shares had been offered as “when-issued” stocks on December 15 for $55 per share.
In early trading on Monday, Versant stock fell more than 12% shortly after the markets opened. The stock was trading at under $41 a share as of this writing.
Versant is going public at a time when cable television subscriptions are at a multiyear low, challenged by online streaming services. A report from S&P Global, published in December, found that traditional cable subscriptions peaked way back in 2012 at more than 101 million American households.
Last year, penetration levels were less than half of that.
There have been recent glimmers of hope, however: During the third quarter of 2025, pay TV operators actually added more than 300,000 subscribers, the first net gain in eight years, when 318,000 new net subscribers were added during the third quarter of 2017, according to a research report from MoffettNathanson.
“Scale, strategy, and leadership”
Mark Lazarus, Versant’s CEO, says he is optimistic about the new company’s future. “As a standalone company, we enter the market with the scale, strategy and leadership to grow and evolve our business model,” Lazarus said in a statement to Fast Company.
Versant’s stock will be closely watched by media investors who are awaiting the fate of Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD), which last month agreed to be acquired by Netflix.
That deal does not include WBD’s cable networks, which include CNN, TNT, and many others, and which are expected to be spun off into their own company. However, rival Paramount Skydance has been aggressively pursuing the entire company with hostile takeover bids.
When the conservative TV network Newsmax went public last year, shares initially topped $265 at the beginning of April. But as of January 5, they are trading at less than $8.
Versant’s spinoff from Comcast was originally announced back in November 2024. A filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) showed that during 2024, Versant’s assets generated more than $7 billion in revenue, which was a decline from the two previous years.