AT COMCAST, MINIONS RULE

Who needs to worry about a struggling TV network like NBC when you’ve got minions working for you? That question seemed unavoidable as Comcast Corp., which owns both NBC and Universal, the distributor of Despicable Me 2, filed its second-quarter earnings report on Wednesday. The animated film, which reportedly cost $76 million to produce, has earned $666.3 million worldwide since its release on July 3. During a conference call with analysts, NBCUniversal chief Steve Burke remarked that the animated family film “is going to end up being the single most profitable film in the 100 year history of Universal Studios.” The company already has piled up $741 million from its other blockbuster, Fast & Furious 6, which reportedly cost $160 million to produce, since its May 24 opening. Together those two films alone account for $1.4 billion in revenue. That’s nearly as much as the entire NBC broadcast network earned in the quarter — $1.7 billion, which was up 11.6 percent from the same quarter a year ago. But those figures pale in comparison with Comcast’s cable-TV business, which rose 5.8 percent to $10.5 billion.