In July 2008, Universal Cable Productions was split off from Universal Media Studios and placed into NBCUniversal's NBCU Cable Entertainment division. The unit was placed under the direction of a management teamconsisting of five executives. Originally, UCP was set up to produce shows for NBCU and other cable channels. Formerly at UMS, Doug Liman and Dave Bartis' Hypnotic Films & Television moved to UCP after a few shows were turned down at UMS. Hypnotic signed a two-year overall deal with UCP. Hypnotic produced Covert Affairs with UCP for USA Network, then I Just Want My Pants Back, its first non-NBCU channel production, for MTV. With Hypnotic and a first chief operating officer hired, UCP has expanded enough that they are moving to produce shows for any network or channel, broadcast or cable. Its NBCU Broadcasting counterpart, Universal Television, has also moved to be a full-service TV studio. In July 2011 through its affiliated company, NBCUniversal Domestic TV Distribution, Psych and Monk, UCP shows, have been picked up for off network syndication on Ion Television. UCP signed a "pod deal", a complete development deal that includes ownership of all projects making it impossible to shop a rejected project around, with Tagline. A third pod deal was signed with Gale Anne Hurd's Valhalla Entertainment in April 2012. In July of that year, the company signed an exclusive development deal with John Legend's Get Lifted Film Company.
Universal Content Productions
In early 2019, Universal Cable Productions changed its name to Universal Content Productions to reflect the move to streaming, with production of Umbrella Academy for Netflix and NBCUniversal's streaming service, which was eventually named Peacock. In October 2019, Universal Content Productions, along with Universal Television, was transferred from NBCUniversal Broadcast, Cable, Sports and News to NBCUniversal Content Studios. In February 2019, it was announced that writer/producer/director Sam Esmail had signed his production company Esmail Corp. to a four-year exclusive deal with UCP with whom he had already produced Mr. Robot, Homecoming, and Briarpatch. Wilshire Studios was narrowing its focus to docuseries in May 2019. Live event productions shifted to E!’s live events team. UCP announced in November 2019 the 2020 launch of their podcast channel UCP Audio. The studio will produce both scripted and unscripted content with the first scripted podcast from Esmail Corp.
