(FORTUNE Magazine) – The May 12 announcement that the NBC/Vivendi Universal Entertainment merger is final marks a historic shift: The Peacock is moving away from its network roots. NBC CEO Bob Wright forecasts a shift from 95% ad-based revenues to a fifty-fifty split between ads and fees after the merger. Those fees come from cable stations (USA, Sci Fi, and Trio join MSNBC, CNBC, and Bravo in the new lineup), which you pay for via your cable bill. Another huge chunk comes from the sale of content created for TV and film by Universal. Quite a shift for the granddaddy of network television, which only got into the cable business with the creation of CNBC in 1989. Here's how the Universal deal will plump NBC's bottom line.

--Kate Bonamici