The big financial news out today is that GE, parent company of NBC, missed its earning estimate with the stock off about 10 percent in early trading. Although the early spin focused on GE’s commercial finance business, the analysis is now turning to NBC’s role in the company’s poor performance:

GE missed its Q1, by a lot, and lowered estimates for 2008. GE tried to pin the blame on its financial services businesses, and in un-GE fashion, CEO Jeff Immelt sounded like he was making excuses. Because it obviously wasn’t entirely on the credit crunch. For example, NBC U was also a laggard. It posted revenue growth of 3% and profit growth of 3%; in January, GE had predicted 10% revenue growth and profit increases of 5-10%. Two weeks before the end of the quarter, GE CEO Immelt did a webcast in which he said the quarter was great. Implication? Load up on the stock. And now everyone who did is hosed. What happened? Jeff wants us to blame those market conditions, the ones that were apparently unforeseeable two days before they occurred. Please. Jeff and GE shouldn’t compound this disaster by further damaging their already clobbered credibility.

Oops.