Comcast and NBCUniversal CEOs named as Businessperson of the Year

Brian Roberts, chairman and CEO of Comcast Corporation and Steve Burke, CEO of NBCUniversal, have been named on Fortune’s 2012 Businessperson of the Year rankings. Taking the third spot out of 50 executives on the list, the magazine recognizes their decisive leadership move with the Comcast-NBCUniversal merger.

“CEO Brian Roberts’ $13.8 billion gamble on the television network is finally paying off, thanks to a resurgent entertainment division at NBC,” Omar Akhtar of Fortune says of the ranking. “Steve Burke presided over a stellar year for the network… Those wins, coupled with strong performance by its core cable business pushed Comcast’s shares up by more than 58% this year.”

The annual rankings are compiled using various factors, including financial reports and “strategic savvy.”

The two executives who preceded Roberts and Burke were Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon, and Apple’s new CEO Tim Cook.

Check out Fortune’s full list here, which appears in the magazine’s December 3 issue.