COMCAST INCOME DROPS IN Q2, BUT PEACOCK ACCUMULATES 10 MILLION SUBS

While Comcast’s second-quarter filings indicated an income decline of 4.4% and revenue drop of 11.7%, NBCUniversal’s Peacock has received 10 million subscribers since its launch in April for Comcast Xfinity customers and on 15th July nationwide. "I'm pretty excited that as the world's transitioning, broadband is at the center of making a lot of that possible and now we can bolt on a lot of content and interfaces and hopefully we can do that in a way that customers can enjoy," CEO of Comcast, Brian Roberts said.

Cable-cutting rates accelerated for the cable company, with residential video subscribers dropping by 427,000 to 19.5 million throughout the quarter. Lower programming and production costs due to sporting events and content delays and suspensions aided the 27% year-over-year decline in advertising at NBCU’s cable networks and a 27.9% plunge at broadcast networks NBC and Telemundo. Company experts predict a similar drop of video subscribers during the third quarter.

NBCU's adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization fell 29.5% to USD 1.6 billion as revenue dropped 25.4% to USD 6.1 billion. Broadcast EBITDA was up 20% to USD 641 million as revenue slipped 1.6% to USD 2.4 billion. At NBCU, adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization fell 29.5% to USD 1.6 billion as revenue dropped 25.4% to USD 6.1 billion.

Cable network EBITDA rose 3.5% to USD 1.2 billion despite a 14.7% drop in revenue to USD 2.5 billion. Costs fell faster because of lower programming and production expenses due to the cancellation of sporting events amid the pandemic. Ad revenue at the cable networks was down 27%. Distribution revenue dropped because its regional sports networks had to credit distributors because of games that were canceled or postponed. Ad revenue was down 27.9% while distribution revenue rose 9.2% on higher retransmission consent payments for the NBCU television stations.

NBCU registered a 58.6% increase in content licensing revenue partly because of programming it is providing for Peacock. NBCU’s theme part business had a USD 399 million loss, compared to a USD 590 million profit a year ago. Revenue dropped by 94%. At Comcast Cable EBITDA rose 5.5% to USD 6.2 billion despite a 0.2% decrease in revenue to USD 14.4 billion. Revenue from high-speed internet rose 7.2% to UD 5 billion, while video revenue fell 3.2% to USD 5.4 billion. “I am confident in our ability to continue to successfully navigate the impact of COVID-19, and emerge from the crisis even stronger. I could not be more proud of how our teams across Comcast Cable, NBCUniversal, and Sky are together managing the business,” Roberts said.