Comcast Reports 22M Sign-Up For Peacock

The coronavirus pandemic continued to pressure the finances of Comcast Corp., a cable and entertainment conglomerate whose theme-park business experienced an 81% revenue drop in the latest quarter, reports The Wall Street Journal.

The Philadelphia-based company, owner of Xfinity-branded services, the NBCUniversal media empire and the Sky television business, said third-quarter net profit fell 37% to $2.02 billion from $3.22 billion a year earlier. Revenue slipped 4.8% to $25.53 billion from $26.83 billion.

The company’s Universal Studios theme parks have been hit hard by the pandemic. Its parks in California have been closed since March, and there is limited capacity at those opened in Florida and Japan, prompting the company to lay off a large number of employees. Theme-park revenue fell to $311 million from $1.63 billion a year earlier.

Comcast’s theme-park struggles were partly offset by its broadband business, which posted 633,000 subscriber additions, another record. As more people rely on home broadband during the coronavirus pandemic for work and school, providers have experienced a surge in customer growth in recent quarters.

The company continued to lose pay-TV customers, with 273,000 net defections in the latest quarter. Just like its peers, Comcast continues to shed pay-TV customers who are opting for streaming services. Last week AT&T Inc. reported its pay-TV division lost 627,000 customers.

Overall, Comcast’s cable unit—which includes a phone business—posted a 2.9% increase in revenue to $15 billion.

The NBCUniversal division, whose businesses include cable networks, the NBC broadcast-TV unit, the Universal Pictures movie studio and the Universal Studios theme parks, saw overall revenue fall by 19% to $6.72 billion. Beyond theme parks, the largest decliner was filmed entertainment, which continued to suffer from limited capacity in movie theaters because of the pandemic, posting a 25% revenue decline to $1.28 billion. Only the broadcast unit posted higher revenue, with a gain of 8.3% to $2.41 billion.

NBCUniversal said Peacock, its new streaming service, landed 22 million sign-ups since its official launch in July. Comcast broadband and pay-TV customers receive free ad-supported subscriptions to the premium version of the service. The company has yet to disclose how many sign-ups are from its current customer base.

NBCUniversal has been going through a period of deep cost-cutting and restructuring. Some of it is related to the coronavirus pandemic, but most of it is tied to a realignment of its TV-content-producing operations to give priority to Peacock.