UPDATED with executive comments. Nearly four years since the launch of NBCUniversal streaming flagship Peacock, Comcast President Mike Cavanagh says the service is “seeing traction” with its blend of entertainment and sports.
The exec delivered the comment to Wall Street analysts after Comcast reported solid first-quarter financials, including Peacock’s $1.1 billion in revenue, narrower losses and subscriber count of 34 million.
Asked about Peacock’s original content spending outlook, Cavanagh replied in a qualitative rather than quantitative way.
“I think you can expect to see us having a very broad approach,” he said, without offering any specific figures. Sports and entertainment are “interplaying well with each other” on Peacock, he said. He noted the breakouts of Ted and Traitors Season 2 in the first quarter, which coincided with a record-setting NFL playoff telecast.
“It’s sports, it’s originals, it’s next-day airing of NBC content, it’s our library and it’s our pay-1 movies,” Cavanagh said in describing the Peacock recipe. The April-to-June quarter will be “a little lighter in terms of the cadence of our content,” he advised. “But when we look to the middle of the year, we’ve got Olympics, right after that we’ve got the return of the NFL, the Big Ten and our exclusive NFL game in Sao Paolo, Brazil, along with a tremendous movie slate – Fall Guy, Twisters, Despicable Me 4 in addition to Kung Fu Panda 4″ reaching Peacock. As it was in 2020, Cavanagh summed up, the mission of Peacock is “taking our existing strengths and assets into a digital future.”
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Comcast reported first quarter results that outpaced Wall Street expectations, with Peacock reaching 34 million subscribers but posting higher programming costs.
Total revenue inched up 1% to $30.1 billion, with adjusted earnings per share coming in at $1.04, up from 92 cents in the year-ago period.
The Media division, which includes NBCUniversal and streaming flagship Peacock, reported a nearly 4% gain in revenue, to $6.4 billion. But higher operating expenses, notably higher programming expenses at Peacock, contributed to wider losses. Adjusted EBITDA, a key measure of profitability, fell 6% to $827 million.
Peacock brought in $1.1 billion of revenue, up 54% from a year ago, with losses narrowing to $639 million from $704 million a year ago. The earnings release did not offer details about the higher programming costs, but in January Peacock featured an NFL Wild Card playoff game, which was acquired in a rights deal separate from NBCU’s long-term rights agreement with the league.
Domestic advertising revenue was flat at $2.025 billion primarily due to lower revenue at the company’s linear networks, offset by Peacock’s increase in revenue.
Revenue in the Studios division fell 7% to $2.7 billion, and profit slumped 12% even though theatrical revenue was strong thanks to Kung Fu Panda 4 and Migration. Content licensing revenue declined in the period, primarily due to the timing of when theatrical titles reached other windows.
Results from the company’s studios, media holdings and theme parks are now reported as Content & Experiences. Revenue for Content & Experiences climbed 1% to $10.4 billion, while adjusted EBITDA fell 7% to $1.5 billion. A 1.5% uptick in theme park revenue was offset by the negative impact of foreign currency.
On the pay-TV and broadband side of the company, video losses continued their steady decline, with a loss of 487,000 residential video customers in the period.
MORE to come …
