Shaking off its defeat within the Warner Bros. bidding warfare, Comcast is specializing in its massive sports activities guess.
NBCUniversal will broadcast the Winter Olympics, Tremendous Bowl, NBA, Main League Baseball and the World Cup this 12 months.
The Philadelphia large launched its fourth-quarter earnings Thursday and its sports-heavy technique is revealing each the advantages and prices. NBCUniversal’s new NBA deal has had the hoped-for impact of boosting subscribers to its Peacock streaming service.
Peacock now has 44 million prospects and streaming income grew 23% to $1.6 billion. However Peacock’s losses swelled to $552 million within the fourth quarter because the streaming service absorbed the expense of NBC’s NBA TV rights settlement and an unique NFL recreation.
Comcast executives mentioned throughout an earnings name that Peacock lowered its full-year losses by $700 million in comparison with 2024. Final 12 months, the service misplaced $1.1 billion and profitability remains to be a methods off.
Comcast Chairman Brian Roberts famous that the leisure business is within the throes of a significant transformation and that NBCUniversal has laid the groundwork for its personal metamorphosis. His firm has made a pointy pivot away from NBC’s Nineties glory days of “Must See TV” comedies, water-cooler dramas like “ER” and “The West Wing,” in addition to a fleet of formidable cable channels, together with USA and CNBC.
This month, the still-profitable cable channels had been spun off into a brand new firm referred to as Versant.
Comcast entered final fall’s high-stakes Warner public sale with hopes of mixing NBCUniversal with Warner Bros. to create a brand new Hollywood behemoth. However Netflix swooped in with a $82.7-billion deal and David Ellison’s Paramount Skydance additionally made an all-cash bid. Paramount has refused to just accept defeat, launching a hostile takeover to try to assert its rival — a pursuit that Warner board members are preventing.
“In terms of Warner Bros., what can you say?” Roberts mentioned. “It’s still underway, obviously.”
Marrying NBCUniversal and Warner Bros. would have made a compelling firm, Roberts mentioned. However as quickly as its opponents turned to all-cash affords, “we were just not interested in these values, stretching our balance sheet to do something like that,” he mentioned.
NBCUniversal’s Peacock grew to 44 million subscribers.
(Peacock)
The longtime cable chief pointed to the silver lining.
Getting ready its bid for Warner Bros. “forced us on the journey to really take a good look at what we have and what we’re building,” Roberts mentioned. “We have a wonderful studios business … 2026 should be a great year for the film business. … We have two studios in the television business, which is feeding Peacock.”
NBCUniversal is transferring nearer to its objective of turning into “an integrated media business that is profitable and [has] got a lot of sports,” a streaming service and Common theme parks, Roberts mentioned, including the Warner public sale has prompted different companies to debate attainable mixtures.
NBC, which turns 100 this 12 months, has lengthy carried reside sports activities.
Nevertheless it has doubled down and February will probably be filled with the Winter Olympics in Italy, the Tremendous Bowl in San Francisco and the NBA All-Star recreation in Inglewood.
In March, NBC and Peacock will start broadcasting MLB video games, together with the Dodgers going through the Arizona Diamondbacks on opening day.
The corporate’s Spanish-language community Telemundo will broadcast the World Cup this summer season, together with a cease in Los Angeles.
“We’re very confident and comfortable that we’re in the right part of the industry,” Roberts mentioned. “We hope the Olympic Games can offer a moment of connection for our country and for people everywhere” throughout such divisive occasions, he mentioned.
Comcast has been struggling in its core broadband enterprise as cell-phone carriers with 5G service have reduce into its former dominance. Tens of millions of shoppers have ditched their cable TV packages.
The corporate switched up administration in Philadelphia in October, putting in Steve Croney as chief govt of its connectivity and platforms enterprise. And Comcast has trimmed a few of its web package deal costs to higher compete.
Within the fourth quarter, Comcast misplaced 181,000 home broadband prospects — greater than what analysts had forecast. The corporate mentioned a few of the losses had been offset by gaining worldwide prospects.
Comcast generated quarterly income of $32.3 billion, a slight enhance that was consistent with expectations. Adjusted earnings a share decreased 12% to 84 cents, larger than anticipated.
Internet revenue attributed to Comcast got here in at $2.2 billion, which was greater than 50% decrease than the year-earlier interval. The decline mirrored a tricky comparability to the prior 12 months interval, which included a $1.9 billion revenue tax profit attributed to an inside company reorganization.
NBCUniversal produced $12.7 billion in income, a 5.4% enhance.
The media unit, which incorporates tv and streaming, contributed $7.6 billion in income, a 5.5% acquire. (The numbers included outcomes from the worthwhile cable channels, which turned a separate entity on Jan. 2.) Increased promoting gross sales and Peacock, which started carrying the NBA, helped ship the positive factors. Peacock just lately raised its month-to-month price.
However media earnings earlier than curiosity, taxes, depreciation and amortization tumbled 141% to a lack of $122 million to account for the NBA contract.
Theme parks, which now boast Epic Common close to Orlando, produced $2.9 billion in income — a 22% enhance. It generated $1 billion in revenue.
NBCUniversal’s studio enterprise generated $3 billion in income, a decline of seven.4%. It notched $351 million in earnings, a decline of 38%.
Though shut out of the Oscar nominations, Common Footage’ “Wicked: for Good” fetched $1.3 billion in international ticket gross sales.
Comcast shares had been up 4.3% to $29.63 in mid-day buying and selling.
