The Tokyo Olympics powered an increase in profits and revenue for Comcast’s NBCUniversal’s media business, despite larger losses from its Peacock streaming service.
Comcast, which released third quarter earnings Thursday said Peacock lost $520 million in the quarter, up from $233 million a year ago. Peacock revenue was $230 million, up from just $41 million a year ago. In the second quarter, Peacock lost $363 million on revenues of $122 million.
NBCUniversal’s media earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization rose 1.2% to $997 million.
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Revenue went up 47.9% to $6.77 billion. Excluding $1.8 billion generated by the Olympics, media revenue went up 9.2% to $5.01 billion.
Ad revenue went up 73%, largely thank to the Olympics. Distribution revenue rose 36.2%.
NBCUniversal also got a boost as its theme parks came back online after being shut down last year because of the pandemic. The theme parks had EBITDA of $434 million, compared to a $174 million loss a year ago.
Overall, NBCU EBITDA was up 48.2% to $1.35 billion. Revenue went up 57.9% to $10 billion.
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Comcast reported that third-quarter net income nearly doubled to $4.04 billion, or 86 cents a share, from $2.02 billion, or 44 cents a share, a year ago.
Revenue rose 18.7% to $30.3 billion.
Cable EBITDA rose 10.3% to $7.07 billion. Revenue increased 7.4% to $16.1 billion.
Broadband revenue rose 11.6% to $$5.8 billion, while video revenue rose 1.4% to $5.5 billion. The company lost 408,000 video customers.
“Our results at NBCUniversal continue to be driven by the ongoing recovery at our domestic Theme Parks, as well as the success of our linear and streaming Media platforms. At Sky, our UK business maintained its momentum, delivering healthy growth in revenue, EBITDA, and customer relationships,” Comcast CEO Brian Roberts said.
“Going forward, I am excited about the opportunity to continue to invest in our global technology platform and other businesses while returning more capital to shareholders,” Roberts said. “This strategy is reflected in our most recent product launches — XClass TV in the U.S. and Sky Glass in Europe — as well as the $2.7 billion we returned to shareholders through a combination of share repurchases and dividend payments.”
