NBCUniversal streaming service Peacock grew its fourth-quarter revenue and narrowed its loss to $372 million from a loss of $825 million in the year-ago period, with the full-year 2024 loss narrowing by "nearly" $1 billion from a $2.75 billion loss in 2023, Comcast reported Thursday.
Full-year revenue for Peacock in Comcast's media division results jumped 46 percent to $4.9 billion. For the fourth quarter, it amounted to $1.3 billion of revenue, up from $1.0 billion in the prior-year period. The streamer ended December with more paying subscribers than in the year-ago period. The Peacock sub count as of the end of 2024, provided as a rounded figure, stood at the same 36 million as of the end of September and was up from 31 million as of the end of 2023, the company disclosed.
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Peacock had its best month to date in August, scoring the largest share of TV use in the United States in the streamer's four-year history, thanks to the Paris Summer Olympics . However, the streamer also launched price increases that went into effect July 18 for new customers and Aug. 17 for existing subscribers.
Comcast president Mike Cavanagh on a morning analyst call predicted a continuing improvement in Peacock revenues and losses in 2025 ahead of the streamer adding around 50 exclusive regular-season and postseason NBA games in the second half of the year.
Meanwhile, NBCU's studios' unit revenue and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) increased in the fourth quarter, driven by the box office success of Wicked , starring Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo, Michelle Yeoh, and The Wild Robot .
At Comcast's cable systems unit, quarterly domestic video customer net losses of 311,000 came in below a 389,000 drop a year earlier. Total domestic broadband customer net losses of 139,000 for the fourth quarter of 2024, including the modest negative impact associated with Hurricanes Milton and Helene, compared with a loss of 34,000 in the year-ago period.
Cavanagh on the analyst call addressed the steep broadband subscriber losses, which he called "disappointing" and bigger than earlier forecast in Dec. 2024. He cited market competition that remained "intense, dynamic and varied across our footprint and customer segments, and we see no signs of this changing in the near term."
Total domestic wireless line net additions were 307,000, nearly unchanged from 310,000 a year earlier.
Comcast, led by chairman and CEO Brian Roberts, unveiled a spinoff plan for most of its cable networks into a separate entity, led by Mark Lazarus as CEO , in late November. Cavanagh talked about Comcast looking to spin off many cable channels, which includes the likes of USA Network, Syfy, MSNBC and CNBC, to create a new networks company.
"SpinCo will be well positioned to lead in the changing cable and digital media landscape," he told analysts, and predicted NBCUniversal will remain on a "growth trajectory fueled by our world class content technology, its properties and talent all working in concert with each other as an integrated media company."
Comcast CEO Roberts talked about how the media conglomerate has responded to TV audiences continuing to shift from legacy cable networks to streaming services by post-spin planning a programming focus on sports, genre-based entertainment and news.
He argued 98 percent of the viewing on Peacock does not originate from the networks destined for SpinCo. "So they need their own direct-to-consumer digital initiatives and focus and investment," Roberts said.
"With the addition of something like the NBA, combined with the Olympics, combined with Sunday Night Football , combined with the Premiere League, and then shows like Day of the Jackal , there's something called the Americas coming up, which will be on NBC, and using NBC to drive Peacock and vice versa more than maybe we have in the past, it's a very exciting business," he added.
SpinCo is expected include cable channels like USA, CNBC, MSNBC, Syfy, E! and Golf Channel, as well as digital businesses like Fandango and Rotten Tomatoes. Cable channel Bravo, the NBC broadcast network and streaming service Peacock will remain part of Comcast's entertainment arm NBCUniversal .
Cavanagh said of the reorganized media business: "We're not really running a Peacock-only strategy. We're running a broadcast-plus-streaming strategy and looking to optimize that over the years ahead." Comcast execs told analysts it was too early to fully sketch out how the planned spinoff of most cable networks into a separate entity under Lazarus will be carried out.
"I think we want to give them the time and space to figure that out," Roberts told analysts.
Fourth-quarter studios unit revenue increased 6.7 percent to $3.27 billion as theatrical revenue soared 50 percent. Theatrical revenue rose "due to the successful performance of recent releases, including Wicked and The Wild Robot ," Comcast said.
Adjusted EBITDA for the studios segment posted a jump of nearly 85 percent to $569 million due to the higher revenue and lower operating expenses. The latter was due to lower marketing and promotion expenses.
Quarterly revenue for the media unit increased 3.5 percent to $7.22 billion primarily due to higher domestic distribution revenue, which benefitted from higher revenue at Peacock, "driven by an increase in paid subscribers compared to the prior-year period." International networks revenue rose thanks to the positive impact of foreign currency and "an increase in revenue associated with the distribution of sports networks," the company said.
Adjusted EBITDA for the media division jumped 175 percent to $298 million due to the higher revenue and flat operating expenses. "The consistent operating expenses reflect consistent programming and production costs and lower marketing and promotion expenses, offset by higher other expenses, primarily due to severance this quarter," Comcast said in a statement, referencing job cuts. "Programming and production expenses were consistent due to a combination of lower programming costs at Peacock and lower domestic sports programming costs at our networks, offset by an increase in content costs at our entertainment television networks, which were impacted by the Writers Guild and Screen Actors Guild work stoppages in the prior-year period."
Comcast's stock was down 4 percent in premarket trading as of 8 a.m. ET on Thursday as investors seemed to focus on the broadband subscriber decline.
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