‘Wicked’ increases NBCU Studios Profit, Peacock’s Narrows as Subs Jump

NBCuniversal Streaming Service Peacock grew its income in the fourth quarter and narrowed its loss to $ 372 million from a loss of $ 825 million in the year before, with the loss throughout the year 2024 narrowing with “almost” $ 1 billion from a loss of 2 losses , $ 75 billion II 2023 Comcast reported Thursday.

The results of the full -year revenue for Peacock in Comcast’s media department results burst 46 percent to $ 4.9 billion. For the fourth quarter, it accounted for $ 1.3 billion revenue, up from $ 1.0 billion in the previous period. The streamer ended December with more paying subscribers than in the previous year. The peacock’s sub -counting from the end of 2024, which was delivered as a rounded number, stood on the same 36 million from the end of September and was up from 31 million from the end of 2023, revealed the company.

Peacock had its best month to date in August and scored the largest proportion of TV usage in the US in the four-year history of the streamer thanks to the Paris Summer Olympics. However, the streamer also launched price increases that came into force on July 18 for new customers and August 17 for existing subscribers.

Comcast President Mike Cavanagh On a morning analyst call, a continued improvement in the peacock summons and loss in 2025 prior to the streamer and added about 50 exclusive season and autumn season-NBA games in the second half of the year.

Meanwhile, NBCUS Studio’s unit income and earnings increased before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) in the fourth quarter, driven by the cash office’s success for Evilstarring Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo, Michelle Yeoh and The wild robot.

On Comcast’s Cable Systems Unit came quarterly domestic video customers of 311,000 under a 389,000 drop years earlier. The total domestic broadband customer-network of 139,000 for the fourth quarter of 2024, including the modest negative impact associated with Hurricanes Milton and Helene, compared to a loss of 34,000 of the previous year.

Cavanagh on the analytics call treated the steep broadband subscriber losses, which he called “disappointing” and bigger than previous forecast in December 2024. Change in the short term.

The total domestic wireless line addations were 307,000, almost unchanged from 310,000 a year earlier.

Comcast, led by chairman and CEO Brian Roberts, revealed a spinoff plan for most of his cable networks to a separate unit, led by Mark Lazarus as CEO, at the end of November. Cavanagh talked about Comcast who was looking to spin many cable channels that include like USA Network, Syfy, MSNBC and CNBC, to create a new networking company.

“Spinco will be well positioned to lead in the changing cable and digital media landscape,” he said to analysts, predicting that NBCuniversal remains on a “growth track driven by our content technology other as an integrated media company. “

Comcast CEO Roberts talked about how the media conglomerate has responded to TV audience that continued to switch from older cable networks to streaming services by planning a programming focus on sports, genre-based entertainment and news.

He argued that 98 percent of the Peacock view does not originate from the networks intended to Spinco. “So they need their own directly to consumer digital initiatives and focus and investment,” Roberts said.

“With the addition of something like NBA, combined with the Olympics, combined with Sunday night footballcombined with the Premier League and then shows as The day of the jackalThere is something called America Getting up that will be at NBC and use NBC to operate peacock and vice versa more than maybe we have in the past, it’s a very exciting business, ”he added.

Spinco is expected includes cable channels such as the USA, CNBC, MSNBC, Syfy, E! and golf channel as well as digital companies such as Fandango and Rotten Tomatoes. Cable channel Bravo, NBC Broadcast Network and Streaming Service Peacock will remain part of Comcast’s entertainment arm NBCuniversal.

Cavanagh said of the reorganized media business: “We don’t really run a peacock strategy. We run a broadcast-plus streaming strategy and look to optimize it in the coming years. “Comcast -Execs told analysts that it was too early to print how the planned spinoff of most cable networks in a separate unit under Lazarus will be performed.

“I think we will give them the time and space to find out,” Roberts told analysts.

The inauguration of fourth quarterly studies increased by 6.7 percent to $ 3.27 billion as theater revenue rose 50 percent. The theater revenue increased “Due to the successful benefit of recent releases, including Evil and The wild robot“Said Comcast.

Adjusted EBITDA for the studio segment published a leap 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 income, which benefited higher revenue in Peacock, “driven by an increase in paid subscribers compared to the previous period.” International network revenue increased thanks to the positive effect of foreign currency and “an increase in revenue associated with the distribution of sports networks,” the company said.

Adjusted EBITDA for the media department jumped 175 percent to $ 298 million due to the higher revenue and flat operating expenses. “The consistent operating expenses reflect uniform programming and production costs and lower marketing and promotion costs, offset by higher other expenses, primarily due to resignation of this quarter,” Comcast said in a statement, referring to job cuts. “Programming and production costs were consistent due to a combination of lower programming costs on peacock and lower domestic sports programming costs on our network, offset by an increase in content costs on our entertainment -tv networks affected by Writers Guild and Screen Actors Guild Workstop in the previous period. “

Comcast’s stock was down with 4 percent in the Premarket trade from 1 p.m. 8 A Thursday when investors seemed to focus on the decline of the broadband subscriber.