Comcast Burdened by Covid-19 Impact on Theme Parks, Movie Studio
October 29 2020 - 7:31AM
Dow Jones News
By Lillian Rizzo
The coronavirus pandemic continued to pressure the finances of
Comcast Corp., a cable and entertainment conglomerate whose
theme-park business experienced an 81% revenue drop in the latest
quarter.
The Philadelphia-based company, owner of Xfinity-branded
services, the NBCUniversal media empire and the Sky television
business, said third-quarter net profit fell 37% to $2.02 billion
from $3.22 billion a year earlier. Revenue slipped 4.8% to $25.53
billion from $26.83 billion.
The company's Universal Studios theme parks have been hit hard
by the pandemic. Its parks in California have been closed since
March, and there is limited capacity at those opened in Florida and
Japan, prompting the company to lay off a large number of
employees. Theme-park revenue fell to $311 million from $1.63
billion a year earlier.
Comcast's theme-park struggles were partly offset by its
broadband business, which posted 633,000 subscriber additions,
another record. As more people rely on home broadband during the
coronavirus pandemic for work and school, providers have
experienced a surge in customer growth in recent quarters.
The company continued to lose pay-TV customers, with 273,000 net
defections in the latest quarter. Just like its peers, Comcast
continues to shed pay-TV customers who are opting for streaming
services. Last week AT&T Inc. reported its pay-TV division lost
627,000 customers.
Overall, Comcast's cable unit -- which includes a phone business
-- posted a 2.9% increase in revenue to $15 billion.
The NBCUniversal division, whose businesses include cable
networks, the NBC broadcast-TV unit, the Universal Pictures movie
studio and the Universal Studios theme parks, saw overall revenue
fall by 19% to $6.72 billion. Beyond theme parks, the largest
decliner was filmed entertainment, which continued to suffer from
limited capacity in movie theaters because of the pandemic, posting
a 25% revenue decline to $1.28 billion. Only the broadcast unit
posted higher revenue, with a gain of 8.3% to $2.41 billion.
NBCUniversal said Peacock, its new streaming service, landed 22
million sign-ups since its official launch in July. Comcast
broadband and pay-TV customers receive free ad-supported
subscriptions to the premium version of the service. The company
has yet to disclose how many sign-ups are from its current customer
base.
The service was also recently added to Roku Inc.'s streaming
platforms after a standoff between the two companies since July. It
is unlikely the effects of that agreement, which was reached in
late September, have made a difference in the sign-ups yet. Peacock
remains unavailable on Amazon.com Inc.'s Fire TV devices.
NBCUniversal has been going through a period of deep
cost-cutting and restructuring. Some of it is related to the
coronavirus pandemic, but most of it is tied to a realignment of
its TV-content-producing operations to give priority to
Peacock.
As a result, several senior executives have left, and a new
leadership team has been put in place over much of its programming
units. Its TV and streaming businesses are led by Mark Lazarus and
Cesar Conde.
Sky, the European business Comcast acquired in 2018, rebounded
as sports returned in Europe. The segment reported $4.79 billion in
revenue, up 5.2% from last year. Comcast has said Sky kept nearly
all of its sports-package customers, who weren't charged during the
months that European soccer and other sports were interrupted.
--Joe Flint contributed to this article.
Write to Lillian Rizzo at Lillian.Rizzo@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
October 29, 2020 07:16 ET (11:16 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA)
Historical Stock Chart
From Aug 2024 to Sep 2024
Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA)
Historical Stock Chart
From Sep 2023 to Sep 2024