Ulysses and its intrepid crew cruised through Comcast’s final quarter as Universal surpassed $5 billion at the worldwide box office, led by The Odysseynow the highest-grossing Universal film of all time.
Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster film based on Homer’s epic has grossed nearly $1.9 billion worldwide since its July release and set all sorts of records for the director and studio with $625 million domestically and $1.16 million at the international box office.
Movie theater revenues jumped 77% to $1.13 billion in the third quarter.
Peacock achieved its second consecutive profitable quarter with adjusted EBITDA of $261 million on revenue of $1.8 billion, driven by strong distribution growth. The 48 million subscribers remained stable compared to the second quarter.
Comcast reported pro forma consolidated revenue of about $29.3 billion for the quarter ended September and adjusted EBITDA, also pro forma, of $9.1 billion, both roughly flat with the prior year. The pro forma numbers reflect Versant’s spinoff earlier this year, hosting the former NBCU cable networks (except Bravo) and some digital assets.
The stock, which has been hit (down more than 20% since the start of the year), is experiencing good pre-market growth, up 2.3%.
In another major restructuring, Comcast plans to spin off NBCUniversal and Sky into a standalone company, separate from Comcast’s core business of Connectivity and Platforms.
The NBCUniversal side will be led by current Comcast co-CEO Mike Cavanagh. Former Comcast CFO Michael Angelakis will become CEO of Comcast after the separation and until then works as a strategic advisor. Wall Street has been enthusiastic about the separation, which aims to unlock the value of each asset group and is likely to spark mergers and acquisitions interest.
Executives said today that they are “making significant progress in the separation of NBCUniversal and Sky, which remains on track to create two independent companies with the financial strength and flexibility to pursue their respective growth strategies.”
Separately, last summer, Sky signed a £1.6 billion ($2.1 billion) deal to acquire ITV’s television network operations, a major shake-up in the British media landscape.
Theme parks continued to experience some softness. Last quarter, executives cited rising travel prices and deteriorating consumer confidence. The ongoing war between the United States and Iran has strained oil markets and inflated the price of gasoline and jet fuel, making travel more expensive and raising other costs for consumers and businesses. Rising interest rates also weigh on budgets.
Park profits fell 17% to $780 million, while revenue fell 4.4% to $2.6 billion.
In the connectivity sector, net losses in residential broadband continue amid aggressive competition for fiber optic and fixed wireless access. Investors are focusing on whether the company can stabilize its performance there without putting pressure on profitability given the fierce competition.
Total net losses for domestic residential broadband customers were 144,000; Total national wireless line net additions were 368,000 and total national video customer net losses were 274,000.
The stock took a hit last month when Comcast CFO Jason Armstrong called some promotional pricing levels then present in the broadband market ‘irrational’ (likely referring primarily to AT&T, although a competitor was not explicitly named),” MoffettNathanson said in a September report titled “U.S. Broadband Pricing: Back from the Brink? » – postulating the idea that prices have started to rise.
Wireless and business services, led by Enterprise, are the bright spots.
Executives said today that the near-term connectivity results “reflect the investments we are making to navigate an increasingly dynamic environment. We are encouraged by improved customer satisfaction, strong conversion of toll-free wireless lines to paid relationships, increasing adoption of premium wireless plans across our 10.6 million total wireless lines, and healthy growth in business services, led by Enterprise.”
More to come
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