Comcast’s NBCUniversal broadcast and cable advertising revenue slipped in the second quarter, with overall TV revenue higher, due to distribution gains.
Broadcast revenue grew 5.3% to $2.2 billion, largely due to retransmission and content licensing revenue. Retrans fees were up 36.1% and content licensing 2.1% higher.
Ad revenue dropped 1.2%, due to a continued decline in audience. NBC charged slightly higher individual ad pricing rates.
Many of the company's cable networks went in the same direction -- a revenue gain of 5.1% to $2.7 billion -- with carriage fees 8.1% higher and content licensing up 10.5%. Cable network advertising slipped a bit -- 0.9% -- also due to audience declines. However, NBC charged higher cable network advertising rates.
NBCUniversal scored strong results from its film division -- gaining nearly 60% to $2.2 billion from higher theatrical revenue, was due to its big box-office results of the “Fate of the Furious.”
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Theme parks grew 15.6% to $1.3 billion.
Comcast’s main residential cable system video business witnessed a drop of 45,000 subscribers to 21.5 million. This more than doubled the decline of the year-ago quarter (21,000).
Cable revenue grew 3.8% to $5.8 billion. Its residential broadband subscribers grew 140,000 to 23.4 million, with its revenue gaining 9.2% to $3.7 billion.
Local cable advertising sales declined 2.1% to $574 million as a result of unfavorable comparisons with higher political advertising a year ago, as well as weakness in some core categories.
Overall, company-wide second-quarter revenue was up 9.8% to $21.2 billion, with net income up 24%% to $2.5 billion.