NBCU's Ad Revs Mixed, Achieves Overall Gain In Q2

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.

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