• by Wayne Friedman , April 30, 2020

Comcast Corp. maintained revenue growth for its main broadband/cable businesses in the first quarter, but witnessed declines at its NBCUniversal and Sky units, largely due to COVID-19 issues. NBCUniversal revenue sank 7% to $7.73 billion. 

Broadcast revenue -- from networks and TV stations -- was up 9% to $2.7 billion. Cable networks were virtually flat at $2.9 million.

Theme parks and film entertainment -- two areas that have taken a big hit due to COVID-19 -- have also suffered. Theme parks were down 32% to $869 million, while film entertainment sank 23% to $1.4 billion. Theme parks and movie theaters have been closed in the U.S. since mid-March.

Filmed entertainment is also attributable to unfavorable comparisons to the year-before period from “How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World,” “Us” and “Glass.”

Revenue from Sky -- Comcast's European TV operations -- was down 6% to $4.5 billion due to lower direct-to-consumer, advertising and content revenue. Sports subscription revenues were also lower.

Comcast's high-speed internet business continued to show strength, up 9.3% to $5.0 billion. Its video business, including cable TV operations was flat at $5.6 billion.

Comcast's overall revenue was up 1% to $26.6 billion, with net income attributable to Comcast sinking 40% to $2.1 billion.

Mid-day Thursday trading for Comcast was down 3.5%. $37.61.

Looking forward, Comcast says there will be more disruptions in its business do to virus issues.

“We expect the impacts of COVID-19 to increase in significance in the second quarter 2020 and to have a material adverse impact on our consolidated results of operations over the near-to-medium term.”