• by Wayne Friedman , October 28, 2021

Posting $1.8 billion in advertising sales for the Tokyo Olympics -- along with recovering revenue from its movie-studio business -- NBCUniversal saw its third-quarter revenue surge a massive 58% to $10 billion.

Ad revenue for Comcast Corp's NBCU grew 73% -- mostly driven by the Tokyo Olympics, but also due to higher pricing, as well as ad revenue from its streaming platform.

Distribution revenue also grew 36.2%, stemming from the broadcast of the Tokyo Olympics, as well as rate increases.

Excluding the Olympics, NBCU media business still grew 9% in revenue to $5.0 billion.

Studio theatrical/content license revenue -- returning slowly as a result of COVID-19 pandemic disruptions of a year ago, when theaters closed -- grew 26.8% to $2.4 billion.

Theatrical revenue was up $279 million versus the third-quarter 2021 due to releases, including “F9” and “The Boss Baby: Family Business.”

Comcast Corp.'s cable communications business -- broadband, video, voice, and wireless -- was up 7.4% to $16.1 billion.

Broadband was up 12% to $5.8 billion, while video business edged up 1% to $5.5 billion and business services added 9% to $2.2 billion. Local cable TV advertising sales improved 5% to $705 million.

Comcast added 281,000 broadband customers -- to now total 29.4 million, continuing its longtime growth.

At the same time, its video business continued its decline -- down 382,000 subscribers to total 17.8 million. In the year ago period, video had a net subscriber loss of 253,000.

For its European TV broadcaster Sky, revenue was up 4% to $5 billion. Advertising sales grew 16% to $561 million.

Comcast Corp's revenue was up 19% to $30.3 billion, with adjusted net income up 35% to $4 billion and adjusted cash flow -- earnings before interest, taxes and depreciation -- growing 18% to $8.96 billion.

Comcast stock was virtually unchanged -- down 0.2% to $52.27 -- in early Thursday trading.