NBCUniversal’s core domestic advertising dropped 6.1% in the first quarter to $2.03 billion amidst a weakening TV ad marketplace overall. NBCU blamed lower audience viewership.

When including full comparisons to a year ago -- including ad results from the Beijing Olympics and the Super Bowl -- NBC advertising revenues fell nearly 39%.

To compound this problem, distribution fee revenue sank 8% to $2.7 billion. NBCU added, however, that when excluding the incremental revenue from the Beijing Olympics, distribution revenue increased 3.8%, driven by higher Peacock revenue resulting from an increase in paid subscribers.

The company noted that results are improving for its Peacock streaming services -- which witnessed rising ad revenue, although the company did not provide specific details.

It also noted year over year Peacock subscribers grew more than 60% to 22 million paid subscribers, with overall revenue (advertising and subscription) up 45% to $685 million. It also grew two million subscribers from the preceding quarter.

Still, its cash flow losses are at a big $704 million for the quarter. Mike Cavanagh, president of Comcast Corp., notes that losses at Peacock will decline slightly to around $3 billion for the year.

Overall, Comcast Corp. revenues were down 4.3% to $29.7 billion with consolidated adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest taxes depreciation and amortization) gaining 2.9% to $9.4 billion.

Declining revenue was due to unfavorable comparisons to the first quarter of 2022, which included the Beijing Olympics and the Super Bowl.

Comcast domestic video customers sank by a steeper 614,000 loss -- now totaling 15.5 million. It posted a 512,000 loss in the first quarter of 2022.