• by Wayne Friedman , July 23, 2024

NBCUniversal’s Peacock posted its smallest quarterly loss since its launch in 2019 -- $348 million -- while at the same time seeing revenue climb 28% to $1.05 billion in the second quarter.

In the year-ago period, Peacock took a $651 million loss (adjusted EBITDA: earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) and had $820 million in revenue. The premium streaming service now has 33 million subscribers, up from 24 million a year ago.

“None of this is a guarantee that Peacock will ever achieve anything like meaningful profitability; Peacock may never be a truly good business,” writes Craig Moffett, co-founder/media analyst of MoffettNathanson Research. “But it’s not crazy to assert that the worst of the digital transition is behind Comcast.”

However, with the tentative new 11-year NBA deal in the works for NBCU, Moffett says it “will mean an even longer path to profitability” for Peacock.

In other business, the Comcast-owned NBCUniversal collectively posted a 2% decline in domestic advertising in its second-quarter period to $1.9 billion from all its media platforms.

Advertising increased at Peacock, NBC said, although the company did not provide specific details.

Better results came from domestic distribution revenue, which was up 6% to $2.7 billion, mostly driven by results at Peacock.

Studio revenues sank 27% to $2.3 billion due to lower theatrical revenue and the timing of content-licensing deals made available by its TV networks.

NBCUniversal theme parks saw a surprising decline in business -- down 11% in revenue to $2.0 billion, due to the decline in guest attendance. “Theme parks have consistently been the strongest business in Comcast’s Content and Experiences segment,” Moffett said.

Overall NBCUniversal revenue was down 7.5% to $10.1 billion.

In other Comcast business, the company lost 120,000 broadband subscribers. A year ago, for the same period, NBCU was down 19,000.

On a brighter note, revenues ticked up 3% to $6.6 billion, and its wireless business added 322,000 -- up 20% from a year ago.

Revenues were on track to be a $4.5 billion business in 2024.

Continuing their slow decline, total domestic video subscribers lost 419,000 (down 12%) to now total 13.2 million.

Revenues fell 8% to $6.8 billion, with local cable advertising flat at $993 million.

Midday trading of Comcast stock was down 5% to $38.62.