• by Wayne Friedman , 7 hours ago

Core NBCUniversal third-quarter advertising -- excluding comparisons to the Olympics a year ago -- was up 2.6% to $1.96 billion.

NBCU says this came from an increase in business, primarily from its streamer Peacock.

Advertising dollars for the year-ago third-quarter period for the Paris Olympics  totaled $1.4 billion.

Total distribution revenue for the Comcast-owned media business was at $2.84 billion -- up 1.5% excluding the Olympics. Distribution revenue for the Olympics totaled $473 million.

Overall NBCU revenue for the period was at $6.59 billion, down 20% from a year ago. Excluding the Olympics revenue contribution, core revenue was up 4.2% -- also due to Peacock.

At the same time, its streamer Peacock, which has been highly scrutinized by analysts, appears to have stagnated in terms of subscribers -- now at 41 million since March vs. 36 million a year ago.

Peacock narrowed its net quarterly losses in half to $217 million, in better news for the company. Revenues slipped to $1.4 billion from $1.5 billion in the year-ago period, due to the Paris Olympics.

NBCU studio business grew 6.1% to $3.0 billion on the back of theatrical movie business driven by “Jurassic World Rebirth.”

Theme Parks business rose 19% to $2.7 billion due to the Epic Universe experience in Orlando, which opened in May of this year.

At NBCU sister company Comcast Xfinity, domestic video subscribers declined 257,000 to now total 11.5 billion. Domestic broadband subscribers slipped 104,000 to 31.4 million.

Local advertising in Comcast’s video and other systems sank 13% to $864 million due to unfavorable comparisons to a year ago from higher related Presidential and other political election advertising.