Comcast revealed ongoing declines in both subscriber numbers and revenue within its traditional cable business, in its first-quarter report for 2024. Meanwhile, its NBCUniversal division marked notable subscriber growth for its streaming platform, Peacock.
Comcast President Mike Cavanagh, said, “Our exclusively streamed NFL Wild Card game was a big success this past quarter. We added and then retained even more new Peacock subscribers than we expected.”
Peacock gained a remarkable 3 million net subscribers in the first quarter of 2024, making its total subscriber base 34 million, which is reportedly a 12 million increase compared to its subscribers in Q1 2023. Furthermore, the advertising revenue of Peacock witnessed a substantial year-over-year rise, soaring by approximately $100 million to reach $404 million in Q1. However, it is experiencing a slight dip from the previous quarter. Meanwhile, distribution revenues also displayed impressive growth, climbing to $593 million compared to $352 million in Q1 2023.
Notably, Peacock’s total revenue reached $1.05 billion in the first quarter of 2024, marking a significant 54% increase compared to the corresponding period last year. However, despite this revenue surge, Peacock’s expenses remained elevated, totalling $1.69 billion in Q1 which includes $1.2 billion for programming and production, along with $488 million designated for marketing, promotion, and other operational costs.
Nonetheless, NBCUniversal managed to narrow losses for Peacock both quarter over quarter and year over year, reporting an Adjusted EBITDA loss of $639 million for the streaming service in Q1, in comparison to $704 million during the same period in the previous year.
Peacock remains one of six primary growth drivers for the company, with executives highlighting concerted efforts to capitalize on the full spectrum of NBCUniversal’s assets in navigating towards a digital future as part of Comcast’s overarching strategy. This strategy includes linear channels, sports coverage, and movie studios, among other strengths and most importantly sports as one of the key focuses to attract the viewers.
Following the NFL Wild Card playoff game, Cavanagh revealed a record-high surge in viewership on Peacock, across its non-sports content portfolio which includes the platform’s original series “Ted,” as the platform’s most-watched original production to date. Furthermore, the reality series “Traitors” achieved acclaim by securing spots in Nielsen’s top 10 streaming list earlier this year.
Meanwhile, Comcast’s core cable and telecom sectors experienced ongoing declines in pay-TV and broadband subscribers during the first quarter. The company reported a loss of 487,000 U.S. video customers in the latest period in comparison to 614,000 lost in the same period a year ago, making its total user base of over 13.6 million by the end of March. Additionally, in contrast to a gain of 5,000 subscribers during the same period last year, Comcast saw a decline of 65,000 U.S. broadband subscribers, bringing the total broadband user count to nearly 32.2 million by the end of the first quarter.