{"id":26007,"date":"2023-04-27T13:50:45","date_gmt":"2023-04-27T13:50:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/comcast-beats-revenue-estimates\/"},"modified":"2023-04-27T13:52:34","modified_gmt":"2023-04-27T13:52:34","slug":"comcast-beats-estimates-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/comcast-beats-estimates-on\/","title":{"rendered":"Comcast beats estimates on broadband, theme park strength"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Helen Coster and Eva Mathews<\/p>\n

(Reuters) -Comcast Corp on Thursday said it beat quarterly profit forecasts on sustained demand for its broadband services and rising theme park attendance, giving the media giant a lift days after it fired NBCUniversal’s chief for sexual harassment.<\/p>\n

The company’s shares rose 4% as the report showed a smaller-than-expected 4.3% drop in total revenue to $29.69 billion in the first quarter. Analysts had estimated $29.30 billion, according to Refinitiv data.<\/p>\n

Comcast said on Monday that NBCUniversal’s chief executive, Jeff Shell, had been fired for sexual harassment after an investigation found evidence that corroborated a female employee’s complaint.<\/p>\n

Shell, a two-decade Comcast veteran who took over the top role in 2020, oversaw businesses including the Universal film studio, Peacock streaming service and Universal’s theme parks.<\/p>\n

Comcast President Mike Cavanagh is now running NBCUniversal while also remaining president. When asked by an analyst Thursday if taking on leadership of NBCUniversal was a permanent solution, Cavanagh put no timetable on the move, adding: \u201cThink of me as being there for a while.\u201d<\/p>\n

In its first earnings under a new reporting structure that includes NBCUniversal in the content and experiences segment, the company reported a 9.5% fall in revenue in the unit to $10.26 billion in the first quarter.<\/p>\n

In the same quarter last year, the business had gained from the Olympics broadcast.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, advertising revenue still remains pressured as elevated inflation levels continue to weigh on the market. Ad revenue in content and experiences fell 38.8%.<\/p>\n

Revenue at Peacock rose over 45% compared with a year earlier. Paid subscribers increased by about 2 million in the first quarter from the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n

However, adjusted losses from the ad-reliant platform widened to $704 million from $456 million a year earlier as Comcast continues to invest heavily in content.<\/p>\n

Theme parks revenue climbed nearly 25%, thanks to a rebound in attendance at its parks overseas and the lifting of COVID-19 curbs in China.<\/p>\n

Comcast’s connectivity and platforms revenue, which includes the cable business and most of its Sky unit, reported a marginal loss in revenue, partly due to sustained cord-cutting that was offset by strong demand from large enterprises.<\/p>\n

Comcast gained 5,000 broadband customers in the March quarter, while Factset had estimated a loss of 20,000 users.<\/p>\n

The company\u2019s chief financial officer said Thursday it will be difficult to gain broadband subscribers in 2023, especially among lower-income consumers, due to the competitive environment.<\/p>\n

Competition from wireless carriers such as T-Mobile US Inc and Verizon Communications Inc, which offer 5G home-internet service that users can choose instead of broadband connections, has pressured Comcast’s business.<\/p>\n

Overall, net income attributable to Comcast rose 8% to $3.83 billion in the quarter.<\/p>\n

Excluding items, the company earned 92 cents per share, above the average expectations of 82 cents.<\/p>\n

(Reporting by Helen Coster in New York and Eva Mathews in Bengaluru; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty, Susan Fenton and Jonathan Oatis)<\/p>\n

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By Helen Coster and Eva Mathews (Reuters) -Comcast Corp on Thursday said it beat quarterly profit forecasts on sustained demand for its broadband services and rising theme park attendance, giving the media giant a lift days after it fired NBCUniversal’s chief for sexual harassment. The company’s shares rose 4% as the report showed a smaller-than-expected […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":26013,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1220],"tags":[1223],"class_list":["post-26007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-u-s-technology","tag-updated"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportBusinessNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ3Q0GA-VIEWIMAGE.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26007"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26007\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26292,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26007\/revisions\/26292"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}