Comcast Edges Wall Street Q1 Estimates; Peacock Reaches 34M Subscribers As Its Losses Continue To Narrow And Revenue Tops $1B

Core Insights - Comcast's first quarter results exceeded Wall Street expectations, with Peacock reaching 34 million subscribers but facing increased programming costs that impacted profits in the Media unit [1] Group 1: Financial Performance - Total revenue increased by 1% to $30.1 billion, with adjusted earnings per share rising to $1.04 from 92 cents in the same period last year [1] - The Media division, which includes Peacock, saw a nearly 4% revenue gain to $6.4 billion, but higher operating expenses led to wider losses, with adjusted EBITDA falling 6% to $827 million [1] - Peacock generated $1.1 billion in revenue, a 54% increase year-over-year, while losses narrowed to $639 million from $704 million a year ago [1] - Domestic advertising revenue remained flat at $2.025 billion, primarily due to lower revenue from linear networks, offset by Peacock's revenue increase [1] Group 2: Studios Division Performance - Revenue in the Studios division decreased by 7% to $2.7 billion, with profit declining by 12%, despite strong theatrical revenue from titles like Kung Fu Panda 4 and Migration [2] - Content licensing revenue fell during the period, mainly due to the timing of theatrical titles reaching other distribution windows [2] Group 3: Pay-TV and Broadband - The company continued to experience a steady decline in video losses, with a loss of 487,000 residential video customers during the period [2]