The cable giant on Thursday reported lower fourth-quarter financials for its entertainment arm NBCU as the coronavirus pandemic continued to weigh on its results, especially in its theme parks division, even though the firm lauded its Orlando and Osaka, Japan parks for reaching breakeven in the period. Its film and cable networks units recorded higher quarterly profits though.
Comcast on Thursday also said it added 538,000 net new broadband customers in its cable unit, up from 442,000 in the fourth quarter of 2019, while losing 248,000 video subscribers, up from 149,000 in the year-ago period. "Encouragingly, Sky returned to customer growth in all three of its markets, bringing our total customer relationships and overall revenue in Europe essentially back to 2019 levels," Comcast chairman and CEO Brian Roberts highlighted."With the vaccines rolling out throughout the world, we are optimistic that the parts of our business that had been most impacted will soon be back on a path towards growth.
And he added:"This confidence is shared by our board of directors, which has announced an increase in the dividend for the 13th consecutive year. In addition, it is now our expectation that we will be in a position to begin repurchasing shares again in the back half of this year." Concluded Roberts:"While this is certainly the most challenging period we have faced, I could not be more proud of how our management team and employees continue to pull together and deliver.
Cable networks division revenue fell 6.4 percent to $2.7 billion on lower content licensing and advertising revenue. Content licensing and other revenue decreased 37.9 percent due to the timing of content provided under licensing agreements, including a tough comparison with a big library deal in the fourth quarter of 2019. Advertising fell 4.
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