By Helen Coster and Eva Mathews
(Reuters) – Comcast Corp’s first-quarter revenue beat Wall Street expectations on Thursday, as the media giant benefited from its broadcasts of the Super Bowl and Beijing Olympics, as well as a rebound in theme park attendance.
Total revenue rose 14% to $31.01 billion in the quarter, beating analysts’ average estimate of $30.53 billion, according to Refinitiv data.
Comcast, the largest U.S. cable operator, gained 262,000 broadband customers in the quarter, compared with Factset estimates of 229,000.
Broadband subscriber growth slumped 43.1% from a year ago, the third consecutive quarter of subscriber declines after record growth during the pandemic. The company has attributed the slowdown, in part, to fewer people changing homes.
Revenue at Comcast’s NBCUniversal media unit rose 36.3% to $6.87 billion, including $1.48 billion in revenue from broadcasting the Super Bowl and Beijing Olympics.
NBCU advertising sales jumped 59.2%, benefiting from the sporting events as well as the growth of the Peacock streaming service. Last quarter, the company said the “vast majority” of paid Peacock subscribers prefer to watch the ad-supported version over the more expensive ad-free product.
NBC’s Super Bowl broadcast attracted an average television audience of about 101 million viewers, roughly 10% above the 2021 championship, according to Nielsen data. Ads sold for a record $6.5 million per 30-second commercial, an 18% increase over ads for the 2021 game.
Yet the Winter Olympics in Beijing attracted the smallest prime-time audience since NBCUniversal began broadcasting the games, according to figures released by the network, amid a period of changing TV viewing habits.
Net income attributable to Comcast rose to $3.55 billion, or 78 cents per share, from $3.33 billion, or 71 cents per share, a year earlier.
(Reporting by Helen Coster in New York and Eva Mathews in Bengaluru; Editing by Richard Pullin and Arun Koyyur)
