Comcast lost another 491,000 pay TV subscribers in the first quarter, significantly outpacing the 409,000 it lost in the same quarter of 2020.
The company lost 404,000 residential video and 87,000 business services video customers, dropping its residential video subscriber total down to 18.59 million and business video total to 765,000.
However, thanks to rising average rates, Comcast Cable’s video revenue largely held steady at $5.62 billion, down just 0.2% year over year. Video is still the largest revenue contributor for Comcast Cable but just barely, as broadband revenues reached $5.6 billion during the quarter.
Adjusted EBITDA for the Cable segment increased 12.4% to $6.8 billion in the first quarter thanks to higher revenue partially offset by a 1.5% increase in operating expenses. Video programming costs increased 5.5% but were somewhat offset by continued video subscriber declines.
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NBCUniversal continues to feel the effects of the pandemic on theme park and studio revenues but media revenues rose 3.2%. The segment’s revenue eliminations more than doubled to a loss of more than $1 billion, which the company largely attributed to licensing of content by the Studios segment to Peacock.
Peacock contributed $91 million of revenue and an adjusted EBITDA loss of $277 million, compared to a loss of $59 million in the prior year period. Comcast said the service now has 42 million sign-ups, growth it linked to recent additions of “The Office” and WWE Network (including pay-per-view events like Wrestlemania).
NBCUniversal’s overall revenue fell 9.1% to just over $7 billion and adjusted EBITDA for the segment dropped 11.8% to approximately $1.5 billion.
“We are off to a great start in 2021. Our entire company performed well across the board, highlighted by another strong performance from cable, which posted its third consecutive quarter of double-digit Adjusted EBITDA growth, while adding the most quarterly customer relationships in our company’s history. Outside of cable, I was also very pleased by the persistent recovery and increasing momentum at NBCUniversal and Sky,” said Comcast CEO Brian Roberts in a statement.