NBCUniversal might find itself in a pretty enviable position when it finally spins off from Comcast next year, judging from the third-quarter earnings report the company posted on Thursday.
Altogether, Comcast’s media division – most of which will likely go with NBCU and British broadcaster Sky when both are spun off into a standalone company – generated 13% more revenue, from $4.7 billion in Q3 last year to $5.4 billion in Q3 this year. The properties in the media division include NBC, Telemundo, Bravo, Universal film and television studios and Peacock.
Peacock, in particular, is preening thanks to its profitability turnaround over the past year.
The streaming service delivered its second consecutive profitable quarter with $261 million in pre-tax revenue. That’s a year-over-year increase of $478 million, seeing as Peacock was $217 million in the red last Q3.
Peacock’s paid subscriber base also increased 17% YOY to 48 million for the quarter, which contributed to a 22.4% increase in domestic distribution to $2.1 billion.
Domestic advertising revenue for Comcast’s media arm also grew 14.6% to $1.8 billion, thanks in no small part to Telemundo achieving the highest-rated Spanish language FIFA World Cup coverage in US history. (However, growth would have been flat at $1.6 billion for the quarter if you exclude the $224 million worth of incremental revenue from the World Cup.)
Amicable breakups
Overall, Comcast’s third quarter revenue came out to $29.3 billion, slightly above Wall Street estimates despite some weaker performance across the broadband and theme park sides of the business. (Those theme parks, which live under the Universal brand, will go with NBCU and Sky in the split.)
That amount of revenue represents a 6.1% decline for Comcast from Q3 2025.
But the numbers look a lot better minus the cost of Comcast’s other recent spinoffs and related restructuring. This year, Comcast sold Sky Germany and spun off most of NBCU’s cable networks, excluding Bravo, into a new company called Versant Media. Without the costs associated with those deals, Comcast’s revenue is up 0.5% year over year.
Meanwhile, Comcast is still on track to split NBCU and Sky by the middle of the next year, and it’s well into building out the standalone public company infrastructure, said Comcast co-CEO Mike Cavanagh, who will continue to run the NBCU side of the business after the spin-off.
Joining Cavanagh is Christopher Halpin as NBCUniversal’s chief financial officer, whose appointment was announced in July and who officially started with the company in September.
Halpin was most recently CFO, COO and EVP of People Inc. Try not to read anything into his shift from the embattled digital publishing world to TV and CTV.
Peacock’s profitability
But a lot can happen between now and the middle of next year, when NBCU’s spinoff will be completed. And the newly profitable Peacock will play a large part in maintaining NBCU in the meantime.
Despite its recent success, though, Comcast is less focused on Peacock’s profitability on a quarter-by-quarter basis.
“You get lumpy depending on when rights kick in for different properties,” said Cavanagh. The World Cup bump is a perfect example.
Overall, though, Comcast is pleased with the now 6-year-old streaming service. Peacock’s price increase that went into effect this past summer landed successfully, said Cavanagh. Now, the company is focused on bundling Peacock with YouTube Premium and other content providers.
Fluctuations from seasonal events like the World Cup or the Olympics aside, the advertising market seems relatively stable, said Cavanagh, with tech growth offsetting weakness in some consumer-driven categories.
And Comcast is looking to major sporting events that happen more than once every four years to maintain its momentum. The company is confident that NBCU’s and Peacock’s strong portfolio of live sports and programming will continue to bring in advertisers.
“We have the ingredients we need to pursue a strategy of growth and investing in what NBCUniversal and Sky, together, are going to be once we complete the spin,” he said.
