Theme parks were among Comcast’s third-quarter earnings bright spots, even with hurricane setbacks in Florida, as the media giant reported record profits from its Universal resort venues amid slowing advertising and cable TV subscription growth.
Executives of Philadelphia-based Comcast told analysts Thursday that theme park revenue rose 42% from a year earlier to $2.1 billion, as its four parks in the U.S., China and Japan continued to rebound strongly from the shutdowns and capacity restrictions of the pandemic’s early months.
Universal Beijing Resort, which is 30% owned by Comcast, closed Wednesday as Chinese authorities deal with recurring coronavirus outbreaks in Beijing. A reopening date was not known as of Thursday.
Parks operated by Comcast's NBCUniversal division saw earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization rise 89% from a year earlier to a record $819 million in the third quarter. That’s despite its Universal Orlando park in Florida being closed for two days in September because of Hurricane Ian, executives said.
Lingering service outages caused by the hurricane are likely to affect the company’s cable TV and broadband operations in weeks ahead. “Hurricane Ian has impacted our footprint in Southwest Florida, causing outages and damage to our cable network that our cable team is still repairing,” Comcast President Mike Cavanagh told analysts.
“Many of our customers’ homes and commercial locations were severely damaged or destroyed,” he said. “While our third quarter results were not impacted by the storm, we expect to report an impact in the fourth quarter including net losses of broadband customers.”
Theme parks are a significant generator of nearby retail, hotel and other commercial demand nationwide. Comcast Chairman and CEO Brian Roberts said the company is now reaping the benefits of pent-up consumer demand at newly opened rides and attractions at its theme parks in Orlando, Los Angeles, Beijing and Osaka, Japan.
“We’re seeing clear evidence that the investments we made throughout the pandemic continue to pay off,” Roberts said, citing projects including a new "Jurassic Park"-themed roller coaster at Universal Orlando Resort and a “Secret Life of Pets” attraction at Universal Studios Hollywood.
Comcast is among several U.S. theme park operators, including Disney, Cedar Fair and SeaWorld Entertainment, seeing rising attendance and on-site spending on food and merchandise. However, the industry is dealing with staffing challenges and is not expected to fully return to pre-pandemic attendance and revenue levels until late 2023 or early 2024, according to consulting firm International Theme Park Services.
On another front that affects demand for studio production space in entertainment hubs including Los Angeles, Comcast reported that its Peacock streaming service had more than 15 million paid subscribers at the end of the third quarter, up from 13 million in the prior quarter but still well behind rivals such as Netflix, Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery.
CoStar data shows Comcast has listed more than 500,000 square feet of offices for sublease across the country. A Comcast spokesperson told CoStar News last week the media giant is adjusting its office configurations to reflect changes including rising use of remote and hybrid working.
For its third quarter ended Sept. 30, Comcast reported total revenue of $29.8 billion, down slightly from $30.3 billion in the year-earlier period. The company had a net loss of $4.6 billion, compared with net income of $4 billion a year earlier, citing factors including declining advertising sales and slowing broadband subscriber growth as consumers deal with inflation. There was also an $8.6 billion impairment charge related to its Sky pay-TV operations in the U.K.