Comcast Corp (CMCSA)

“Not something that we think is a -- while we see it continuing into the third quarter, not something that we think is a permanent change in the outlook at all because we continue to see continued consumer appeal and satisfaction in all the things we look at as it relates to the excitement that people have about our parks.”

“At the same time, we indicated that trends should improve beyond the second quarter as we lap the initial go-to-market investments and as free wireless lines convert into paying relationships in greater volumes. That remains our expectation, and we expect modest improvements starting in the third quarter.”

“As to Peacock profitability itself, we do expect it to continue to improve on an annual basis, but profitability is going to vary quarter-by-quarter just based on the timing of sports schedules and other content hitting one quarter versus another.”

“And as a result, the significant majority of our free line roll-off customers are converting from free to paid as expected.”

“As we recently announced on our separation call, we did pause share repurchases as of July 1 and expect to remain paused through our separation.”

“At Hollywood, results improved as we began to lap the initial pressure we experienced last year, though we do not expect a more meaningful improvement until the new Fast & Furious roller coaster opens later this year.”

“Early free line conversion cohorts are tracking in line with our expectations, and we continue to expect a significant majority of these customers to convert to paid relationships as roll-offs accelerate in the second half of the year.”

“As I said earlier, we expect to see modest improvement as we anniversary the launch of the go-to-market strategy and as free wireless lines begin converting into paid relationships in greater volume as we exit this year.”

“We expect activity to ramp as we move into the latter part of the year.”

“A key part of our work is on the balance sheet and capital structure as our intention is to set both companies up with strong investment-grade profiles and the financial strength and flexibility to pursue their respective growth strategies.”

“With that foundation in place, we are off and running on the work to finalize the remaining details and move towards execution with the goal of completing the separation in approximately 1 year.”

“We expect incremental pressure on broadband ARPU for another quarter until we start to anniversary early go-to-market transition efforts as well as the impact of free lines starting to roll into paying relationships which will happen in greater volumes as we exit this year.”

“We added 2 million net new subscribers in the quarter with revenue up more than 70%, putting Peacock on track to approach profitability for the first time next quarter.”

“So stepping back, the first quarter was the high watermark for NBA-related dilution for media, and we feel good about the direction from here.”

“And yes, it will have a direct impact on broadband ARPU based on revenue recognition as those lines rolled to paid in the back half of the year, and that will be a tailwind.”

“So in reference to the wireless free line to paid strategy... we've seen a significant majority of those customers rolling to paid. So we're -- we feel that will continue as we move forward and more of the lines roll in the back half of the year.”

“Yes, I would say we do expect improvement year-over-year, but more than half of the benefit in Q1 was tied into the legendary February.”

“So I think we will see improvement as we exit the year this year.”

“We're seeing the early cohorts of our free line conversion, and we expect significant majority of those to convert to paid relationships that will accelerate in the back half of the year.”

“So as VERSANT exits the calculation over the course of this year, we expect leverage will tick up a bit. And as I said last quarter, our intention is to bring leverage back to 2.3x.”

“Looking ahead, in the second half of the year, many of the free lines will come up for monetization Early engagement and usage trends are encouraging in that respect, and we expect to convert the significant majority of free lines into paying relationships, which should provide a tailwind to Convergence revenue and ARPA growth over time.”

“We're managing that base of customers with a clear life cycle playbook focused on usage, engagement and the overall product experience with the goal of converting a meaningful portion to paid relationships starting in the second half of the year.”

“Customers are responding to our go-to-market strategy with roughly 40% of our residential broadband base already on our simple, transparent packaging and the majority still expected to migrate by year-end.”

“However, we anticipate some relief as we exit this year, particularly as we begin to lap the initial investment pressures and monetize the free lines at the 1-year anniversary mark of the start of our Freeline rollout.”

“We do see some incremental pressure in Q2, but we do expect relief as we exit the year, and we talked about it.”

“We do have some near-term headwinds, namely the EBITDA impact from our broadband repositioning, the onboarding of NBA rights and the spinoff of VERSANT and its associated EBITDA and free cash flow.”

“As we continue to transition customers to more consistent pricing and ramp up free wireless line additions, we expect ARPU growth to step down more than 1 point in the fourth quarter, and we expect continued pressure on ARPU in early 2026 as our current plan is to not take a rate increase in broadband in the early part of next year.”

“This is a deliberate investment phase, one that will take time and carry a cost as reflected in the 3.7% decline in Connectivity & Platforms EBITDA this quarter. And we expect this decline to build slightly over the next several quarters as we continue to invest in pricing, product and customer experience.”

“So good backdrop for -- once we get to the other side, confidence that we'll have revenue growth in the broadband business in the years ahead.”

“But we're real confident that we can get back to ARPU growth as we migrate through and manage through the transition.”

“We remain focused on expanding ride throughput as we build to run rate capacity and expect Epic to continue scaling over the next year with higher attendance, stronger per caps and improved operating leverage.”

“We expect it to fully scale up in the months ahead and will really be driving higher attendance per caps and improved operating leverage, which is what Jason referred to as you look out over the next year to year plus.”

“So what is a headwind right now in the form of wireless to our broadband ARPU becomes a tailwind.”

“Looking ahead, in the second half of next year, many of the free lines will come up for monetization. Our intention is to convert the majority to paying relationships, which should provide a significant tailwind to convergence revenue growth at that point.”

“I think everything is tracking really nicely to have Versant launch at the beginning of next year -- end of this year into next year.”

“I would look for us to continue to be very aggressive in building out new homes, very aggressive in infrastructure investments to support the Genesis investment around mid-splits, DOCSIS 4.0 and how quickly we upgrade the network.”

“In the interim, I think you're going to see a little bit of pressure on the convergence revenue metric.”

“I'd look for that to be roughly that number in 2025.”

“So as we said in the upfront remarks, 3.5% growth this quarter, we expect it to moderate in the next couple of quarters as we migrate more customers on to new pricing with the goal being it takes several quarters to do this.”

“Looking ahead to the third quarter, we will have a tough comparison to the very successful Paris Olympics, but feel well positioned over the next year given our strong lineup of content, including the NBA premiering in the fourth quarter and the Winter Olympics and Super Bowl in the first quarter of 2026.”

“We expect Epic to continue to scale over the course of the year with higher attendance and per caps as well as significantly improved operating leverage.”

“Putting all of this together, EBITDA was flat in the quarter, consistent with comments we made last quarter that our new go-to-market strategy would impact our ability to grow EBITDA this year. We still believe that to be true, as our investment in our operational pivot will ramp over the remaining quarters of 2025.”

“And we expect a similar positive impact for the next few quarters until we anniversary this deal next year.”

“So we're pleased with the results in the quarter and expect continued acceleration in the pace of net additions in the coming quarters.”

“Looking ahead, we continue to expect healthy broadband ARPU growth over the balance of the year, although the rollout of our new everyday pricing structure at the end of the second quarter is expected to moderate ARPU growth in the near term as we begin transitioning customers to more consistent and predictable pricing.”

“We still have obviously a lot of investment going on in parks, including the smaller parks we've talked about, that will sort of fill a little bit of the void, but nonetheless, we'll trend down for a couple of years, and then we'll ramp back up as we approach the park in London.”

“And just a couple of years after that, if the trends continue, it will be 70%.”

“Over time, the next few years, we'll have the opportunity to drive Peacock subscribers higher as we leverage NBA and other content and the continuation of consumer trends moving from the linear ecosystem to the streaming ecosystem continues.”

“So we'll have a big working capital benefit that I'll be calling out in the first couple of years of the contract.”

“So we said $1 billion a year on average for the next several years as a result of substantial domestic infrastructure investments we make.”

“And we estimate, on average, roughly $1 billion in annual cash tax benefit for the next several years, with much of the benefit relating to infrastructure investments.”

“We look forward to that changing next year with the launch of the NBA.”

“However, we do continue to experience pressure in Hollywood, and we think it will be a couple more quarters until we lap that.”

“However, for the upfront and for the balance of the year, we feel well-positioned in the market as we capitalize on the NBA launching the fourth quarter, a healthy Peacock subscriber base and a strong content offering across entertainment and news.”

“I won't specifically talk about the second half of this year, but I do think expect Peacock to be on a continuing trend of driving towards improved monetization, bigger scale, and therefore declining losses over time.”

“Dave put some context around that and said, yeah, obviously, this is going to make it more difficult to grow EBITDA this year.”

“If you think about our ability to accelerate wireless, which we did in the quarter and expect to continue to do over the year, we're putting in place an expansion of how we're thinking about wireless and extending it into the base.”

“As he said, expect healthy broadband ARPU growth this year.”

“We think we can still drive healthy broadband ARPU growth, but these initiatives will require some investment, which in turn will impact our ability to grow EBITDA in the near future.”

“We expect the recovery at Universal Hollywood to be a gradual one.”

“We expect continued acceleration in coming quarters with it.”

“While we are glad to be underway with a refreshed approach to the market, we anticipate that it will take several quarters for our new approach to gain traction and impact the business in a meaningful way.”

“We'll launch the simplified -- the packaging side of things in the second quarter.”

“We've also been clear we will have significant costs leading up to this opening with over $100 million or the vast majority landing in the first quarter.”

“And we still believe we can deliver that in 2025 despite certain higher areas of investment.”

“It was a big kind of get, and it's going to be the major additive content that will drive -- be the driver of subscriber growth, I would expect in 2025 for us.”

“We gave an outlook that broadband ARPU growth will continue to be healthy.”

“But nonetheless, continued very healthy margins in an absolute sense where we're industry-leading. And then on a relative basis and the ability to grow, I think continued momentum there.”

“So we've had, obviously a really good history of driving margin expansion... As you saw, we expanded margins pretty -- at a pretty healthy clip in 2024... we expect to continue to be able to expand margins maybe at a slightly lower rate this year, given the investments we want to make back into the business, including wireless.”

“And so we will get relief from that over the course of 2025.”

“We were clear about cable capital intensity. We landed the year at just over 10%. That's the outlook for 2025, and that's in the context of very strong new homes passed continue to really be aggressive in passing a new home formation.”

“Those in rough terms are probably the right goalpost to think about for 2025.”

“Whenever we accelerate wireless and pushing harder there, we think it's the right, smart competitive decision. We may not be right within the range that we have been, but still expect ARPU to be very healthy.”

“Michael, this is Dave. Let me start with your point on ARPU. So we expect continued healthy ARPU growth.”

“So we're pleased about this opportunity to be able to get going and expect second quarter that we would begin to put the pedal down on that effort.”

“Vast majority of the plant will have that mid-split side of things upgraded by the end of this year.”

“And we expect to make continued improvement in Peacock EBITDA losses in 2025.”

“In addition, we landed our CapEx intensity at just over 10% in 2024 and expect to continue in and around this range for 2025.”

“Looking ahead, we intend to lean into wireless, which means additional investment there, but the overall framework for growth over the long-term remains the same: a mix shift driven by continued strong growth in our connectivity businesses, which creates opportunity for further margin expansion, the same dynamics that have driven our results for the past several years.”

“And into 2025, we expect broadband revenue to continue on a growth trajectory with convergence revenue again growing at an even faster pace than broadband revenue.”

“And so I think that's it, I would give us the full first season of NBA into the second season before we sort of normalize our business to handle the higher expense there.”

“But when you add mobile to your packages and the simple way that we're talking about, there could be some impact to ARPU. But we think the returns are terrific.”

“So, it will be accretive to the parks' P&L next year.”

“So, I wouldn't change the guidance for the full year, which implies a little bit of a catch-up in the fourth quarter.”

“So, we have tight thresholds. We use a lot of financial discipline around these things. And it's too early to really comment in terms of how much activity, but we do not -- as we anticipate the activity here, we do not anticipate any change to CapEx intensity from what we can see.”

“It will warrant a premium and think about ticket pricing at a premium level, but consistent with the market in Orlando.”

“So, going to Q4, the underlying environment remains the same, very competitive, but remind you also that we expect churn to continue to remain at low levels as we focus on retention channel management, our segmented approach and leveraging offers and product packaging with mobile being front and center.”

“Looking ahead, we will continue to be focused on strong revenue growth and improving profitability at Peacock in the broader context of expected revenue and profit growth across the entire Media segment.”

“And as we gear up for the May 2025 opening, we expect to incur pre-opening costs of about $150 million in total over the fourth quarter this year and the first quarter next year.”

“We think these factors will likely be in place until the second quarter of next year, which is both when we start to lap the pressure we saw this year and the launch of Epic Universe.”

“As such, you've seen us take some cost reduction actions in our fourth quarter for the past several years. We expect to take similar actions again this fourth quarter at about an equal magnitude to last year.”

“We recently announced that Epic will open on May 22, 2025, and have also started to activate our sales and marketing plans, including the sale of vacation packages that provide the opportunity to visit Epic, which we expect to be in very high demand.”

“Right now, we're about 50% overbuilt. We would tell you that will go higher. Obviously, the carriers have announced plans to take that higher. So, we expect it to go higher and we expect to see competition across the majority of our footprint, including two wires, one of which is ours, which is currently a gig-plus, and we'll go to multi-gig symmetrical through how we're investing, and the others of which is fiber.”

“In addition, we're on a path over the next few years to being able to deliver multi-gigabit symmetrical speeds, which will be competitive with any technology out there.”

“We're in the middle of -- last one for this year is coming up in a few days, which is DIRECTV. We're in constructive dialogue with folks over there and hope to finish up that negotiation shortly without disruption, just like the rest of the ones we've done in the last bunch of years.”

“From what we can see today, the potential impact looks like it could be really significantly less than the impact from Hurricane Ian in 2022 in terms of both subscriber and financial impacts.”

“still feel comfortable with the capital intensity envelope that we gave.”

“we've expanded our broadband network by 1.2 million new homes passed in the last 12 months, the most in the company's history, and we put plan to continue to do that.”

“We have said our film slate is weighted to the back-half of the year, which we believe will drive better year-over-year performance, and we're off to a strong start.”

“we still feel very comfortable that we will remain well within our historical 3% to 4% ARPU growth range for the remainder of the year.”

“So, we look forward to Epic Universe having a meaningful impact by driving incremental attendance, longer visits and higher per-cap spending once the park opens in 2025.”

“I think this is a year where we see the growth in Peacock offsetting the decline in some of our linear businesses, and that's basically a trend I would expect to see carry forward.”

“We're now 50% in terms of the overbuilt. We expect by the end of '25, that'll get to 60%. We'll probably go higher than that.”

“We're 42% mid-split right now. We expect to be 50% by year-end.”

“Total volume for us is going to be basically in line with last year as is linear price.”

“Nothing at this point would suggest we're going to be beyond the capital intensity that we've already given out.”

“Given the timing of this content, EBITDA growth will be skewed to the fourth quarter.”

“As we look to the second half of the year, we expect continued modest growth in overall media EBITDA, but with some variation in the degree of year-over-year improvement between the quarters, driven by the timing of sports, entertainment launches and marketing.”

“Looking ahead, we expect the bulk of our ACP-related subscriber activity to happen in the third quarter, including losses associated with non-pay churn.”

“So we feel pretty good about the historical range of 3% to 4%.”

“So I think for us, pleased with ARPU. And I think we can muscle through this ACP thing and feel good about the guidance that we've been giving at 3% to 4% historical range.”

“We remain confident about our longer-term growth opportunities, especially as we look ahead to next year with the opening of Epic Universe.”

“The investments we are making to increase capacity and incorporate multi-gigabit symmetrical speeds everywhere we offer service put us in a great position to capitalize on these very favorable consumer trends. And when combined with our rapid footprint expansion, set us up to gain market share and return to broadband subscriber growth over time.”

“So looking ahead, we expect these edge out projects to continue to contribute to the future growth in our total passings.”

“I think as you mentioned, it's competitive market. We've got ACP coming our way. At the same time, the balance, I think about broadband specifically. The balance between rate and volume we've seen, obviously, a little bit of pressure on volume. But 4.2% ARPU growth in the quarter, an outlook for -- we continue to stay at 3% or 4% during the year. So we still think there's tailwinds for broadband revenue growth.”

“So on parks, as we've said, this is a year in 2024, where CapEx in parks and at NBCUniversal overall will sustain at the level it was in '23. So it remain elevated. In '25, when we open Epic, it will begin to step down.”

“Very strong free cash flow last year and expectation for similar this year.”

“And we expect to see, on average, even better year-over-year improvement for Peacock in the coming quarters.”

“Looking ahead, we'll continue to be focused on retention, particularly in the second quarter as we look forward to the second half of the year, we will have a substantial amount of acquisition-oriented content lined up.”

“Business Services generates well over $5 billion in annual EBITDA, which is margin accretive, and we expect it to continue to be a material contributor to overall connectivity and platforms growth this year and over the longer term.”

“We will see a similar trend until we start to lap this change at the end of this year.”

“The SMB market has gotten more competitive but will aggressively defend our position. And similar to this quarter, we'll grow revenue by increasing ARPU, driven by higher adoption of additional products like Mobile, Security Edge, Connection Pro and WiFi Pro and through targeted rate opportunities.”

“While it's a competitive market, especially for the price-driven segment, we will continue to compete aggressively, yet in a financially balanced way and expect to drive healthy broadband revenue growth through growth in ARPU, which we expect to remain well within our historical range of 3% to 4% growth even as we manage through the ACP transition.”

“As we sit here right now, we do not see this trend improving in the near term.”

“Looking ahead, our content offering provides such a great value proposition that we should have some real pricing power over time.”

“So again, once we get to '26, you'll see us easing into a new steady state that does include continued experimentation with some of our alternative concepts.”

“And then after that, it will return to a more normal level with adjustments for the Hollywood Hard Nights and the Kids park in Frisco, Texas that we've talked about.”

“We do see, and just to reiterate, broadband ARPU growth in both the fourth quarter and for the full year, 3.9%, high end of our historical range of 3% to 4%, and we guided to the coming year to still be in that range of 3% to 4%, so consistent and strong ARPU growth.”

“Having said that, the nature of these projects, it takes a while to build them up and then driving penetration, and I would look for more of the benefit in ’25.”

“To the extent we’re successful with BEAD, and I think we certainly expect to be, that would be more 2025 and beyond.”

“I think we can further accelerate that. Most of that in terms of the guide for 2024 is self-funded, but we have been making our way into the ARPA program and had some success there.”

“We don’t expect subscriber trends to improve over the coming quarters but we do expect to grow over time.”

“We ended the year with net leverage of 2.3 times, in line with our target leverage of around 2.4 times, and we expect to remain at this target level in 2024.”

“In 2024, we expect parks capex to remain elevated and then decrease in 2025 when we open Epic.”

“In 2024, we expect capex intensity to be in the same range as we continue to transition our U.S. network to DOCSIS 4.0 and accelerate our growth in homes passed.”

“2023 marked the peak in annual losses at Peacock, and for 2024 we expect to show meaningful improvement in losses versus 2023.”

“Together, the mix shift, the cost discipline and the technology advances we’ve made in customer service are all structural, and we expect them to continue, positioning us to drive higher profitability and further margin expansion in 2024 and for the foreseeable future.”

“We plan to replicate this in 2024 with this level, or potentially even greater footprint expansion.”

“While we do not expect subscriber trends to improve in the coming quarters, we do expect them to improve over time.”

“With the broadband marketplace remaining extremely competitive, we will continue to manage this balance and expect ARPU growth will remain strong within our historical range and continue to be the driver of our residential broadband revenue growth in 2024.”

“We expect continuation of the strong trends in Hollywood also driven by Super Nintendo World, and we’ll see the completion of Epic Universe, our fourth gate in Orlando, prior to its grand opening in 2025.”

“We exceeded our goal of adding over 1 million new homes and businesses passed and expect to do at or above this level in 2024.”

“We continue to be hopeful that some of these offers will accelerate our line additions over time and as the year progresses.”

“We're on of pace to meet or exceed our goal of 1 million new homes and businesses passed for 2023.”

“We're about 30% in terms of mid-splits and really focused on this seamless integration that connects HFC to fiber. And we'll be at 40% next year.”

“So some of that will revert we believe once strikes are over.”

“So that – it's mostly the tier mix change that I talked about... you're not going to see that, by the way, that level of deceleration from Q3 to Q4 as we made those adjustments.”

“In terms of wireless, it's a very important part of business services and it's – clearly, this phase is centered on SMB and we're getting going on that. We've picked up the pace on that. It's not a major driver yet in overall mobile activity at this point, but we expect that pace to pick up.”

“It's really kicking off in earnest in Q4. It's a straightforward, good, solid offer that will be accretive and will drive broadband benefits in doing so.”

“You've still got to keep your eye on the ball and we believe that, over time, in addition to driving good, healthy, making financially disciplined calls along the way, we will return to subscriber growth over time.”

“So the mix shift that we're seeing and undergoing, where those are the businesses that are growing against businesses that are not growing, has been a favorable mix shift for us and we expect it to continue to be a favorable mix shift. So I would look for continued opportunities in both expense and margin.”

“We expect this benefit in working capital to reverse as we ramp up to our normal levels of production in the coming quarters.”

“Total capital spending increased 16%, driven by higher CapEx, which remains within the envelope of the guidance we gave at the beginning of this year, including Connectivity & Platforms CapEx intensity to remain at around 10% and parks CapEx to increase by around $1.2 billion for the full year compared to 2022.”

“The lower other revenue reflects similar dynamics in wireline voice, and advertising was impacted by lower political revenue in our domestic markets, which in the fourth quarter will face an even more challenging comparison to last year.”

“We expect subscriber trends to improve over time as we remain focused on network and product leadership and also as we see the benefits of greater footprint expansion.”

“We expect ARPU growth to remain strong and our primary driver of broadband revenue growth with somewhat higher subscribers losses expected the fourth quarter compared to the 18,000 loss we just reported in the third quarter.”

“And we are bullish on further increasing our Peacock subscriber base through the balance of 2023, driven by both our continued conversion efforts as well as strong programming in the second-half.”

“And I couldn't be more excited about the opening of Epic Universe, in Orlando, in 2025.”

“I think on Peacock, you are right, we came into the year, and gave guidance for roughly $3 billion in losses, no change to that. And as you see, we are pacing to that over the first couple of quarters.”

“I think we have had a fairly consistent track record if you look at the last several years of margin expansion... So, our outlook for more of the same in continued margin expansion out of the business.”

“We've had -- you know, with the stronger dollar you still are seeing softness of international attendance, which continues to be about 30% lower than pre-pandemic levels. We expect that to sort of continue.”

“That being said, to your question, we believe, over time, we will return to subscriber growth.”

“So, our game plan in this environment is we're going to invest in our network, we're going to focus on upgrading, and the mid-split, all that activity is on track leading to 4.0 beginning the deployments and trialing activity starting at the end of the year.”

“We are on pace to meet or exceed our goal of 1 million new homes and businesses past for 2023, with future footprint expansion remaining a high priority.”

“We are more than halfway through the year, and have implemented on mid-split technology at 25% of our footprint, and are on target to complete one-third of this build by year-end, with the first commercial launch of DOCSIS 4.0 in just a few short months.”

“Later this summer, we will be opening a new Minion Land in Orlando, and we look forward to Donkey Kong, in Japan, next year, as well as starting the previously announced kid's theme park, in Texas, and the Halloween Horror experience, in Las Vegas.”

“But in this environment, we're still competitive in lower activity superior to flux, and in some quarters, we may report customer losses.”

“We're investing, but the results we are seeing give us confidence that we are on the right path for Peacock to break even and grow from there.”

“And go-forward booking again still looks solid, similar pattern to Q1 of last year. So, so far, things continue to look good as we look ahead in the domestic side.”

“So the 850,000 going to 1 million this year, we'd welcome it probably going higher over time.”

“So that's a 20% increase in what we're doing there, all accommodated for -- with similar capital intensity year-over-year.”

“As we look ahead, some really good content coming later in the balance of the year. So on track, and then some.”

“remain elevated in 2024, and then decrease in 2025 the year we open Epic.”

“As we noted on our year end call, we expect parks CapEx in 2023 to increase by around $1.2 billion, remain elevated in 2024, and then decrease in 2025 the year we open Epic.”

“We continue to expect Peacock losses for the year to be around $3 billion, which we believe will be peak losses for Peacock and then begin to steadily improve.”

“We expect continued strong revenue growth over the course of 2023 and expect ARPU will be the primary driver.”

“While we expect to return to growth in broadband subscribers over time, during this interim period as well as over the longer-term, we will focus on protecting and growing broadband ARPU and we're pleased with the 4.5% year-over-year increase in ARPU in the quarter.”

“You saw us do this all of last year and in the first quarter, and I expect this trend to continue.”

“In the meantime, as the residential connectivity market and macroeconomic environment continue to evolve, our focus will be on serving our existing base, growing broadband ARPU, increasing our penetration and wireless and making proactive investments to expand our footprint at the fastest pace in our history.”

“And we also made that investment to return the Media segment to growth over time, which we feel even more confident today than we did maybe a year or two ago, then that's going to happen.”

“However, we will incur higher sports costs in the first half of 2023, reflecting the higher number of games as the season is extended and the remainder of the games which were paused are now played.”

“So I think we still have a good runway.”

“And as far as peak spending, I think Epic, I think we expect our peak spend probably to be this year, although '23 and '24 will be comparable as we ramp down at the beginning of '25 prior to opening.”

“We will hit our peak spend, as I think Mike or Brian said in the opening, this year and then improve steadily from there.”

“But we're seeing -- we found our footing in Japan in the fourth quarter. That's going to grow based on the Nintendo attraction there in Beijing, which really had kind of got to profitability in the third quarter suffered from COVID in the fourth quarter.”

“The parks business, Brian and Mike both talked about the parks business, it's never been better for us. We had a record year last year. Trajectory is going to slow a little bit in the U.S. just because we are doing so well.”

“We're going to start rolling that out at the back end of this year.”

“For 2023, we expect to continue to maintain leverage at around current levels, which I expect will support continued strong capital returns.”

“In 2023, we expect parks CapEx to increase by around $1.2 billion over last year as we continue to build Epic, which we plan to open in 2025 and begin work on our recently announced park extensions mentioned earlier.”

“In 2023, we expect CapEx intensity to stay at around 11%, similar to 2022 levels as we aim to accelerate our homes passed growth to about 1 million and continue to transition our entire broadband network to DOCSIS 4.0 over the next few years.”

“Looking to the first quarter. While we remain focused on managing costs, we expect underlying Media EBITDA, excluding Peacock, to continue to be impacted by the top line pressures at our linear networks.”

“We believe that our disciplined approach to running the business, including the benefits from our cost reduction efforts this quarter, positioned us to drive higher profitability, and further expand margins, both in 2023 and thereafter.”

“We expect ARPU growth will continue to be the primary driver of our residential broadband revenue growth in 2023.”

“Looking ahead, and based on our experience to date, we expect our subscriber cadence will follow our content launches, which will fall more in the second half of 23.”

“I want to start with cable, where our financial performance both for the year and the fourth quarter confirm that we are striking the right balance between rate and volume in residential broadband, and we plan to continue to do so in 2023.”

“So expect to just ease back off of the levels we saw in 2022. It's a hard number to predict, but I think we are past peak there.”

“And I'm especially excited for Epic Universe to open in the summer of 2025 which will transform Universal Orlando into a weeklong destination.”

“So will be deployed to 20% of our footprint by the end of this year and will be -- by the end of 2025 we'll be -- it will be serving the vast majority of our footprint with mid-split.”

“As you look ahead on capital return, I think, we're going to be guided as we've been in the recent past by our leverage. We'll stay around 2.4 times leverage while doing all the things I just described and that will dictate ample amount of return to shareholders.”

“On a year-to-date basis, Cable CapEx intensity was 10.4%, and we continue to expect Cable CapEx intensity to be around 11% for the year.”

“And we will incur higher sports costs in the first half of 2023, reflecting the higher number of games as the season is extended and the remainder of the paused games are played.”

“We continue to expect Peacock's EBITDA loss will be roughly $2.5 billion for the year, with the fourth quarter's loss reflecting the cost of new content.”

“We're adding another Nintendo-themed area, Donkey Kong to Japan in 2024.”

“we're transitioning to a cloud-based virtualized network as we work towards DOCSIS 4.0 which will enable us to deliver multi-gig symmetrical speeds to customers beginning in the back half of next year.”

“And we expect to have this available at 20% of our footprint by the end of this year and to the vast majority of our footprint by the end of 2025.”

“And while we don't anticipate residential broadband units to be a significant driver for now, we expect to maintain healthy growth in the other three, leading to continued strong financial performance at Cable for the foreseeable future.”

“We are keeping an eye on churn and acknowledge that ARPU may be affected in the future as customers deal with this unstable and inflationary environment.”

“hopefully, the takeaway from this call is, our feeling comes through that we feel very good about the EBITDA strength coming into the second half of the year.”

“we expect some pretty strong results from Peacock in the coming fall in addition to the advertising across our whole company.”

“So I wouldn't call out as we look to the second half of the year that macro is a particularly big issue.”

“We ended the quarter with net leverage at 2.3 times in line with our expectations for leverage to remain around 2.4 times going forward.”

“Working capital was $1.7 billion for the first half of 2022 and is likely to be slightly below this amount in the second half of the year, reflecting the continued ramp in content creation and the timing of annual sports rights payments.”

“Based on what we reported in the first six months of the year, that means total capital should be about $2.5 billion higher in the second half of the year compared to the first half.”

“For the year we continue to expect Cable CapEx intensity to stay around 11% as we work towards enhancing and transitioning our broadband network to DOCSIS 4.0 in the next several years, and NBCUniversal CapEx to be up around $1 billion dollars year-over-year, driven by the construction of Epic.”

“As a result, compared to last year, we will incur higher sports programming amortization in the third quarter with lower levels in the fourth quarter and higher again in the first half of next year.”

“Universal Japan has shown a nice rebound since capacity restrictions were lifted at the end of March with attendance having its strongest improvement since the pandemic and we expect momentum will build over the long-term.”

“We continue to expect Peacock's EBITDA loss will be roughly $2.5 billion for the year; however, taking into consideration the timing of content launches, we expect losses to be higher in the second half, especially in the fourth quarter.”

“we certainly expect a return to residential broadband subscriber additions”

“And even given that our bookings going forward, looking at the summer, are at historic high levels.”

“So the only other thing in seasonality, I think there will be ongoing normalization around things like -- example is Florida. People will leave, what we're seeing just leaving a little bit early. And so that is going to happen over time, won't be a sudden onetime moment in seasonality, but it will just continue, we believe, to get back to some normal trending and student activity as well”

“So we're going to stay around 2.4, but around 2.4, it could be 2.3, it could be 2.5, I would say we're sticking with -- we like leverage around that 2.4x level.”

“We ended the quarter with net leverage at 2.3x and still expect to remain around 2.4x leverage going forward.”

“For the year, we continue to expect Cable CapEx intensity to stay around 11% as we increase investment in our broadband network, and NBCUniversal CapEx related to the construction of EPIC universe to be up around $1 billion year-over-year.”

“So we expect more modest subscriber gains until we get to the back half of this year.”

“Given the natural ebbs and flows of our content slate, we do not anticipate seeing this type of growth every quarter.”

“However, taking into consideration the timing of content launches, consistent with what Brian mentioned, we would expect losses to be higher in the second half of the year.”

“We continue to expect Peacock's EBITDA loss will be roughly $2.5 billion for the year.”

“Even with a relatively limited programming slate we've achieved a level of success in MAAs, paid subs and engagement that is driving our decision to double our content spend on Peacock in 2022 to over $3 billion with the goal of ramping domestic content spend to $5 billion over the next couple of years, some of which will be incremental and some of which will be a reallocation from linear programming.”

“And so while we will continue to leverage the more than $20 billion of programming spend we already have across NBCU and Sky, we are committed to reallocating and increasing investment on top of this to drive further growth in paid subscribers, which we believe is the right path to creating long-term value.”

“We believe those all of those territories get us with the U.S. to 70% of the overall streaming market”

“And we think that the peak investment year will probably be '23. Based on our plans, and then the revenue growth will overtake the investment growth and will start turning positive.”

“From here, I expect the growth is going to be fueled by the strength of the network, focused on innovation and product differentiation.”

“For 2022 as I said previously, we expect to continue to maintain leverage at around current levels, which I expect will support continued strong capital returns.”

“Despite that, Beijing's EBITDA was essentially breakeven in the quarter and we anticipate modest profitability in our first full year of operation in 2022.”

“While the timing of when Peacock breaks even maybe pushed out from where we originally expected, we believe pursuing a dual revenue stream is the right strategy to create long-term value, and given the strength in our Theme Parks and high margin linear businesses, the good news is that we will fund this pivot out of NBCUniversal cash flows.”

“As a reminder, beginning in the first quarter of 2022, we will lap these carriage renewals.”

“As we enter 2022, programming expenses should reflect the benefit of fewer contract renewals, combined with the impact from our anticipated decline in overall video customers.”

“This year, we'll continue to evolve the strategy to incorporate more markets, additional partners and new distribution outlets.”

“and plans are in place for our own Sky Showtime joint venture to launch later this year.”

“We expect strong conversion of this group to paid subscribers over time.”

“And we will continue to expand this in 2022 and beyond.”

“I might tell you to expect it to trend a little bit higher than then it was and get back more towards 2019.”

“So, as for expectations for full-year results, while current visibility and overall activity creates a little bit of modest risk, we still believe full-year net adds will be around 2019 levels.”

“Looking ahead, our buyback will be a function of that balance and excess free cash flow available for capital returns.”

“From here, my expectation has that we keep our leverage ratio around where we currently are and continue to execute on our capital allocation priorities, which consists of maintaining a strong Balance Sheet, investing organically for profitable growth, and returning capital to shareholders.”

“Going forward, this change will continue to impact the quarterly pattern of recognizing sports rights amortization costs with expense higher in the first and fourth quarters and lower in the second and third quarters, but it should not impact our full-year results.”

“While our parks offer a great experience year-round, we expect some seasonality given Beijing's weather conditions with lower attendance in the fall and winter and more in spring and summer.”

“We're also looking forward to extending our streaming platforms outside of the U.S. With Peacock launching on Sky next month and Sky Showtime in the works for mid-2022.”

“Business services has emerged from the pandemic and was also a key driver of our results. And we believe this momentum will continue.”

“So overall on Parks, we are encouraged by the continued recovery, but getting back to and then exceeding pre-pandemic levels of EBITDA will likely require an improvement in international visitation.”