What kind of business tightrope will media companies be walking in 2026? Comcast generated $2.2 billion in additional revenue from NBC’s telecast of the Winter Olympics and Super Bowl from Milan-Cortina in February. Still, the cable and content giant said profits fell 35.6% as it invested in upgrades to its critical cable and broadband operations and addressed increased spending for sports rights and production.
The Philadelphia owner of NBCUniversal said net income fell nearly 36% to $2.17 billion, or 60 cents a share, compared with $3.38 billion, or 89 cents a share, a year earlier. Comcast said earnings per share, adjusted for one-time items, were 79 cents.
Revenue for the quarter rose about 5% to $31.46 billion.
Comcast said capital spending rose 4.4% to $2.4 billion, of which $1.8 billion was in its cable business.
Comcast was able to improve its large-scale cable operations and reduce losses for broadband consumers. Broadband losses totaled 65,000, compared with 183,000 in the same period last year, the company said. Comcast has made broadband competition a bigger priority in recent months. Comcast also added 435,000 new mobile lines during the quarter, increasing its mobile customer base to 9.7 million businesses. Comcast said its loss of cable TV customers narrowed to 322,000, compared with 427,000 in the same period last year.
Overall, revenue from cable and other connectivity services decreased 2% to $17.32 billion.
Revenue from Comcast’s media business, which makes up NBCU, rose about 61% to $7.28 billion, driven primarily by February’s telecasts of the Super Bowl, Olympics and NBA All-Star Game. Without the Olympics and Superbow, revenue was up about 13%. Domestic media advertising increased 135% to $3.45 billion. Excluding the Super Bowl and Winter Olympics, sales rose 4.7% to $1.54 billion.
Revenue at the company’s movie studios rose 21% to $3.43 billion, and revenue at Universal theme parks rose 24% to $2.33 billion.
According to the company, Peacock subscribers increased by 12% year-on-year to 46 million (an increase of 2 million from the end of 2025). Peacock’s revenue nearly doubled to $2.1 billion, but its quarterly loss doubled to $432 million from a loss of $215 million a year earlier. Executives called for the streaming outlet to become profitable in the second quarter.
