NBCUniversal’s Peacock has strung together back-to-back profitable quarters, posting a $261 million profit on $1.8 billion in revenue for Q3 2026. That compares with a $217 million loss on $1.4 billion in revenue in the same period last year.
The most telling line for streaming operators: Peacock held subscriber numbers flat at 48 million. The profit, in other words, did not come from adding more customers. It came from getting more out of the base it already has—through pricing, advertising and the kind of live-event programming that pulls in ad dollars.
Content is doing the heavy lifting
Comcast’s content and experiences business, which includes NBCUniversal, Sky and the Universal theme parks, grew revenue 6.5% to $10.54 billion and lifted profits 29.3% to $1.8 billion.
The World Cup gave media results a visible boost: media revenue rose 13% to $5.4 billion, while media profit jumped to $769 million from $247 million a year earlier. That is the live-sports effect in one line.
- Peacock: $261 million profit, $1.8 billion revenue, 48 million subscribers
- Content and experiences: $10.54 billion revenue, up 6.5%; profit $1.8 billion, up 29.3%
- Media (World Cup lift): $5.4 billion revenue, $769 million profit, up from $247 million
- Connectivity and platforms: $19.7 billion revenue, down 2.6%; 144,000 broadband and 274,000 video customers lost
The other side of Comcast is shrinking
Comcast’s connectivity and platforms segment saw revenue fall 2.6% to $19.7 billion and profit fall 4.4% to $7.6 billion. The unit shed 144,000 residential broadband customers and 274,000 video customers.
That drag flowed through to the parent: Comcast’s adjusted profit slipped 7.3% to $3.8 billion, or $1.07 per share, while revenue declined 6.1% to $29.3 billion. Wall Street had expected revenue of $29.22 billion and earnings of 99 cents per share. Comcast shares were flat in pre-market trading after the release.
The spin-off and the Sky-ITV review
Comcast says its plan to spin off NBCUniversal and Sky into a separate publicly traded company remains on track for next year. That separation would make the contrast between the growing content side and the shrinking connectivity side harder for investors to miss.
Sky, meanwhile, has agreed to a $2.1 billion deal to acquire ITV’s media and entertainment business, including its linear channels, the ITVX streaming platform and Love Productions, maker of The Great British Bake Off.
Combined with Sky, ITV would account for about 20% of all in-home viewing in the UK—second to the BBC and ahead of YouTube. ITV reaches around 40 million people each week and serves over 16.5 million monthly digital users.
That scale has drawn regulatory attention. UK Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy has said she is “minded to intervene” and asked both companies to respond to her concerns by Tuesday. If she issues an intervention notice, the Competition and Markets Authority and Ofcom would review the deal’s effect on competition and the public interest. The terms include $1.6 billion in cash, up to $267 million in performance-related earn-out, and $2.8 billion in content spend with ITV Studios over five years; Sky News and ITV News would remain editorially distinct.
For media planners, the immediate watchpoint is the UK review. For streaming teams, the bigger benchmark is Peacock: a flat subscriber base can still produce a growing profit.
Source: TheWrap
