A seasonal lack of live sports content impacted Comcast’s streaming service, Peacock, which maintained its subscriber count at 41 million. The platform’s losses decreased to $101 million in the second quarter of 2025, a notable improvement from the $348 million loss reported in the same quarter last year. However, this brings Peacock’s total losses to over $10 billion.
The direct-to-consumer service achieved an 18% revenue increase, reaching $1.2 billion during the April-June period. Comcast’s executives expressed optimism that NBC Sports’ new NBA rights package would spur subscriber growth. Recently, Peacock raised monthly fees for both its ad-supported and ad-free plans by $3.
“The impact of this price increase, along with strong upfront results, has positioned us well for the NBA launch,” stated Comcast president Mike Cavanagh. He highlighted that the league’s return to NBC will lead to “higher sports programming expenses” in the fourth quarter. NBC’s 11-year deal with the NBA will cost $2.45 billion annually, but Comcast is confident that increased advertising revenue and Peacock sign-ups will help offset these costs.
As expected, the quiet sports calendar hindered Peacock’s customer acquisition efforts and mirrored losses in Comcast’s traditional cable unit. The operator reported 11.8 million video customers, marking a loss of 325,000 connections from the previous quarter and a year-on-year reduction of 1.43 million subscribers. Over the past year, Comcast has seen an 11% decline in its pay-TV base due to cord-cutting, a churn rate slightly lower than the 12% drop in Q2 2024.
The number of customer defections has surged in recent years. Since the same period last year, Comcast has lost 3.21 million video customers, representing 21% of its base, while nearly a third (31%) of its subscribers have exited in the last three years. Five years ago, Comcast had 20.4 million video customers; now, 8.6 million have abandoned traditional cable.
Comcast reported its latest cable losses shortly after Charter managed to reduce its quarterly churn rate to -5%. Media revenue saw a 2% rise to $6.44 billion, as Peacock’s contributions helped mitigate a 7% decline in domestic advertising, which fell by $143 million to $1.85 billion year-over-year.
NBCUniversal concluded its 2025-26 upfront cycle with what it termed “record” advanced commitments from advertisers, thanks in part to the new NBA inventory. The media unit experienced an unprecedented demand this year, with advertisers eager to secure spots in NBC’s sports portfolio, featuring major events like the Super Bowl, the Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics, and the FIFA World Cup on Telemundo. Comcast noted that Peacock sales represented over a third of the company’s upfront dollar volume.
On the broadband side, Comcast lost 226,000 domestic internet subscribers in the quarter, although this was better than the expected 257,000 losses. Overall revenue for the Philadelphia-based media company grew by 2% to $30.3 billion, surpassing forecasts of $29.8 billion, while adjusted earnings per share increased by 3% to $1.25, exceeding projections of $1.16. Profit saw a 1% rise, totaling $10.3 billion.
