What Does Q4 Earnings Hold For Comcast's (CMCSA) NBC Unit?

Comcast Corp. (NASDAQ:CMCSA) is scheduled to release fourth-quarter 2017 results on Jan 24, before the market opens.

The U.S. cable behemoth carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Let’s take a look at the company’s NBC Universal segment as well as its operations and revenues.

NBC Universal Segment Operations

The NBC Universal segment comprises programming and services of NBC Universal, a leading media and entertainment company that develops, produces and distributes entertainment, news as well as information, sports and other content to global audiences. Its operating divisions are — NBC Entertainment, NBC Universal Hispanic Media, Sports, News, Local Media, Cable Entertainment, Universal Filmed Entertainment, Universal Parks & Resorts, International and NC Universal.

Universal Studios have been launched in Japan and Hollywood, with resorts and other major attractions in Orlando. NBC Universal Hispanic Media continues to produce and distribute high-quality Spanish-language content across a multiplatform portfolio to Hispanic audiences around the world. Comcast continues to be focused on its theme park business with different acquisitions. Notably, over the last three to four years, the theme park business yielded benefits for Comcast. In third-quarter of 2017, revenues from theme parks were $1,550 million, up 7.7% year over year.

(See more in Comcast to Report Q4 Earnings: What's in Store?)

(To know more about Comcast’s Cable Communications segment, read What Does Q4 Earnings Hold for Comcast's Cable Unit?)

Revenues

We expect Comcast to see an improvement in revenues in the quarter to be reported.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for fourth-quarter 2017 revenues at NBC Universal Segment is pegged at $8,747 million. The figure reflects an improvement over the $8,014 million and $8,451 million-reported in third-quarter 2017 and fourth-quarter 2016, respectively.

Coming to the sub-categories, we notice a similar uptrend in estimates.

Cable Networks revenue estimate of $2,598 million is below $2,603 million reported in the last quarter.

Broadcast TV revenues came in at $2,921 million, higher than $2,133 million and $2,848 million reported in third-quarter 2017 and fourth-quarter 2016, respectively.

Filmed Entertainment revenue estimate of $1,856 million is above $1,784 million and $1,834 million reported in third-quarter 2017 and fourth-quarter 2016, respectively.

Theme Parks revenues estimate of $1,442 million lags $1,550 million reported in the last quarter.

Price Performance

Comcast portrays an impressive price performance. In the past three months, shares of Comcast have rallied 16.3% compared with the industry’s gain of 8.7%.

When compared with the market at large, the stock looks good as the S&P 500 index has risen 9.9%.

Latest Developments

Comcast is planning to strengthen its services to small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) leveraging on its wireless network. The cable MSO (multi-service operator) is rolling out a new product — Connection Pro — which will enable SMBs to keep their businesses running in case of a power failure or loss of web connectivity.

Further, Comcast completed the nationwide rollout of wireless services under the Xfinity Mobile brand, with plans to include YouTube in its X1 video platform. Notably, the company is entering into the highly competitive U.S. wireless market to compete with big players like Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ) , AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) , T-Mobile US Inc. (NYSE:T) and Sprint.

Moreover, the company initiated the nationwide rollout of the DOCSIS 3.1 technology, with the latest xFi Advanced Gateway.

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