Comcast said it intends to separate NBCUniversal and Sky as its second-quarter profit fell

The news was not the quarter. Brian Roberts and Mike Cavanagh, Comcast's co-chief executives, used the second-quarter release to say the company intends to separate NBCUniversal and Sky, a move they framed as creating two focused companies out of one. The release stopped there. It named no structure, no timetable, and no decision on whether the separation is a spin-off, a sale, or something else.

The quarter itself was mixed. Revenue was $29,940m, down 1.2 percent, though on the pro forma basis the company uses to compare like for like it rose 4.7 percent. Net income attributable to Comcast was $3,526m, against $11,123m a year earlier. Adjusted earnings per share fell to $1.04, down 16.7 percent, and adjusted EBITDA fell 13.4 percent to $8,902m. Free cash flow was $4.6bn, and the company returned $2.1bn to shareholders through dividends and buybacks.

Underneath, the connectivity business the company is pivoting toward showed the progress management wanted to point at. Comcast passed 10 million total wireless lines, its best wireless quarter, and said domestic residential broadband customer net losses narrowed by 34,000 from a year earlier. Peacock, the streaming service, turned a profit for the first time. Theme parks softened.