Comcast loses 144,000 broadband customers in the third quarter as Peacock posts a second straight profit

Comcast is a smaller company than it was a year ago. Third-quarter revenue fell 6.1 percent to $29.3bn, according to results filed with the SEC on Thursday, but adjusted for the Versant spin-off completed on January 2 and the sale of Sky's German operations on May 31, revenue rose 0.5 percent.

Broadband is where the pressure shows. Comcast lost 144,000 domestic residential broadband customers and 274,000 video customers in the quarter, while adding 368,000 wireless lines for a total of 10.6 million. Residential connectivity revenue fell 3.5 percent to $17.0bn, which the company attributes to lower average broadband rates and fewer customers.

Content moved the other way, mostly. Peacock earned $261m of adjusted EBITDA on $1.8bn of revenue, its second profitable quarter in a row, and paid subscribers rose 17 percent to 48 million. Theme parks fell back: their adjusted EBITDA dropped 17.1 percent to $780m.

Earnings per share were $0.97 against $0.90 a year earlier. Adjusted, they were $1.07 against $1.12. Free cash flow came to $4.2bn, down from $4.9bn.