It seems Comcast is off to a rough 2020. In their Q1 earning report today, the company revealed they lost 388,000 residential video subscribers. The loses hiked almost four times from 107,000 residential video subscribers the company lost in the same quarter last year, leaving the company at 19.9 million residential subscribers.
“Our Cable Communications results, while strong in the first quarter 2020, will be negatively affected in the second quarter by the significant deterioration in domestic economic conditions in recent weeks and by the costs associated with our support of customer connectivity as the population increasingly works and learns remotely from home,” the company said in a statement.
“NBCUniversal and Sky results also will be negatively impacted to a greater extent in the second quarter 2020. As a result, we expect the impacts of COVID-19 to increase in significance in the second quarter 2020 and to have a material adverse impact on our consolidated results of operations over the near-to-medium term.”
Comcast also revealed they lost 22,000 business video subscribers during the quarter. Due to COVID-19, Sky, Comcast’s European pay TV operator, also took a hit, losing 65,000 subscribers because sporting events and specific channels had to be cancelled.
Recently, Disney signed an agreement with Sky to bring Disney+ to Sky Q and Now TV in the UK and Ireland. “The deal also includes the first-pay window for 20th Century film titles such as ‘Le Mans ’66’ and ‘Terminator: Dark Fate,’ which will continue to be made available to Sky Cinema customers,” Variety reported.
In an effort to help their customers during the pandemic, Comcast made kids programming available to customers as lockdowns continued across the globe. The telecom giant announced that they made nearly 2,000 hours of programming for kids K-12 available free of charge for their Xfinity customers. They went on to unlock on-demand programming from over 24 entertainment networks for free and allow Xfinity X1 and Flex customers to preview premium channels for free.
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