Q4 2023 Comcast Corp Earnings Call

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Comcast fourth quarter and full year 2023 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode.

Please note that this conference call is being recorded.

Jessica Jean Reif Cohen: I will now turn the call over to executive Vice President of Investor Relations Ms. Marcia by Victor. Please go ahead Ms. Rebecca.

Jessica Jean Reif Cohen: Thank you operator, and welcome everyone joining us on today's call are Brian Roberts, Mike Cavanaugh, Jason Armstrong and Dave Watson I will now refer you to slide two of the presentation accompanying this call, which can also be found on our Investor Relations website, which contains our safe Harbor disclaimer. This conference call.

It may include forward looking statements subject to certain risks and uncertainties. In addition, during this call we will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. Please see our 8-K and trending schedules issued earlier. This morning for the reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures to GAAP with that I'll turn the call over to Mike.

Michael J. Cavanagh: Marcy and good morning, everyone, we're less than a month into the new year in 2024 is already off to a great start.

Marcy: Two weeks ago, our entire company came together to make history <unk>.

Michael J. Cavanagh: During records with the first exclusively streamed NFL wild card game on Peacock.

Marcy: Nearly 23 million viewers watched the Kansas City Chiefs take on the Miami Dolphins consuming 30% of all Internet traffic in the U S and setting a new record in total U S Internet traffic for any night.

Marcy: Our investment in the network and our technology platforms built over decades enabled us to shine delivering a seamless experience on the internet and Peacock demonstrating that our company is in excellent position to win in this era of high bandwidth consumption.

Marcy: Also Universal Pictures Oppenheimer picked up five Golden Globe Awards, including Best Picture Best Director Best Actor Best supporting actor and best original score.

Marcy: So with 2024 off to a terrific start let's look back at 2023, where we produce consistently strong financial results and continued to execute against our long term strategy, we've positioned our company to benefit from a significant number of scaled and diversified growth opportunities that are margin accretive.

Normally residential broadband mobile business services theme Parks studios and Peacock in aggregate our revenue in these businesses grew 8% in 2023 and comprised 55% of our total revenue for the year.

Our healthy cash flow generation and strong balance sheet have enabled the organic investment that fuels. These businesses and at the same time fund substantial capital return, including significant share repurchases. All of this has translated into excellent financial performance for the.

Third consecutive year, we generated the highest revenue adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EPS in our company's history.

Marcy: Now, let's go deeper on some of the important achievements during the year.

Marcy: I'm really proud of the progress we've made in our connectivity businesses, we maintained a strong trajectory and Xfinity mobile increasing our subscriber lines by 24% and total domestic wireless revenue by nearly 20%.

Marcy: We also performed well in our business services segment, which grew full year revenue and EBITDA by nearly 5% with margins approaching 60% and.

And we exceeded our goal of adding over 1 million, new homes and businesses passed and expect to do at or above this level in 2024.

Marcy: Our domestic broadband business remains strong we kept our very large and healthy base of subscribers flat, while growing residential <unk> three 9%. The high end of our historical range driving solid EBITDA growth in connectivity and platforms and expanding margins to around 40%.

Marcy: On an underlying basis.

Marcy: We achieved all of this despite an intensely competitive environment and as I look back on 2023, I am confident that our strategy combined with excellent execution sets us up extremely well to navigate the road ahead.

Marcy: While the competitive environment is likely to remain at these levels for a period of time broadband is still a very large healthy and profitable market and the consumption trends that we're seeing are encouraging for the future.

Customers are connecting more devices in their homes and are using them for applications that require more capacity faster speeds and lower latency.

Our fiber deep and capital efficient network is more than ready to meet this demand with 100000 miles of fiber and a clear path to offering multi gigabit symmetrical speeds ubiquitously across our entire footprint with DOCSIS four data.

Marcy: I'd like to spend a minute briefly addressing the government's affordable connectivity program <unk>.

Marcy: First it's important to note that we built on our decade long history in digital equity to effectively participate in ACP and if successfully leveraged the national verify our program in the process.

Marcy: We hope that the White House and Congress renew this funding and keep these important resources available to the many people and households, who have relied upon this program to stay digitally connected we have already begun to communicate with ACP participants and we'll provide a range of options, including our highly successful Internet Essentials program and.

Marcy: The event that funding is discontinued.

Marcy: Shifting to content and experiences we've positioned ourselves to drive long term profitable growth over.

Marcy: Over the span of decades, we've built a remarkable portfolio of iconic content and strong franchises in both film and television, including live Sports News and entertainment our market, leading businesses have tremendous reach and continued to perform and execute collaboratively playing to our strengths by.

Marcy: Leveraging our IP and our incredible partners.

Marcy: Let's start with our studio group, where we hit a major milestone ranking as the number one studio and film by worldwide box office with hits, such as Super Mario Brothers Oppenheimer Fast 10, and five nights at Freddy's.

Marcy: We are proud to work alongside our creative partners like Christopher Nolan, Chris Melinda, Andre and Jason Bluhm or innovative industry leaders to develop content that continues to delight audiences.

Marcy: And I'm really excited about another fantastic film slate in 2024 with the latest installment of Kung Fu Panda in March along with the <unk> and Twisters in July and Wicked slated for November which will also benefit Peacock as these films and many others enter the pay one window.

Marcy: At the same time, our media segment continues to deliver reaching over 100 million households, every quarter with leading sports news and entertainment. We have the number one most watched news organization in the U S and Sunday night football is pacing to be the most watched primetime show for an unprecedented the 13th consecutive year.

Marcy: <unk>.

Marcy: Peacock continued to be the fastest growing stream in the U S. A result of our holistic business model, which leverages all of our brands to serve a broad range of viewers by providing them with options to match their evolving habits.

Marcy: In a short period of time since we launched in 2020, we've seen strong momentum ending the year at 31 million paid subscribers at a $10 <unk> supported by healthy trends in both engagement and churn and I'm excited for 2024, we started with those successful wildcard game, which will.

Marcy: Soon be followed by Oppenheimer coming exclusively to Peacock and a full slate of both new and returning originals such as Ted Peacocks, most watched original title additional pay one movies and the Summer Olympics later this year.

Ted Peacocks: These next Olympic games promise to be nothing short of spectacular with the return of fans. This time to Paris, one of the most beautiful cities in the world.

Ted Peacocks: With the NBC broadcast network airing more content than ever before and Peacock as the streaming home for all games NBC Universal would be the most comprehensive Olympic destination and U S media history with Xfinity once again, playing a huge role in delivering each came on our entertainment OS platform, which is now also available.

Ted Peacocks: To charter customers through zummo at parks, we achieved record high revenue and EBITDA in 2023 and have exciting new attractions and experiences in the years ahead will.

Ted Peacocks: We will open Donkey Kong another Nintendo themed land next year in Osaka, which will expand Super Nintendo World by another 70%, we expect continuation of the strong trends in Hollywood also driven by Super Nintendo World and we will see the completion of epic Universe, Our fourth gate in Orlando prior to its grand opening.

Ted Peacocks: <unk> in 2025.

Ted Peacocks: In summary, we are very pleased with all that we have achieved in 2023, we have incredible teams in each of our businesses and have executed against our plan exceptionally well delivering very strong EBITDA EPS and free cash flow.

Ted Peacocks: Going forward, our highest priority is to continue our strong operational performance enabled by the investments we are making in our six key growth areas fueling their growth and further improving the profile of our business mix.

Ted Peacocks: The strength and stability of our company, including our balance sheet enables us to make these investments while also providing our shareholders with substantial capital returns.

Ted Peacocks: Since we started buying back stock in late May of 2021, we have repurchased approximately 15% of our total shares outstanding and with today's announcement, we've now increased our annualized dividend by 150% since I joined the company in 2015.

Ted Peacocks: Putting it all together our strategy is working and we see many years ahead that this formula will continue to deliver for our company and shareholders.

Jason: Jason over to you.

Jason: Thanks, Mike and good morning, everyone I'll begin on slides four and five with our consolidated results.

Jason: Total revenue increased 2% to $31 3 billion for the fourth quarter and was consistent at $121 6 billion for the full year.

Jason: On a reported basis EBITDA was consistent at 8 billion for the fourth quarter and up 3% to $37 6 billion for the full year.

Our EBITDA results include severance and other in this quarter as well as in last year's fourth quarter.

Ted Peacocks: Excluding these items totaling $527 million this quarter and $638 million in last year's quarter, adjusted EBITDA decreased 1% in the fourth quarter and remained at 3% growth for the full year.

Ted Peacocks: Adjusted EPS was up 2% to <unk> 84, a share for the fourth quarter and increased 9% to $3 98 for the full year.

Ted Peacocks: We generated $1 7 billion of free cash flow for the quarter and 13 billion for the full year, which translates into $3 and 13th in free cash flow per share, which was up 10% year over year and we returned over 100% of this to shareholders with $4 7 billion of capital returned to shareholders in the quarter and $15 8 billion.

Ted Peacocks: For the full year.

Ted Peacocks: Our strong level of free cash flow includes the significant investments, we're making to support and grow our business and six broad and diversified growth categories, including residential broadband wireless and business services connectivity, along with theme parks streaming and premium content at our studios.

Ted Peacocks: Taken together these growth areas generated more than half of our total company revenue and grew at a high single digit rate during the quarter and for the full year.

Ted Peacocks: Now, let's turn to our business results, starting on slide six with connectivity and platforms.

Ted Peacocks: As a reminder, our largest foreign exchange exposure is to the British pound, which was up nearly 6% year over year as usual in order to highlight the underlying performance of the connectivity and platforms business I will refer to year over year growth on a constant currency basis.

Ted Peacocks: Revenue for total connectivity and platforms was flat at $20 4 billion.

Ted Peacocks: Unpacking that revenue in our core connectivity business domestic broadband domestic wireless international connectivity in business services connectivity increased 7% to $11 billion, while video advertising and other revenue declined 8% to $9 billion.

Ted Peacocks: Our strategy is to invest to drive growth in our core connectivity businesses, while at the same time carefully managing businesses that are important but face secular headwinds.

On balance this is a favorable mix shift for the profitability of our overall connectivity and platform segment as reflected in our results EBITDA for total connectivity and platforms increased 3% with EBITDA margins, improving 130 basis points year over year. This includes severance and other of 422 million in the quarter.

Ted Peacocks: And $456 million of charges in last year's fourth quarter.

Ted Peacocks: Excluding these items in both periods EBITDA increased 2% to $8 billion and EBITDA margins improved by 110 basis points.

Ted Peacocks: Margins for our domestic legacy cable business improved 70 basis points to 46, 2%.

Ted Peacocks: In terms of how our underlying performance in connectivity and platforms breaks out between residential and business on the same basis, excluding severance and other from both periods residential EBITDA grew 2% with margins, improving 120 basis points and business services EBITDA increased 5% with margins nearly unchanged at an impressive 50.

Ted Peacocks: 7%.

Ted Peacocks: Now, let's get further into the details starting with our connectivity growth drivers Reza.

Reza: Residential connectivity revenue grew 7% driven by 4% growth in domestic broadband 15% growth in domestic wireless and 19% growth in international connectivity, while business services connectivity revenue grew 6%.

Reza: Domestic broadband was once again driven by very strong <unk> growth of three 9% for the quarter and for the year landing at the high end of our historical 3% to 4% range, while our base of 32 million broadband subscribers remained stable over the past year, including the 34000 subscriber loss this quarter.

Reza: We.

Ted Peacocks: Main focused on competing aggressively but in a financially balanced way as evidenced by this quarter and past years results.

Ted Peacocks: With the broadband marketplace remaining extremely competitive we will continue to manage this balance and expect ARPA growth will remain strong within our historical range and continue to be the driver of our residential broadband revenue growth in 2024.

Ted Peacocks: While we do not expect subscriber trends to improve in the coming quarters, we do expect them to improve overtime at the macro level customers are consuming more connecting more devices in their homes and are using them for applications that collectively require even faster speeds lower latency and higher reliability overtime.

Ted Peacocks: These secular trends are all moving in our favor and we believe our marginal cost to add capacity to our network is unrivaled and this is why we are investing in our fiber fed network to further increase capacity and offer multi gig symmetrical speeds ubiquitously across our footprint and ensure that we stay way ahead of consumer demand with the best.

Ted Peacocks: Broadband offering and experience we.

We have deployed mid splits to about 35% of our footprint and expect that to reach around 50% by the end of 2024 on.

Ted Peacocks: On the back of this we launched our first DOCSIS 4.0 market during the fourth quarter and will continue to launch additional markets. This year.

Ted Peacocks: We are focused on what we can control that means segmenting, our customer base by offering our customers the right price, including value options at different speed tiers, and driving ARPA ahead in an environment, where broadband subscriber growth remains challenged and we're doing this in the context of aggressive network upgrades and expansion putting us in a great position.

Ted Peacocks: <unk> to eventually return to subscriber growth.

Ted Peacocks: Speaking of network expansion, we exceeded our goal of passing 1 million new homes and businesses in 2023 landing at nearly $1 1 million and we plan to replicate this in 2024 with this level or potentially even greater footprint expansion.

Ted Peacocks: Switching to wireless we hit a great milestone eclipsing $1 billion in quarterly revenue for the first time this quarter with the year over year increase due to higher service revenue driven by continued strong momentum in customer lines, which were up $1 3 million or 24% year over year to $6 5 million in total.

Ted Peacocks: This includes 310000 lines, we just added in the quarter we've.

We've had a healthy run rate generating around 300000 net additional lines per quarter for the last two years and we're consistently in the market testing new offers and we'll continue to do that throughout the coming year with the goal that some of these offers will translate into accelerated line additions as the year progresses.

Ted Peacocks: With only 11% penetration of our domestic residential broadband customer accounts, we still have a big opportunity and a long runway ahead for growth in wireless.

Ted Peacocks: International connectivity revenue increased 19% driven by steady mid teens growth in broadband along with strong growth in wireless which had healthy growth in both device sales and service revenue.

Ted Peacocks: Finally business services connectivity revenue increased 6% driven by consistent growth in our small business category as we grew our pool through rate and higher penetration of additional products like security edge and from strong growth in mid market and enterprise.

Ted Peacocks: The revenue growth in our connectivity businesses was offset by declines in video advertising and other revenue.

Ted Peacocks: The video revenue decline was driven by continued customer losses. The lower other revenue reflects similar dynamics in wireline voice in advertising was impacted by a tough comparison to last year, which benefited from higher political revenue in our domestic markets.

Ted Peacocks: As I mentioned earlier, excluding severance and other connectivity and platforms total EBITDA increased 2% with adjusted margin up a 110 basis points to unpack. This improvement. The main driver is the mix shift to our high margin connectivity businesses.

Ted Peacocks: Transition you've seen for the last few years and then we expect to continue.

Ted Peacocks: In addition to the mix shift we are benefiting from ongoing cost discipline.

Ted Peacocks: For every quarter this year, including the fourth quarter five out of six categories of expenses. We report had decreased the only category that grew is direct product costs, which are success based and directly associated with the significant growth in our connectivity businesses.

Ted Peacocks: In addition, we continue to get more efficient with better tools and technology compared to 2017, we reduced our domestic truck rolls by nearly 50% and customer interactions are down nearly 40%, even while we increased our domestic relationships by nearly $5 million over this same time period.

Ted Peacocks: The investment, we're making in our network, including virtualization and using technology to enhance the customer experience.

Ted Peacocks: Not only makes us more competitive it makes us more cost efficient together the mix shift the cost discipline and the technology advances we've made in customer service are all structural and we expect them to continue positioning us to drive higher profitability and further margin expansion in 2024 and for the foreseeable future.

Ted Peacocks: Now, let's turn to content and experiences on slide seven revenue increased 6% to $11 5 billion and EBITDA increased 2% to 932 million <unk>.

Ted Peacocks: Excluding severance of $101 million this quarter and $186 million in last year's fourth quarter, adjusted EBITDA decreased 6%, reflecting a decrease in media, partially offset by strong growth of studios and record results at parks.

Ted Peacocks: Now, let's take a closer look at content and experiences starting with media.

Media revenue increased 3% driven by strong growth at Peacock, which was up 57% and similar to wireless cross the $1 billion in quarterly revenue Mark for the first time.

Ted Peacocks: Domestic distribution increased 9% driven by Peacock subscription revenue growth of 88% fueled by the continuation of solid growth in our paid subscriber base.

Ted Peacocks: We ended the quarter with $31 million Peacock paid subscribers up $10 million over the past year, including 3 million net additions in the quarter driven by sports, including the NFL and the Big 10 and movies, notably the day and date movie five nights at Freddy's and a variety of originals and other entertainment programming inter.

Ted Peacocks: National Networks' revenue, which is mainly distribution revenue per sky sports increased 17%, primarily due to the increase in sports content. This year as well as the positive impact of foreign currency translation.

Ted Peacocks: And finally domestic advertising declined 7% due to a tough comparison to last year, which included a significant incremental contribution in advertising from Telemundo is broadcast of the FIFA World Cup.

Ted Peacocks: Excluding the World Cup advertising increased nearly 3% driven by strong peacock advertising and from our strong sports lineup.

Ted Peacocks: Peacock advertising increased 50% again, excluding the World Cup and hit an all time high.

Ted Peacocks: Media EBITDA decreased 50%, mainly due to higher sports costs, reflecting a full quarter of the contractual rate increase in our NFL programming. The addition of big tend to our sports programming lineup this year and higher Premier League costs compared to last year when games were paused for four weeks to accommodate the timing of the World Cup.

Ted Peacocks: At Peacock EBITA losses continue to moderate in the fourth quarter with nice year over year improvement, resulting in full year losses for Peacock of $2 7 billion, which was slightly better than the expectation we had previously communicated.

Ted Peacocks: 2023 marked the peak in annual losses at Peacock and for 2024, we expect to show meaningful improvement in losses versus 2023.

Ted Peacocks: Turning to studios revenue increased 4% driven by theatrical revenue growth of 59% due to our performance at the box office this quarter with five nights at Freddy's Trolls band together, the Exorcist and migration in fact, five nights at Freddy's with the highest grossing horror film of 2023 and also set a.

Ted Peacocks: A record on Peacock as the most watched title of all time in the first five days of its release in.

Ted Peacocks: In addition to the films this quarter, we benefited from prior period titles moving through profitable licensing windows, driving EBITDA growth of 83% to $308 million.

Ted Peacocks: At theme parks revenue increased 12% and EBITDA also increased 12% to $872 million for the quarter.

Ted Peacocks: These strong results were again driven by growth at our international parks, especially as Osaka continues to benefit from strong demand from Super Nintendo World driving higher attendance and per cap spending relative to both last year and pre pandemic levels.

Ted Peacocks: In Hollywood, We also continued to benefit from the positive consumer reaction to Super Nintendo World, which opened earlier in 2023, driving strong attendance and growth in per caps and resulting in Hollywood's best fourth quarter EBITDA in its history.

Ted Peacocks: In Orlando our results were also strong with attendance in line with 2019 pre pandemic levels and revenue substantially ahead.

Ted Peacocks: Now I'll wrap up with free cash flow and capital allocation on slide eight.

Ted Peacocks: As I mentioned previously we generated $1 7 billion in free cash flow this quarter and 13 billion for the year and we achieved this while absorbing meaningful capital investments to expand our footprint and further strengthen our domestic broadband network scale, our streaming business and support the continued build of our epic Universe Park ahead of its 2025.

Ted Peacocks: <unk>.

Ted Peacocks: As a result total capital spending increased 13% for the year driven by higher Capex.

Ted Peacocks: At connectivity and platforms Capex increased one 5% for the full year with Capex intensity coming in at 10, 1%, primarily driven by investments to further strengthen and extend our network.

Ted Peacocks: In 2024, we expect capex intensity to be in the same range as we continue to transition our U S network to DOCSIS 4.0, and accelerate our growth in homes passed.

Just note that while our capex intensity of connectivity and platforms has been at around 10% for the past few years. This is not a specific internal target for us rather it's an output our teams are going as fast as possible. However, if for example, we have an opportunity to accelerate further our growth in homes passed at accretive Economics, then we would welcome.

Ted Peacocks: And that opportunity, but right now the envelope has been right around 10% and we're very happy with the pace that we're on and the progress we're making.

Content and experiences Capex increased by $1 2 billion for the full year driven by parks with epic accounting for the majority of the increase in spend in.

Ted Peacocks: In 2024, we expect parks Capex to remain elevated and then decrease in 2025, when we open epic.

Ted Peacocks: Working capital was $2 billion for the year, which was better than we expected improving $1 billion over last year's level. Our 2023 results included benefits from the pause in production during the work stoppage is associated with the writers and actors strikes during the year.

Ted Peacocks: Turning to return of capital and our balance sheet for the full year. We returned a total of $15 8 billion to shareholders. This included share repurchases of $11 billion, including $3 5 billion in the fourth quarter in.

Ted Peacocks: In addition dividend payments totaled $4 8 billion.

As we announced this morning, we are raising our dividend by eight cents a share to $1 24 per share that's our 16th consecutive annual increase.

We ended the year with net leverage of two three times in line with our target leverage of around two four times and we expect to remain at this target level in 2024.

Wrapping up we had a very solid quarter and a great year and we're focused on continuing to execute our long term growth strategy supported by our balanced and disciplined approach to capital allocation.

Ted Peacocks: I'm proud of the steady and consistent framework, which guides our decision making.

Ted Peacocks: Going to invest aggressively for organic growth across our six key areas will protect our balance sheet and cash flow position and return capital to shareholders.

Brian L. Roberts: Now I'll turn it over to Brian for a few remarks before we turn to Q&A.

Brian: Thanks, Jason and good morning, everyone.

Brian: Like to just emphasize a couple of points.

Brian: Think about the gear, it's hard not to be really proud of what we've accomplished 2023 was the best financial year in our 60 year history, and we already have nice momentum in 2024.

Brian: As Mike and Jason just outlined we have a unique company that is incredibly well positioned.

Ted Peacocks: We always try to think about and invest for the long term.

Ted Peacocks: Particularly across the six key growth drivers.

What's also important is that in 2023 alone we returned $16 billion in capital to our shareholders and as you just heard it's the 16th straight year that we just raised our dividend that's consistency.

Ted Peacocks: So when you put this all together we have a great team. That's always most important to me and we're making the right adjustments to our businesses to position us to win grow and continue to return capital to shareholders.

Ted Peacocks: And while there may be speculation of what we could do next.

Ted Peacocks: I'd like you to hear directly from me I Love. The company. We have so the bar continues to be even higher for us to do anything other than the plan you heard today.

Ted Peacocks: I want to thank all our employees for a great 2023, as they continue to execute at the highest level.

Ted Peacocks: With that let me hand, it over to Marty to take all your questions.

Marty Smith: Thanks, Brian operator, I'd like to open the call for Q&A. Please.

Marty Smith: Thank you we will now begin the question and answer session.

Marty Smith: Do you have a question. Please press Star then the number one under a touchtone phone.

Marty Smith: If you wish to be removed from the queue. Please press star and the number two.

Marty Smith: If youre using a speakerphone you may need to pick up your handset first before pressing the numbers. Once again, if there are any questions Press Star then the number one on your Touchtone phone.

Marty Smith: Our first question is coming from Ben Swinburne from Morgan Stanley. Your line is now live.

Marty Smith: Thanks, Good morning.

Marty Smith: And Brian Thanks for those for those clear comments I wanted to ask you guys about broadband and separately about peacock.

Marty Smith: I guess, Jason you talked about and I talked about sort of the consumer trends that you're seeing play to your strengths, but you guys are doing a lot.

Jason: At the network level, including in 'twenty four you talked about your converged offers that you're testing, whether you're getting more aggressive.

Jason: You're talking about a timeline on it but can you talk a little bit about the opportunity to reaccelerate broadband customer trends because the product you are bringing to the marketplace seeming seemingly getting better even this year.

Jason: And I realize you're talking long term, but I just wanted to hear more from you on the things Youre doing in the business and product today, and how that may or may not translate into better trends on the customer front over the course of the next kind of 12 to 24 months.

Mike: Then on Peacock I guess, maybe for Mike.

Mike: How much more investment does this business need I think you guys had talked a while ago about getting to 5 billion of programming investment. If you look at the fourth quarter anywhere any way Youre basically there now we've got good revenue momentum I'm trying to think about the path to getting this business to breakeven. So I'd love to hear what you think the business needs in terms of increment.

Mike: Investment from here. Thanks.

Mike: Thanks, a lot.

Mike: Hey, Ben This is Dave let me start with broadband and then hand it over to.

Dave Watson: Mike and Jason but on broadband.

Mike Jason said, you know the environment pretty much remains the same.

Mike: There is still macro GOG activity moves are down and but to your point. It is intensely competitive, especially the the difference that has kind of.

Mike: Been there and in this particular competitive cycle, it's especially in the lower income segment.

Mike: So the result of it is the main driver customer activity continues to be lower connects as churn remains near record lows and despite this we're striking I think the right balance between customer growth and <unk>.

Marty Smith: Kept our sub base relatively flat grew <unk> three 9% for the quarter and the year and so we're also growing CMP EBITDA and expanding margins. So.

Dave Watson: Competitive cycles like this one you know we've been through many and this what makes.

Dave Watson: What happens during some of these cycles theres new footprint the competitive footprint. Some unique discounting occurs I think fiber is a pretty good example of one that we went through years ago and continue to have.

Marty Smith: There is pressure on net adds as you go through the initial phase of the cycle, but we've evolved our approach and we have and continue to compete very well against fiber. So I think.

Dave Watson: This cycle is headlined by fixed wireless and that really the emphasis on more of the lower income segment.

Dave Watson: Added new footprint or Theres, some upper pressure, but.

Dave Watson: We have.

Dave Watson: Continue to adapt the keys for us through this cycle has continued to build better products and from the network to the Wi Fi experience and the network investments that we're making are very consistent and.

Dave Watson: And we've laid it out mid splits were pleased with our progress for finishing 23, 33% upgraded will be around 50% by year end 'twenty four and we've started to employ Florida auto and on our path towards symmetrical service offerings. So this is all due to where we believe strongly the.

Dave Watson: The market is going and the market is going to have more devices that will be used and be hung on the network and there'll be more usage and engagement.

Dave Watson: No.

Dave Watson: For the long run we want to be in position to compete as things shift we're going to compete in a segmented way for every segment.

And it will be aggressive in each one, but we don't expect subscriber trends to improve over the coming quarters, but we do expect to grow over time.

Dave Watson: So we will compete aggressively and be in position when the macro environment shifts and as we see with fixed wireless that there is an opportunity and will be an opportunity to get more win backs. We wanted to be in position for that as well so and throughout it all up we're going to protect a healthy base of 32 million broadband customers managing rate and volume throughout.

Dave Watson: Hey, its Mike Ben So thanks for the question on Peacock I also kind of expand a little bit on the question, but get to it in terms of where we see programming going in the end. So you got to say, we couldnt be prouder of what we accomplished with Peacock in 2023, so to end the year with paying subs.

Dave Watson: $31 million up 50% year over year, and that's only three years in we're achieving a level of scale with paying subs, that's about 60% of the level of.

Dave Watson: The streamers that have been out there for many years.

Mike Tirico: Domestically ex Netflix and we're holding a very strong ARPA 10 bucks per sub so while it's not the scale. We ultimately plan to get to I got to say the team has done a fantastic job one.

Mike Tirico: Lots of question can we even get this far so from here, it's really a matter of continuing to execute against the strategy. That's gotten us here and that is expected as we said earlier to drive improvement and peacocks bottom line from the peak losses that we saw in 2023.

Mike Tirico: I mean, we're really thinking about what that strategy is it's to manage peacock and our linear TV businesses as one.

Mike Tirico: The strategy really is to leverage the great relevant content properties, we have both at NBC, which is news and sports and entertainment, obviously Bravo and some of the other assets we have in the cable business and universal with the pay one window. So when you put it all together continuing to execute against that we're going to look to get more.

Dave Watson: Kale and things we're doing are both to drive a more scale more subs, but also get more engagement with the subs, we have and drive improvements in churn, which we've been pretty pleased with.

Dave Watson: So ultimately your question.

Dave Watson: Or are we a relative to leveling off a little bit of the growth rate of programming spend as we get to this level is clearly part of the improvement in Peacock losses, Standalone that will be a factor as we see continued strong growth on the revenue side, given the higher level of subs in the expectation for continuing to add.

Dave Watson: But again I would just say I'm less focused on what Standalone Peacock losses are doing that I am on doing what's right for the long term for the totality of the media business, which is linear and streaming I think we've navigated a very good path for us So really pleased with what we've done.

Dave Watson: Thank you very much operator next question please.

Dave Watson: Thank you. Your next question is coming from Craig Moffett from Moffett Nathanson. Your line is now live.

Craig Moffett: Alright, thank you.

Craig Moffett: I Wonder if you could do an early postmortem on the the chiefs dolphin playoff game, what kind of.

Craig Moffett: Scripps in growth that drew drove at Peacock and what kind of early churn impact you've had on that and I know there was some chatter that you guys tried to play down about whether that amount.

Craig Moffett: The amount of traffic load on the Internet would have some impact on fixed wireless, but I'm wondering if you just have any observations about how.

Craig Moffett: All other platforms handle the kind of volume.

Craig Moffett: That game drove in terms of traffic.

Mike: Sure Craig, It's Mike I'll start and Dave can chime in if you like so but as we said earlier, we couldnt be more pleased with the way we performed in the wildcard game. It was the biggest livestream events in U S history, which is no small feat to performed so seamlessly, which really highlights what we've done.

Dave Watson: And Davis business on the broadband side and the technology platforms that we built and have talked about repeatedly that are supporting Peacock sky and our expanded products and now zummo. So I think we've built tremendous advantage and are always looking for ways to.

Dave Watson: We're very happy to see the impact on our broadband usage, regardless of what it means for other ways of getting the platform across we couldnt be happier that it's that it worked well and performed really well with that many concurrent streams.

Dave Watson: But what in terms of adding subs, we would expect to see we're not going to comment on it today, but we would expect to see increase in paid subs. We're focused now on retention of the subs that came in right around the game.

Dave Watson: What's important is it's both the subs that came in during the game and the engagement of the people that were already on the platform. So engagement and retention is really going to be focused on what's coming next.

Dave Watson: Choose a lot of that including Oppenheimer coming to the platform on February 16th we have the Summer Olympics Olympics coming and now that we're post strikes you'll see a number of peacock originals and additional movies from the pay one window that we've got with universal, but really when I think about it at the scale we have.

Dave Watson: Gotten to whats important is to keep people engaged with the platform and all the content. That's there not the wildcard game unto itself. So the job was to get get more people in the door and get everybody. That's already in the door reengage with the platform around that game and then.

Ted Peacocks: Try to continue to drive engagement afterwards, and happy to report that we've seen record levels of hourly hours viewed in the days that followed the wildcard game itself, including launching Ted our new comedy series that that's been the most watched original SER.

Ted Peacocks: Ares for Peacock in its first seven days, yet on the platform, which speaks to the benefit of getting that much engagement at the moment, we're launching that and likewise the second season of the reality show traders premiered right afterwards, and it's also the biggest original reality season launch for us through its first four days.

Ted Peacocks: On the platform. So I think that's the that's the way I look at the total picture there Brian if you want to chime in I just wanted to say that.

Ted Peacocks: We think the NFL for having the confidence in picking our total company too.

Brian: To carry this out.

Brian: And the entire industry cooperated and participated in it was a very proud moment for I think U S Internet and history work flawlessly and I think as it should.

Brian: Another proof point of all the investments that have been made and.

Brian: No.

Brian: Thank you again, we'll see how the results I'll turn out, but we really really pleased.

Brian: Thanks, Craig Operator next question. Please. Thank you. Our next question today is coming from Jessica Reif Ehrlich from Bank of America Securities. Your line is now live.

Brian: Alright, thank you.

Brian: I guess, a two parter on this Brian just said that you have a unique mix of assets. So can you talk a little bit about your longer term video strategy from all sides of the company from both cable and NBC U.

Brian: Meaning do you have any plans to take Peacock global.

Brian: Your recent Paramount affiliate renewal deals kind of seems like status quo and then a separate question.

Brian: You kind of just touch a little bit on outback. Its only one year away can you give us some color on size and scope and how differentiated the offering will be thank you.

Brian: Hey, Jessica Thanks, so on Peacock and and in.

Jessica: <unk>, let's take video in a couple of pieces. So on on our streaming ambitions clearly we viewed it and we've talked about it for a long time.

Jessica: We want our existing media assets to have a.

Jessica: Strong future in a world where consumer behavior is taking people more to streaming because thats the way they want to experience. It so our strength obviously in video distribution from the NBC side has been.

Jessica: <unk> focused and I think we're focused on.

Jessica: Very focused on getting domestic domestic scale, what we've done internationally and what we might do one day is a separate story, but for now we've been focused on making sure through partnerships jv's, whether its sky Showtime, whether it's peacock type content that makes its way onto a sky platforms. We've got a venture partner in mulch.

Craig Moffett: The choice and in Africa, So, we're looking for ways and sort of a rational approach.

Craig Moffett: <unk> two <unk>.

Craig Moffett: To scale up.

Craig Moffett: Peacock domestically, while not giving up too much in terms of economics, a lot of people talk about it.

Ted Peacocks: Having global scale, we do we want to win here first and get to a place we need to go and Thats really where we are.

<unk> focused.

Craig Moffett: In terms of whats happening on the domestic side through video distribution I think we're continuing to be a big player in the space with our own content from NBC, but also as I think the best partner.

Craig Moffett: Given the scale of our reach in broadband for both traditional linear but at the same time streaming partners. We've seen a lot of a lot of progress and a lot of collaboration with.

Dave Watson: With players and partners that want to reach the kind of customer base, we have with our broadband customer base natural point of engagement with them aggregating content and acquiring new content or if they don't have it through zoom O X one and the platform that Dave and team have built I think we're really well positioned to play a part in that as well.

Dave Watson: <unk>.

Dave Watson: And Jessica Dave I, just would add.

Jessica Jean Reif Cohen: Think about the overall video approach is linear.

Dave Watson: Streaming on demand <unk>.

Speaker Change: All of them that I think we are in a unique position to be able to tie together.

And.

Speaker Change: Back to the wildcard game. It's an example of great broadband being able to handle it and at the same time, what's really important in video is the experience matters. The experience connected to the overall network performance is so critical finding what you want easily and <unk>.

Speaker Change: Simply and being able to engage so.

Speaker Change: The platforms that we've built over time, starting with X. One now zoom out very important to us in the long run one thing I would add just Brian on epic just to touch on that part of the question.

Speaker Change: <unk>.

Speaker Change: It's completely original.

Brian: Maybe the most exciting project I've seen since we bought NBC universal getting built.

Brian: Think it's the first new entire theme park.

Speaker Change: In decades, and the U S.

Speaker Change: And we're so excited we're taking the board of directors to see the construction of the next couple of weeks, which is something we don't haven't ever done before.

Speaker Change: So I think you'll all want to be there.

Speaker Change: Sometime I think 'twenty, three and 'twenty four.

Craig Moffett: The peak Capex years for the construction, we expect to open 25.

Craig Moffett: And I give mark Woodbury and the entire team at Universal incredible.

Craig Moffett: Incredible kudos to coordinate something of the scale of magnitude thats being built.

Craig Moffett: Thanks, Jessica Operator next question please.

Speaker Change: Our next question is coming from John Hodulik from UBS. Your line is now live.

John C. Hodulik: Great. Thanks, two questions if I could first on the ACP commentary.

John C. Hodulik: I think you guys had to.

John C. Hodulik: Hey contact.

John C. Hodulik: ACP subscribers this week.

John C. Hodulik: Any way you can quantify the size of the base or maybe the financial impact.

John C. Hodulik: And should we see anything this quarter or is it really sounds like if it doesn't get renewed.

John C. Hodulik: For second quarter.

John C. Hodulik: Although on the media side it looks like you guys saw some real some real add strength, but just any commentary on what youre seeing in the AD market it looks like it.

John C. Hodulik: Could you sort of look at core advertising is actually this year and I'm wondering if that's just started NFL and maybe big tender or just looking at some of the underlying factors are there great. Thanks.

John C. Hodulik: Hey, John This is Dave let me start with ACP.

Dave: To specifically answer your question, we have one 4 million customers that have benefited from this program.

Dave: Which we obtained through the National Verifier program. So feel good about the credentials of these customers most of these customers and this customer base, where already our customers prior to the ACP program.

Dave: Been very consistent on this we want the program to continue.

Dave: But I think we're very well positioned to support these customers. If it does not we have a good business model in place here.

Dave: History with knowing how to segment, our customer base and have products and packages at a variety of price points to serve our customers well, including well over for a decade that would include Internet essentials. So.

Dave: We are.

Dave: We'll evaluate this as it plays out may be a risk about one we feel is very manageable for us given how we've worked with this program and how we manage our customer base in general.

Dave: And John it's Mike on the advertising side, I would say that the AD market. We have seen it remain stable and definitely pleased with our performance in the fourth quarter. When you exclude the 2022 World Cup and normalize for that we do.

Mike: Did grow AD revenue, even with the difficult comp comparison to last year's political.

Mike: Quarter.

Mike: We are seeing a fuse encouraging signs like stabilization of us across most categories CPG and retail to that improved in particular we're.

Mike: We're not seeing any pressure or any real pressure on cancellations from last year's Upfronts, which is good.

And scatter premiums are pretty healthy double digit increases what we're seeing we've seen recently, but I would say that it's too early to say that there is a sustainable rebound going on too much remains uncertain on the macro side and we're heading into a period for us at least that has less sports programming in the early <unk>.

Mike: Part of the year.

Mike: So, but regardless of the full year ahead, whether the environment macro wise gets better from here. It doesn't we feel like we're well positioned with our must be Tentpoles, which include obviously the Olympics coming up the elections, and then going back to euro points of now being a much more scaled at.

Mike: At Peacock.

Mike: We're seeing nice progress on the capacity and inventory that we have there. So those are the dynamics there I think we're seeing in advertising.

Mike: Thanks, John Operator next question please.

Thank you next question is coming from Jonathan Chaplin from New Street Research. Your line is not a lot.

Mike: Thanks to for Jason.

Jonathan Chaplin: You mentioned that you saw opportunities to expand your footprint with good economics, you'd do it in a heartbeat.

Jonathan Chaplin: Is it are you referring to the opportunity in speed and is that something that you expect to potentially hit sort of later this year or is that more of a 2025.

Jason: And then on repurchases, we sold the reauthorization of $15 billion Youre going at a pace of three and a half billion dollars a quarter at the moment should we expect that to continue through 2024.

David N. Watson: Yeah. Thanks, Jonathan let me take them in reverse order and then potentially tag team with David if he wants to on the footprint side. The buybacks you are right. We reauthorized a re up this this this morning for $15 billion never.

David N. Watson: Never meant to be guidance, when we do this but nonetheless healthy reauthorization, saying that I think the formula that's been in place for very strong capital return continues to be in place I think we're comfortably within our leverage range as I stated, which is right around two four times continue to generate very strong free cash flow and if you look at.

Jonathan Chaplin: At the recent history since mid 'twenty, one since we started buying back or we started the buyback program.

Jonathan Chaplin: We bought back 15% of our stock in that timeframe. So very good metric there so more capital returns to continue to feel very.

David N. Watson: Good about the trajectory into 2024, I think on the footprint side, we've been very clear that to the extent first and foremost as we talk about capital intensity and Dave's world right around 10%. It's been there for the last couple of years. The expectation is that it will be there again.

Dave Watson: 2024, but we've also been very clear that that's not necessarily a constraint on the business to the extent, we can move faster.

Dave Watson: We'll do that and we'd like to I think as you look at the past couple of years on homes passed we did 850000 homes passed in 2022, we were able to accelerate that in 2023 up to $1 1 million and we gave guidance. This morning for $1 $1 million or slightly higher next year. So we think we can further accelerate that most of that in terms of the <unk>.

Dave Watson: Guide for 2024 is self funded but we had been making our way into the ARPA programs and have had some success there to the extent, we're successful with bead and I think we certainly expect to be that would be more 2025 and beyond.

Dave Watson: This is David I would only add that.

David N. Watson: When you do these programs and we have started and we are aggressively pursuing opportunities as Jason said the stage, mostly self funded but we are working with the local governments on programs like ARPA and in others, but we are going for opportunities where it makes sense great.

David N. Watson: Part, a little bit where Brian mentioned right from the get go. It was it's been terrific execution as we've scaled operationally getting ready for this so the $1 1 million that we did this past year looking to do that or more into 'twenty four.

David N. Watson: We're on it and this is a real opportunity for us having said that the.

David N. Watson: The nature of these projects.

Brian: It takes a while to build them up and then driving penetration and I would look for more of a benefit in 'twenty five b, we plan to participate.

Brian: It is consistent with our business goals, but the process quite frankly would be to is still in flux.

Brian: Thanks, Jonathan Operator next question please.

Brian: Certainly our next question is coming from Steven Cahall from Wells Fargo. Your line is now live.

Brian: Thanks, maybe first I was wondering if you could expand on your Xfinity mobile plans for 2020 for one of your peers has been more promotional I think that's something you've kept an eye on and we saw you get a bit more promotional last year with the iPhone deal.

Steven Cahall: Also talked about broadband <unk> being the biggest driver of broadband revenue and I know that can suffer on a GAAP basis. If you do lean into mobile so I'd love to just hear more about how youre thinking about the broadband and mobile strategy is coming together.

Steven Cahall: And then Jason just the severance that you took in the quarter the lion's share of Fella connectivity and platforms, how should we think about the benefits of.

Steven Cahall: Opex in 2024, you said five out of the six buckets decrease last year. So maybe you can give us a bit of a view of what non programming opex looks like for connectivity and platforms. This year. Thank you.

Steven Cahall: Stephen This is Dave let me start with wireless.

Dave: And so.

Dave: So.

Dave: Think we've been consistent on this one to the wireless is one of the key long term growth drivers for US Ben pointed out in the six that the team has talked about.

Dave: And it is absolutely a great companion to broadband.

Craig Moffett: <unk> got a good standalone economics, and a great runway ahead for penetration mobile to the broadband base. So.

Craig Moffett: It's performing well our domestic revenue was up over 15%, we have over 6 million lines, including the 310000 that we added in the quarter and and we're only at 11% penetration as Jason said to the broadband base. So a lot of runway ahead and it is absolutely a key part of all our go to market activity.

Craig Moffett: It's acquisition pace management upgrade activity to the base is even noted Steven we have been very focused on upgrade activity and retention. So our results have been consistent right around 300000, new lines per quarter pretty healthy run rate for a considerable period of time, having said that I think we can improve on these results.

Steven Cahall: We are consistently in the market trying new offers both in terms of broadband and mobile together and we segment.

Steven Cahall: The opportunity and so we do have unique opportunities that we evaluate and we continue to be hopeful that some of these offers we will accelerate our line additions over time and as the year progresses. So we have a great roadmap in terms of innovation and offers that with between Wi Fi.

Dave Watson: And mobile and we want to leverage both and continue to build a better product and service our mobile service our core service offering delivers better value day in day out we really like though our approach capital light approach with the <unk> and I think we're in a great position to win in convergence. So.

Jonathan Chaplin: I think we have a leg up on the competition with this capital light strategy that doesn't have to involve customer <unk> network tradeoffs. So we will continue to be opportunistic in evaluating progress, but I think there is upside.

Stephen B. Burke: And Stephen let me just round that out quickly.

Stephen: Part of the question was seem like our weak governing wireless at all as it relates to broadband <unk> growth in GAAP realization of broadband are pro growth. The two are not connected we will do what's right for the business first and foremost to the extent with finding ways to accelerate wireless then I think we will have opportunity to do that and not be held back by what it means.

Stephen: For <unk>, although we do see isn't just to reiterate broadband <unk> growth in the both the fourth quarter and for the full year of three 9% high end of our historical range of 3% to 4% and we guided to the coming year to still be in that range of 3% to 4% so consistent strong ARPA growth.

Stephen: The severance question as we step back we are focused on investing capital and resources in our key growth areas. So we've identified six key growth areas where.

Stephen: Investments in Opex are being directed while managing carefully businesses that are important to us, but face secular headwinds and so I think you saw that in the fourth quarter with severance actions. We took these actions to get ahead and position ourselves for continued transitions in these businesses in 2024 and beyond I would point out you mentioned connectivity and platform.

Jonathan Chaplin: Specifically, that's where the bigger severance charges, where you are right five out of six categories of expense were down year over year. In 2023. These type of actions and transitioning our business and managing the expense base or a big part of that and if you look at margin expansion, which we've seen for.

Dave Watson: For a long period of time in the CMP business and gave an outlook that we expect to continue that this is all part of that taking action to sort of get ahead of these transitions I will point out what we also said in the prepared remarks, if you look back in the last six years, we've taken 50% of our truck rolls out of the system. So truck rolls versus 2017 are down 50%.

Dave Watson: So cut in half and transactional volumes, if you will or interactions are down 40%, so pretty significant expense opportunities relative to that that we see continuing as well.

Dave Watson: Thanks, Steve Operator, we have time for one last question.

Dave Watson: Thank you. Our final question today is coming from Sebastiano Petti from JP Morgan. Your line is now live.

Hi, Thank you for the question just wanted to see if you could provide additional color on perhaps the content and experiences segment capex expectations. As we look beyond kind of epic I think Jason you did say 25 capital intensity in content and experiences should tick down as the epic build a finished.

Sebastiano Petti: But as we think about your plans for regional parks in the U S headlines about a UK park construction.

Sebastiano Petti: Perhaps over the next several years as well.

Any color on how we should be thinking about is there a parks capex holiday before.

Sebastiano Petti: Re acceleration and then just a housekeeping question on Peacock, obviously very strong net adds inside of 2023.

Sebastiano Petti: Mike You did say that you do expect sub growth that to kind of continue.

Sebastiano Petti: But could you perhaps quantify what the benefit of the conversion from Comcast bundled subs from free to paid was within the year.

Sebastiano Petti: And as we're kind of thinking about organic or underlying growth.

Sebastiano Petti: That will benefit from the NFL playoff game Oppenheimer and some of the other stuff you kind of listed out thank you.

Sebastiano Petti: Sure so who's the best channels. So on parks It says Jason said.

Sebastiano Petti: We are at.

Sebastiano Petti: Going to remain at the elevated level around epic.

Sebastiano Petti: With the two expansion parks Hollywood horror nights and.

Sebastiano Petti: The Universal Kids in Frisco, Texas underway at this stage so will remain elevated in 2024, and then as we come to completion of epic in 2025 Rolling into 2025, we will ease off from there I think the easing off is I wouldnt necessary.

Sebastiano Petti: We call it a holiday so much as will will much like we talked about adding additional passing in cable if we see these projects pencil out for good return we'd be excited in the years that follow can't predict when.

Speaker Change: To continue to give the parks and experiences business.

Speaker Change: Hey.

Speaker Change: Capital It requires but right now with the visibility we have for whats in the pipeline what Jason described as the trajectory is the right trajectory.

Speaker Change: And then on.

Speaker Change: Peacock I think we did a good job converting.

Speaker Change: R R.

Speaker Change: Comcast free subs to paid subs and they are now rolling into after a few months of.

Speaker Change: Lower price or rolling into the full price. So I think we did a great job across the company on executing that.

Thanks, Sebastien out that concludes our call. We appreciate you joining us this morning.

Speaker Change: Yeah.

Speaker Change: Thank you that concludes our question and answer session and today's conference call. A replay of the call will be available starting at 11 30, a M. Eastern time today on Comcast Investor Relations website. Thank you for participating you may all disconnect.

Speaker Change: [music].

Speaker Change: [music].

Speaker Change: Ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Comcast's fourth quarter and full year 2023 earnings conference call. At this time all participants are in a listen only mode. Please note that this conference call is being recorded.

Speaker Change: I will now turn the call over to executive Vice President of Investor Relations Ms. Marsha <unk>. Please go ahead Ms <unk>.

Speaker Change: Thank you operator, and welcome everyone joining us on today's call are Brian Roberts, Mike Cavanagh, Jason Armstrong and Dave Watson I will now refer you to slide two of the presentation accompanying this call, which can also be found on our Investor Relations website, which contains our safe Harbor disclaimer. This conference.

Michael J. Cavanagh: <unk> may include forward looking statements subject to certain risks and uncertainties. In addition, during this call we will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. Please see our 8-K and trending schedules issued earlier. This morning for the reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures to GAAP with that I'll turn the call over to Mike.

Michael J. Cavanagh: Thanks, Marcy and good morning, everyone.

Michael J. Cavanagh: We're less than a month into the new year in 2024 is already off to a great start.

Marci Ryvicker: Two weeks ago, our entire company came together to make history shattering records with the first exclusively streamed NFL wild card game on Peacock.

Mike: Nearly 23 million viewers watched the Kansas City Chiefs take on the Miami Dolphins consuming 30% of all Internet traffic in the U S and setting a new record in total U S Internet traffic for any night.

Mike: Our investment in the network and our technology platforms built over decades enabled us to shine delivering a seamless experience on the internet and Peacock demonstrating that our company is in excellent position to win in this era of high bandwidth consumption.

Mike: Also Universal Pictures Oppenheimer picked up five Golden Globe Awards, including Best Picture Best Director Best Actor Best supporting actor and best original score.

Mike: So with 2024 off to a terrific start let's look back at 2023, where we produce consistently strong financial results and continued to execute against our long term strategy, we've positioned our company to benefit from a significant number of scaled and diversified growth opportunities that are margin accretive.

Mike: Namely residential broadband mobile business services theme Parks studios and Peacock in aggregate our revenue in these businesses grew 8% in 2023 and comprised 55% of our total revenue for the year.

Our healthy cash flow generation and strong balance sheet have enabled the organic investment that fuels. These businesses and at the same time fund substantial capital return, including significant share repurchases. All of this has translated into excellent financial performance for the <unk>.

Mike: Third consecutive year, we generated the highest revenue adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EPS in our company's history.

Mike: Now, let's go deeper on some of the important achievements during the year.

Mike: I'm really proud of the progress we've made in our connectivity businesses.

Mike: We maintained a strong trajectory and Xfinity mobile increasing our subscriber lines by 24% and total domestic wireless revenue by nearly 20%.

Mike: We also performed well in our business services segment, which grew full year revenue and EBITDA by nearly 5% with margins approaching 60%.

And we exceeded our goal of adding over 1 million, new homes and businesses passed and expect to do at or above this level in 2024.

Our domestic broadband business remains strong we kept our very large and healthy base of subscribers flat, while growing residential <unk> three 9%. The high end of our historical range driving solid EBITDA growth in connectivity and platforms and expanding margins to around 40%.

Mike: On an underlying basis.

Mike: We achieved all of this despite an intensely competitive environment and as I look back on 2023, I am confident that our strategy combined with excellent execution sets us up extremely well to navigate the road ahead.

Mike: While the competitive environment is likely to remain at these levels for a period of time broadband is still a very large healthy and profitable market and the consumption trends that we're seeing are encouraging for the future.

Mike: Customers are connecting more devices in their homes and are using them for applications that require more capacity faster speeds and lower latency.

Mike: Our fiber deep and capital efficient network is more than ready to meet this demand with 100000 miles of fiber and a clear path to offering multi gigabit symmetrical speeds ubiquitously across our entire footprint with DOCSIS four dato.

Mike: I'd like to spend a minute briefly addressing the government's affordable connectivity program <unk>.

Mike: First it's important to note that we built on our decade long history in digital equity to effectively participate in ACP and have successfully leveraged the national verify our program in the process.

Mike: We hope that the White House and Congress renew this funding and keep these important resources available to the many people and households, who have relied upon this program to stay digitally connected we have already begun to communicate with ACP participants and we'll provide a range of options, including our highly successful Internet Essentials program and.

Mike: The event that funding is discontinued.

Mike: Shifting to content and experiences we've positioned ourselves to drive long term profitable growth over.

Mike: Over the span of decades, we've built a remarkable portfolio of iconic content and strong franchises in both film and television, including live Sports News and entertainment our market, leading businesses have tremendous reach and continued to perform and execute collaboratively playing to our strengths by.

Dave Watson: Leveraging our IP and our incredible partners.

Let's start with our studio group, where we hit a major milestone ranking as the number one studio and film by worldwide box office with hits, such as Super Mario Brothers Oppenheimer Fast 10, and five nights at Freddy's.

Speaker Change: We are proud to work alongside our creative partners like Christopher Nolan, Chris Melinda, Andre and Jason Bluhm or innovative industry leaders to develop content that continues to delight audiences.

Speaker Change: And I am really excited about another fantastic film slate in 2024 with the latest installment of Kung Fu Panda in March along with the Spigot will me and Twisters in July and Wicked slated for November which will also benefit Peacock as these films and many others enter the pay one window at.

Speaker Change: At the same time, our media segment continues to deliver reaching over 100 million households, every quarter with leading sports news and entertainment.

Speaker Change: We have the number one most watched news organization in the U S and Sunday night football is pacing to be the most watched primetime show for an unprecedented the 13th consecutive year.

Ted Peacocks: <unk> continued to be the fastest growing streaming in the U S. A result of our holistic business model, which leverages all of our brands to serve a broad range of viewers by providing them with options to match their evolving habits.

Ted Peacocks: In a short period of time since we launched in 2020, we've seen strong momentum ending the year at 31 million paid subscribers at a $10 <unk> supported by healthy trends in both engagement and churn and I'm excited for 2024, we started with those successful wildcard game, which will.

Ted Peacocks: Soon be followed by Oppenheimer coming exclusively the Peacock and a full slate of both new and returning originals such as Ted Peacocks, most watched original title additional pay one movies and the Summer Olympics later this year.

Mike Tirico: These next Olympic games promise to be nothing short of spectacular with the return of fans. This time to Paris, one of the most beautiful cities in the world.

Craig Moffett: With the NBC broadcast network airing more content than ever before and Peacock as the streaming home for all games NBC Universal would be the most comprehensive Olympic destination and U S media history with Xfinity once again, playing a huge role in delivering each game on our entertainment OS platform, which is now also available.

To charter customers through zummo at parks, we achieved record high revenue and EBITDA in 2023 and have exciting new attractions and experiences in the years ahead we.

Craig Moffett: We will open Donkey Kong another Nintendo themed land next year in Osaka, which will expand Super Nintendo World by another 70%, we expect continuation of the strong trends in Hollywood also driven by Super Nintendo World and we will see the completion of epic Universe, Our fourth gate in Orlando prior to its grand opening.

Craig Moffett: <unk> in 2025.

Craig Moffett: In summary, we are very pleased with all that we have achieved in 2023, we have incredible teams in each of our businesses and have executed against our Atlanta exceptionally well delivering very strong EBITDA EPS and free cash flow.

Craig Moffett: Going forward, our highest priority is to continue our strong operational performance enabled by the investments we are making in our six key growth areas fueling their growth and further improving the profile of our business mix.

Craig Moffett: The strength and stability of our company, including our balance sheet enables us to make these investments while also providing our shareholders with substantial capital returns.

Craig Moffett: Since we started buying back stock in late May of 2021, we have repurchased approximately 15% of our total shares outstanding and with today's announcement, we have now increased our annualized dividend by 150% since I joined the company in 2015.

Craig Moffett: Putting it all together our strategy is working and we see many years ahead that this formula will continue to deliver for our company and shareholders.

Craig Moffett: Jason over to you.

Jason: Thanks, Mike and good morning, everyone I'll begin on slides four and five with our consolidated results.

Jason: Total revenue increased 2% to $31 3 billion for the fourth quarter and was consistent at $121 6 billion for the full year.

Jason: On a reported basis EBITDA was consistent at 8 billion for the fourth quarter and up 3% to $37 6 billion for the full year.

Jason: Our EBITDA results include severance and other in this quarter as well as in last year's fourth quarter.

Jason: Excluding these items totaling $527 million this quarter and $638 million in last year's quarter, adjusted EBITDA decreased 1% in the fourth quarter and remained at 3% growth for the full year.

Jason: Adjusted EPS was up 2% to 84, a share for the fourth quarter and increased 9% to $3 98 for the full year.

Jason: We generated $1 7 billion of free cash flow for the quarter and 13 billion for the full year, which translates into $3 <unk> and free cash flow per share, which was up 10% year over year, and we returned over 100% of this to shareholders with $4 7 billion of capital returned to shareholders in the quarter and $15 8 billion.

Jason: For the full year.

Jason: Our strong level of free cash flow includes the significant investments, we're making to support and grow our business in six broad and diversified growth categories, including residential broadband wireless and business services connectivity, along with theme parks streaming and premium content at our studios.

Taken together these growth areas generated more than half of our total company revenue and grew at a high single digit rate during the quarter and for the full year.

Jason: Now, let's turn to our business results, starting on slide six with connectivity and platforms.

Jason: As a reminder, our largest foreign exchange exposure is to the British pound, which was up nearly 6% year over year as usual in order to highlight the underlying performance of the connectivity and platforms business I will refer to year over year growth on a constant currency basis.

Jason: Revenue for total connectivity and platforms with flat at $20 4 billion.

Jason: Unpacking that revenue in our core connectivity business domestic broadband domestic wireless international connectivity.