Comcast Corporation
Q3 2020 Earnings Call Transcript

Published: 29 Oct 2020

[Operator:]

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Comcast’s Third Quarter 2020 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Please note that this conference call is being recorded. I will now turn the call over to Senior Vice President, Investor Relations, Ms. Marci Ryvicker. Please go ahead, Ms. Ryvicker.

[Marci Ryvicker:]

[Brian Roberts:]

Thanks, Marci and good morning, everyone. We’re nearly eight months into this pandemic. And despite many harsh realities, I could not be more pleased and proud of how our team has worked together across the company to find safe, creative solutions to successfully operate in this environment. We’re executing at the highest level and perhaps most importantly, accelerating innovation to drive long-term future growth. We remain intensely focused on our top three strategic priorities of expanding and leading with broadband, aggregation and streaming, all of which are underpinned by strong content creation, distribution and technology. Each business is increasingly complementing, reinforcing and driving value for the others, while enabling us to offer seamless and bundled experiences to all our customers. For example, this quarter, we added a record number of new customer relationships and high-speed internet subscribers and signups for Peacock have grown to nearly 22 million as of today. It is clear that Peacock’s results are enhanced by the placement and distribution it gets through our broadband service. And adding Peacock to broadband is resulting in a significant improvement in both churn and gross ads. As Peacock is continuously cited as a differentiating factor at the point of sale for Xfinity broadband products; none of this could have been achieved without the technology stack that we have through Sky. Focusing now on our top strategic priority broadband, the success we’ve experienced to-date has been driven by years of investment combined with our leading scale. We engage with 56 million high value households and businesses globally. These subscribers give us a stronger starting point in direct-to-consumer relationships, particularly with broadband. Our connections at the point-of-sale provide us with a distinct advantage as this is the moment when customers really contemplate their aggregation and streaming options.

[Mike Cavanagh:]

Thanks, Brian and good morning, everyone. Now, I’ll review our third quarter 2020 results and offer some commentary on the current conditions in our businesses caveating that circumstances around us remain fluid, and therefore, our outlook is subject to change. Beginning on Slide 6 with our consolidated third quarter results, consolidated revenue declined 4.8% year-over-year to $25.5 billion while adjusted EBITDA was down 11% to $7.6 billion and adjusted EPS fell 18% to $0.65 per share, all a result of the lingering effects of COVID-19. Free cash flow of $2.3 billion was up 10.5% benefiting from the positive year-over-year change in net working capital due to COVID at both NBCU and Sky, half of which resulted from the timing of when sports rights payments were made, versus when sports actually aired, and half of which resulted from a slower ramp and content production. We expect this trend to reverse starting in the fourth quarter and continue into next year as our businesses continue to recover from COVID.

[Marci Ryvicker:]

Thanks, Mike. Regina, let’s open the call for questions, please.

[Operator:]

Thank you. Our first question comes from the line of Jessica Reif Ehrlich with Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Please go ahead.

[Jessica Reif Ehrlich:]

First, Brian, could you talk a little bit about how you – your vision of the how you best monetize being an aggregator across a variety of media, traditional TV, streaming video apps, et cetera, outside of just being the broadband provider, and what are other ways you’re considering to help monetize your position as the center of the consumer in the living room? And then on NBCU, it is surprising actually that you had a good – that you mentioned in the press release that you’ve had positive upfront given ratings weakness across the board for the whole industry, as well as lack of production. So, can you talk about some of the drivers there? Can streaming make up for the weakness in ratings? It’s clear q4 will be weak. But what do you see beyond that? Thank you.

[Brian Roberts:]

Okay. there’s a lot in there, Jessica. Let me start with the aggregation and broadband question. And then let Jeff and others talk about the upfront. Look, we think we have this three-pronged strategy that complement for each other, works together and basically ends up giving customers the best product, regardless of what segment they’re in, and broadband is definitely a central element of that. But aggregation in this world, as we know, as consumers that you want to flip back and forth between one streaming service and other streaming service, live television, YouTube, whatever it may be, and finding a way to have our entertainment platform and our voice commands, whether it’s in a smart TV, whether it’s in a box, and whether that is in frankly, the U.S. or in rest of the world, and in other providers. And so we’ve made great progress with aggregation in this quarter and in this year, named the service and you’ll see that it’s now either on the roadmap or very much being used, whether it’s NBC-driven content with peacock, we’ve now shown that we can market and make aware for our customers, we chose like a yellow stone that we may not have found on a different network that all of a sudden has zoomed to the top and that’s before we get additional content like the office, and the Olympics and what have you. And so putting it all together, we see the tech companies and others with ambitions on having a relationship with our high-value customers, our 56 million high-value customers in aggregation, and who can do that the best with a voice and just say the words, I was literally watching last night Prime Show and switched to Netflix and then went back to NBC, all with just one click and with my voice. And so the innovation that our team has done, the seamless integration working with various content providers, we’ve made tremendous strides. Jeff, you want to talk a little bit about and therefore, I’m sorry – to close out on monetization of that. We’ve seen a number of ways and leads right into advertising, because it’s an ability to not only give you a good experience in charge, who are subscription fees, depending on what level of service it is. But in the case of Flex, whether its lower churn for our broadband, whether it’s additional advertising, with Zumo and on smart television platforms and other things we have on our roadmap, which are very exciting that continue to take these tools and find new ways to give them to customers, and thereby create additional value for the shareholders. Jeff, do you want to talk about the upfront?

[Jeff Shell:]

Thanks, Brian. Thanks, Jessica. So obviously, the upfront was a very unusual upfront this year, Jessica, I mean, we didn’t think a couple of months ago, there was even going to be an upfront this year. And the fact that there was one and it ended up being relatively normal and much stronger than we expected, was really good news for the whole business. We ended up kind of slightly up on price, which was we expected to be way down on price, we ended up slightly up on price, slightly down on volume. And as you mentioned, the big impact on advertising really is the ratings and the ratings is not just us. But everybody, because we’ve stopped production, who would normally have kind of our full schedule in high gear right now and we’re just starting those shows and we don’t have a lot of new content. So, that’s what’s driving kind of the advertising, choppiness and declines. The flip side of that is it creates scarcity in the market. So, the market actually has pretty strong, because we have less rating points, we have more demand and a couple of the moves that we’ve made were kind of perfect timing. peacock, we talked about peacock’s ad-driven platform, gives us an opportunity to sell where others don’t really sell and we launched right into the strength of that scarcity. And then we also kind of consolidated all of our advertising under L'India a Torino one platform approach and we think that was also perfect timing, because it gives us the opportunity to kind of sell and address that scarcity across multiple platforms, so obviously, much – a much smaller upfront than the past, but much better than we expected.

[Jessica Reif Ehrlich:]

Thank you.

[Operator:]

Our next question will come from the line of Doug Mitchelson with Credit Suisse.

[Brian Roberts:]

Doug, you may be on mute.

[Operator:]

And I believe Doug’s line has disconnected. our next question will come from the line of Ben Swinburne with Morgan Stanley.

[Ben Swinburne:]

Thanks. can you hear me?

[Brian Roberts:]

Yes.

[Ben Swinburne:]

Okay, great. I guess two questions; on Cable or maybe just broadly, on entertainment for either Brian or Dave, I’m wondering if you think about the video business, evolving from what you’ve been selling for decades, a package of linear networks to a bundle of apps, where you’re basically taking a distribution fee against what the consumer pays, rather than earning a margin on bundle? And if you do what does that mean for the business and sort of how you think about investing in products and capital allocation et cetera? It seemed like a possible future in the not-too-distant future across Comcast and sky. And then for Jeff, there’s a lot going on at NBC, to put it mildly. I’m just wondering, if you could talk high level about what you’re trying to accomplish, organizationally, from a restructuring point of view? How we should measure your success? And in particular, you mentioned in the prepared remarks, or Mike, did you think the parks will break-even at some point next year? Just maybe, that’s a pretty interesting comment in the context of all the uncertainty if you could just talk a little bit more about that would be helpful. Thank you.

[Brian Roberts:]

Why don’t I help organize that this answer, because I think you touched on a little bit of everybody, and gives it some of the folks a chance to talk about the quarter. So, why don’t we start with Dave to talk about video packaging, I would just add that I think we’ve seen this shift coming. I think Dave and the team have done an outstanding job of having connectivity platform and thinking of it that way. So that we’re ready for that shift, I don’t think it’ll be all or nothing. I think it’s been highlighted here during COVID and people being at home as much. But fortunately, we were ready for that. I think Jeremy could talk a little about the kind of some of the different trends in Europe and how sky is preparing for that bundle of app world as you called it and you’re right, the economics change, depending on what – we want to get ourselves to a position of indifference, where the consumer is driving, not the company and the consumer decides, where they want to rest and what package they want. The company finds itself in a – it has been the best product and a good set of economics. we may always have a preference over one versus the other naturally, but we want you to be satisfied as a consumer and make our long-term growth happen. And then obviously, Jeff can talk a little bit. And Mike, if you want on the – on all the definition of success, which I think is a great way to look at NBC. But Dave, why don’t you take it up?

[Dave Watson:]

Thanks, Brian. Hello, Ben. So, I think, clearly, the video marketplace is almost everyday evolving. From our perspective, we have invested in a video – broad video platform capability that, I think, gives us a lot of options and can give customers a lot of choice that we want to deliver to the customer what they want and a video experience. So, we segment the marketplace, we break it down. We’ve been doing that for some time. And as Brian said, we anticipated a lot of these changes. So for customers that want the full experience, that want all the channels, that want the video on demand, DVR capability and apps, and as Brian talked about the ability to seamlessly connect all of that, we have that one. We also now, I think, are very uniquely positioned to go after the streaming segment with flex. And the best example, I think of our position in the marketplace with video, when you combine it with broadband; we’re surrounding broadband with a lot of video capability, and we’re streaming and peacock, we’re giving them the best of aggregation, rate streaming options. So, we’re going to break down the marketplace continue to compete, and deliver to customers what they want. So, I think that will continue word or we feel that this is a sustained competitive difference that we have, and we’ll go to where the customer wants to go. And in terms of whether it’s more profitable outcome for us, then we’ll be in different if they want streaming capability with flex, we’re going to be right there to deliver that.

[Jeremy Darroch:]

And maybe Jeremy here, maybe I’ll just chip in from sky. I think – I often think of it, I would split it to sort of supply side relationships, and then consumer side service. So, I think on supply side, when we see central step into our world, a good example would be for example, Disney, where we took a very high fixed cost long-term contract, and effectively turned it into an app. we’ve taken that cost out of our P&L and they’re getting a margin by selling Disney plus through sky. And then we could do something similar with Netflix, of course. And then we can take that money, and you will have a course through the P&L or invest some of it in an area like Sky Studios, where we can then scale about own originated content, which improves the customer experience and of course, it’s – which will variable and differentiates as well. when you get to the consumer side, really, there’s virtually no change the experience, there’s consumers want to continue to get all that contract on time to the sky user interface, we can deep link into offspring customers back efficiently, the sky interface is very, very easy to move around, as Brian said, with the growth and development invoice that’s just becoming easier every day. So actually, we think we can complement the user experience very much and actually, get a much more flexible and more valuable set of cost structures. And then we can think of NOW TV as an addendum to that in a way just to target an additional part of the market that uses many of those contrast relationships, and allows us just to get to more customers in a different way. So that’s how we think about bringing all of that together.

[Jeff Shell:]

Brian, do you want me to jump in? This is Jeff.

[Brian Roberts:]

Sure.

[Jeff Shell:]

Okay. so Ben, thanks for the question, a lot in your questions. So, I’ll try to just hit it really quickly. But first of all, just working backwards, definition of success, there is a lot going on in NBCUniversal. I really don’t think the definition of success is any different than it’s ever been. our job is to be profitable, generate cash flow and generate long-term value for the company and that’s how we’re kind of thinking about everything and it’s obviously a very changing world. So, you have to be nimble in doing that. But the measures of that are the same measures, as they’ve always been in our view. And organizationally, I really think, we’re kind of through the execution of most of our restructuring, the costs will hit over the next kind of 12 months, there’s about a third of them in this quarter. And then by the middle of next year, we’re kind of through the majority of them. And they’re designed for two things; one, we have an obligation as our revenue moves down to adjust our cost base, which I’m proud of our team for doing across our whole company. But more importantly, we really realigned our TV organization under Mark Lazarus. It used to be in the TV world. you were very vertically oriented by network and you would say, oh, I need a show for this time period to go out and get a show for that time period. And every network kind of had their management team and staff, we realigned kind of dramatically, so that everything is one management group in the TV business under two great executives, Frances Berwick and Susan Rovner just joined us. And the idea now is to find great content and use our platform, which is in many ways better than anybody else’s platform with all of our networks, not just linearly. but peacock, to take great platform and really maximize the value of it and I’m very excited about it. It does result in a lot less cost. But I think more importantly, it sets us up to grow as the world changes. Turning the parks very quickly, parks are – obviously, it’s a very – parks are a great business. By the way, when the world returns and people get sick of being in their house, I really feel that we’re going to be a very strong business, nobody can tell the pace of how that’s going to go, given what’s happening. But so far, we’re rebounding fairly nicely in Florida and Japan, where we’re open. Our first priority always has been, always will be the safety of our guests and our employees. And I’m proud of Tom Williams and the team there that they’ve actually had a set of protocols that has resulted in us being open without any problem, whether its guests or employees and who knows how the future will bring. But the rebound is nice, is happening nicely. And if it continues in this way, we do expect, as Brian said, in the opening to hit breakeven, if not more at some time in 2021.

[Ben Swinburne:]

Thanks, everybody.

[Brian Roberts:]

I mean, Ben, to Jeff’s point, it is obviously a statement about breakeven subject to how COVID evolves. But if it stays on sort of the trend that we’ve been seeing through this winter into next year, we would hope at some point to get there. And then you’re circling back to your first question, Ben, I think there’s no question that when you really look at the fact that and Brian said it earlier that with 56 million relationships around the globe, as we’ve talked about in the highest wireless markets for subscription services, whether they be broadband, or OTT video entertainment of any sort, we’re at the point-of-sale when people are choosing their broadband provider, where they’re providing what we think are the options anyway for the best aggregation services, with or without our own video packages. And if you think about it, from the perspective of anybody trying to launch a video streaming platform, we represent 56 million homes, where you want to be on our platform, and it’s worth it to share economics for us to promote and allow and I think, and that’s what we already experienced today. So, there’s no reason that wouldn’t be A way of the future, not the only way, but A way of the future. And I think it just is even kind of more evident that the power of the platforms with the customers that we have, allows for the kind of launch the peacock had. I don’t think it’s a mistake or that relates that 22 million signups does definitely relate at this stage to us having the relationship with the customer through both broadband and our aggregation products.

[Ben Swinburne:]

Thanks, everybody.

[Marci Ryvicker:]

Thanks, Ben. I think we got them all. Regina, next question please.

[Operator:]

Our next question is from Doug Mitchelson with Credit Suisse.

[Doug Mitchelson:]

Oh, thanks so much. You all have solved global voice activated video streaming, but I can’t handle a phone mute button. one topic for Brian, one for Dave. Brian, one thing that seemed new to me this quarter, was your comment on licensing the Comcast Tech Stack internationally. And I think I’ve heard some optimism regarding getting to nationwide in the U.S. Can you help us understand potential timing, or the impediments to new wholesale deals, particularly overseas? And you mentioned scale benefits beyond the healthy margins you get from licensee and I’m curious how you’d articulate those scale benefits of expanding that platform. And if I could for Dave, regarding wireless, Mike mentioned the company put in place a number of plans to accelerate growth in this business, if you wouldn’t mind sharing some of those plans and why now, why leaning into that business at this point in time, and if that means anything about timing for breakeven for EBITDA and free cash flow for wireless. that would be helpful. Thank you, both.

[Brian Roberts:]

Great. I’m glad you figured out your tech issues. I don’t want to suggest that there’s a new news regarding the U.S. in terms of X1 licensing. What I think we’re referring to is or what I’d like to refer to is just what it does when we do like than others and we’re in conversations all the time with companies, and the success that that business has had, which we haven’t talked about very much on these calls, it’s gotten to a pretty good size and it has a very healthy margin, and there’s a lot of Canadian companies, Cox in the U.S. and the area that we’ve been focusing on is growing Sky and Xfinity closer together into one global Tech Stack, which then opens up the opportunity to do this now not just in North America, but also starting with Sky and we’re on a number of common architectures. And I think you will see in the future products roll out as a result of our ability to do that, and conversations that are being had to be able to now take that conversation more broadly. I think the most significant benefit, it certainly is the money that it brings in, but what that allows us to do in terms of scale is. So, we talked a lot about video here, we pivoted a lot of our innovation to broadband, in the last two, three, four years, and we saw this transformation coming. We saw how important broadband was going to become an even further become, and reinvent itself over and over again to have the best broadband quarter in the company’s history, sitting here in 2020. When it’s a 20-year old product, give or take, it’s a pretty dramatic and amazing statement in my opinion. And that’s because we’ve kept reinvesting what is broadband? What can it be, and going to WiFi that did not exist. We’re now integrating that into your streaming, your aggregation, the things we’ve been talking about this morning. So, having the scale and the quality of talent on a global basis, to be able to recruit the best engineers, when again, we see a number of other companies wanting to enter this space, and/or lead expanding, not shrinking is I think, the greatest achievement and I give credit that we are expanding our footprint synthetically, if you will, through some of these other relationships with companies, who want to take all of our products, whatever they can become and they’ve done that. And I think we’ve given them a great experience for their customers. And they’ve been super supportive of our idea – of our technology team. Dave?

[Dave Watson:]

Thanks, Brian. Hi, Doug. So, just one other comment on the Flex side of things with our partners. So, we have a really solid syndication business, great distribution partners. In the U.S., Canada, looking elsewhere and Flex most certainly is on the roadmap for all of our partners so. And it gives us the option of being able to work with device participants, smart TV folks, and others to be able to have it be a software solution. So, we’ll look at all options going forward. In wireless, so we’re – in general, we’re pleased with where we are, in many quarters in a row, we’re delivering material amount of the net ads in our footprint. And so we’re on track, having said that with retail, we chose the shutdown to retail stores, and it could – chunk of the country that did have an impact. We’ve reopened them, as Mike said, and we really feel that we’re committed to accelerating the wireless business, it’s a really important product for us going forward and it – we’ll be focused not just on retail. We think digital still has great promise and we’re already seeing as we put our shoulder to bringing things back some real early stage success in terms of what mobile can do. The results again, still relatively early, but we’d really like the retention benefits to broadband as we package them with it, a lot of options. We do triple play with mobile now. We use it to package just with broadband, very focused across all of our sales channels. And it really comes down to that, I mean, the three things that we’re focused on. One is that we have access to really great network with Verizon. We have the ability to cut across all technologies including 5F. So, we’ll give the customers what they want there. We can leverage our own investment in the home with WiFi; outside the home with most of the broadband, the cell phone, smartphone traffic goes over our WiFi network. So, it’s a great combination of the two. And then over time, I think we’re going to be uniquely positioned to leverage the potential for building out in dense pockets wireless capability to give us a more efficient way of delivering mobile. So – but overall, we think that this is an important opportunity for us long-term, still feel that way, right on track with where we want to be. We want to be a little bit more aggressive and that’s on the roadmap.

[Doug Mitchelson:]

All right. thanks so much.

[Marci Ryvicker:]

Thanks, Doug. Regina, we’re ready for the next question.

[Operator:]

Your next question comes from the line of Craig Moffett with MoffettNathanson. Please go ahead.

[Craig Moffett:]

Hi, two questions, if I could. Just I guess the most obvious impressing one is, where do you think all the broadband subscribers are coming from? I think as great as your results were, they’re even more surprising in that AT&T and Verizon also, both posted better than expected results. So, we’re obviously seeing enormous market expansion. I’m just wondering what your sense is, of how much that is full of that is pull forward and where the subs are coming from? And then on the wireless side of the business, I wonder if you could just talk a little bit about what you see and expect to see in the iPhone cycle, given the promotionality that we’ve seen from in particular AT&T, what does that look like for you in the fourth quarter in terms of your customer acquisition costs?

[Dave Watson:]

Well, Craig, Dave here. So in broadband, yes, let me start with what we’ve been seeing and we’ve been seeing consistent momentum now for a while. Well, before COVID it’s been rock solid in terms of this momentum is our focus. We, every day wake up to thinking about, how we, Brian mentioned, we innovate, go to market. So this is and we’re talking about a marketplace and perhaps speaks to across the board as all boats rise, but the markets growing, continues to grow and you look at our position at 51% penetration. There’s upside, a lot of upside. So, I look at where it comes from and the good news is, it’s been relatively consistent, maybe, a few new opportunities enter the picture through the COVID period, but it’s across the board in terms of where we’re taking share on the frontend combining that with record churn results in the net ads, but we’re taking share from Telco wired participants, DSL, MDU competitors, mobile providers, those kind of across the board in many different segments. So, a lot of opportunity in the formula, Craig is the – I think, the consistent one. We look to have a sustained competitive difference, delivering just a better product in the marketplace, better speed, better coverage, better feature capability. And now with streaming and then you combine that with Peacock, and other apps by the way, all the other apps that come connected by Flex. I think this is a really good long term competitive formula. So it’s across the board. There’s upside. Good runway for broadband, I believe going forward. Regards to wireless and Apple, we’re excited about their product launches. We’re well positioned with 5G. And so as that begins to take off, early feedback we’re getting from prospects and customers existing customers, and it’s very solid. So, we get prepared just like everyone else. All the other carriers in terms of these launches work very closely with Apple, but we have a full supply chain plan, go to market approach. And so we’re we were optimistic about it. It’s happening a little later in this year than last year. But that’s okay, that’ll just be a nice opportunity for later on the quarter into next year.

[Craig Moffett:]

Thanks.

[Marci Ryvicker:]

Regina, next question, please.

[Operator:]

The next question comes from the line of Philip Cusick with JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

[Philip Cusick:]

Hey, guys. Thanks. Brian, real quick to follow-up on your wireless comment. You spent $400 million on an auction recently. And both you and Dave have mentioned options to build in wireless. Can you explain on your plans or maybe timing for building your own cellular network? And then Mike, can you give us an update on how the conversations are with rating agencies on leverage? It seems like if they look at things on a trailing basis, it could be some time before you get below the two and a half turn target. But if they consider in the LQA basis, we could get there in 2021 if parks are breakeven, what do you see there? Thank you.

[Brian Roberts:]

So, let me on wireless. Let me have Dave a comment a little further. But I don’t think we have any new news day on that question. We are trying to build optionality from a cost basis. We really won’t get the product to receive, we hope that it would be you would note a difference, but what network you’re on. We just want to have the best value with the best service. And we now have 5G, right at the same time as everybody who is a network operator, and so that that’s how we spot ahead, I guess is the best way for me to answer that question. When we did the original MNVO relationship, we thought about things like what new technologies might come in the future and in this opportunity to and we have to respect that some of the auctions rules require us not to comment on things. So, we just look at it as creating options for the future for the company, when they have a value net value add to all of all the shareholders. David, that sound right to you?

[Dave Watson:]

Yes, absolutely. Brian, I think, Phil, the main point is, we really like our current position. We have a go to market, we’re still unique in that and other cable partner target us the same thing, where you have by the gig, that unlimited options. So, we like our current position. And as you look to the future, as we look to the future, with the spectrum, then you have an opportunity to look at dense pockets of usage, and then just build a more efficient long-term delivery system. So, we’ll – we don’t have to rush to do that. We’re going to – we’re looking at it from an engineering perspective. And we’ll be opportunistic down the road. But right now, we really like our current position.

[Philip Cusick:]

Thanks, Dave.

[Mike Cavanagh:]

Phil it’s Mike. On the other question, I mean, I think obviously, as you said before, we’re very committed to the commitments that we made to the rating agencies and, therefore to the bondholders who support the balance sheet. So it’s our highest priority to get ourselves delevered, consistent with those commitments, and then get ourselves back to balance capital allocation, which we’re eager to have that include buybacks, as we’ve been talking about, no doubt. I think it’s premature to talk about, where the topic you raised and other ways to think about, how to think about our ability to support the debt through the lens of a rating agency is stuff that we’ll talk about with them, as we see, COVID make a turn and the businesses that are heard on EBITDA front, really make their turn until then it’d be premature to make any further comments.

[Philip Cusick:]

Okay. Thanks guys.

[Marci Ryvicker:]

Regina, we have time for one last question.

[Operator:]

Your final question will come from the line of John Hodulik with UBS. Please go ahead.

[John Hodulik:]

Okay, thanks, guys. Obviously, solid growth in Peacock, this quarter, is there anything you could tell us about usage or maybe daily average users? Or maybe the number of premium versus free subs? And then we know what content is resonated with viewers? Is it sports or entertainment or some of the originals or library anything you could tell that there would be great. And then more broadly, I guess it’s for Jeff or Brian, do you guys believe that NBC has the scale to compete effectively in D2C centric world obviously with the likes of Netflix, Amazon and Disney? You guys talk about that that’d be great. Thanks.

[Jeff Shell:]

Hi, thanks, John, this is Jeff, I’ll jump into that. So clearly, we – I think, we talked about the 22 million signups, which is great and way ahead of we thought we’d be. If you look at, you just mentioned kind of a – we’re generally the majority of our advertising, our revenue was advertising. And there’s three metrics that really go into it. It’s how many people sign up? It’s, it’s how many of them use it regularly we track kind of MAAs and monthly asked what counts, and then how often they use it, what the engagement is. And those 22 million obviously served as the top of the funnel, and we’re way ahead on the other two of what we projected to be and that obviously then translates to revenue. So, couldn’t be more pleased with where we are. And we’re just seeing the effects of the Roku deals, by the way, just kicking in. So, we have lots of growth coming in amongst Roku customers going forward, because we’re just seeing the very beginnings of that effect on us. So, couldn’t be more pleased with the content that’s resonating. It really is interesting. It’s kind of across the board. I mean, obviously Premier League Soccer has been an interesting driver for us. Some of our topical stuff, some of our NBC News product has been resonating. Brian mentioned, some of the shows that we’re able to get from other people, that they didn’t necessarily discover on other platforms like Yellowstone, and recently Mr. Mercedes are resonating, but I think the – in general, if you look at the usage, the fact that we have such a deep library of familiar stuff, it’s kind of the opposite equivalent. We have stuff people are you want to watch, they want to, rewatch 30 Rock, they want to watch Dick Wolf’s library, it’s really kind of across the board and very broad based, and with most of our programming strength coming in future quarters. We’re really very optimistic. We don’t even get the office, which is still amongst Netflix top shows until January exclusively. And then with the Olympics behind it, and back to Olympics behind it, to add to our sports strength, we’re very, very, very optimistic on how the content is resonating. Just more broadly, on direct-to-consumer. We have a – I do think we have the scale as a company to more than compete, I think we have the best platform. We have a content machine that can anon across our company. And then when you think about direct-to-consumer across our broader company, it’s not just Peacock, but Comcast and Sky both have, deep broad customer relationships. And that was, by the way, we took advantage of both when we launched Peacock, not just using Sky’s expertise to have a product that looks good and works really well. But also using Comcast, strength on the X1, one platform and Flex to really drive Peacock we launched. But more broadly across the company, we have things like, Fandango and Rotten Tomatoes and lots of different ways that we reach customers directly. So, we think, I think we have, more than enough scale, both in our content, and across the broader company and the way that we reach consumers. So, I don’t know, Brian, if you want to add anything?

[Brian Roberts:]

No, I think that’s an excellent answer and a good way to end the call. I think going back to a question was asked earlier, what’s your definition of success? I think you’ve just laid out, it’s looking across the whole company. And Peacock is a fantastic example of just in this – just from quarter-to-quarter, amazing progress. And it tells me all parts of the company and their roadmaps are ahead. So this one example, really good quarter, and we look forward to giving you more engagement stats, and everything else as we go. My – there’s a race on. And we did really well in the last 90 days and the last 180 days in that race, my strategy that has been laid out here, which for a lot less money, and a lot less risk to our core company, changing the financial characteristics, and yet giving us that potential. Now have many customers having the Peacock app signed up. What can we do to get that engagement and usage up? That’s a that’s over the next 10 years and life over the long term of once you once you get that real estate. So we’re going to continue that race. We’ve got some great content ahead to get people have yet to try Peacock, play with it. And when you get there, it’s got to work really well. And that’s where that experience from Sky and X1 and doing user interfaces paid off. So, we’ll keep focused on it. And thanks for all the questions and the conversation. Marci back to you.

[Marci Ryvicker:]

Thanks. Thanks, John. So that concludes our third quarter 2020 earnings call. Thank you for joining us. I wish you all of you well.

[Operator:]

There will be a replay available of today’s call starting at 12 o’clock PM Eastern Time. It will run through Thursday, November 5 at midnight Eastern Time. The dial in number is 855-859-2056 and the conference ID number is 3090648. A recording of the conference call will also be available on the company’s website beginning at 12