Comcast Corporation
Q4 2020 Earnings Call Transcript

Published: 28 Jan 2021

[Operator:]

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Comcast Fourth Quarter and Full Year 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, Miss Ryvicker.

[Marci Ryvicker:]

Thank you, operator and welcome everyone. Joining me on this morning's call, are Brian Roberts, Mike Cavanagh, Dave Watson, Jeff Shell, and Jeremy Darroch. Brian and Mike will make formal remarks, and Dave, Jeff and Jeremy will also be available for Q&A.

[Brian Roberts:]

Thanks Marci and good morning everyone. Really proud of our fourth quarter results and look forward to giving you a glimpse of what we’re focused on and excited about once we come out of this pandemic. Our most recent performance was highlighted by Cable which grew EBITDA by over 12% and net cash flow by 26%. These are the best results of the year and that of any fourth quarter in over a decade. We also have good news to share on our Park segment which reached breakeven excluding Beijing, even with Hollywood being closed. Our premium ad-supported streaming service Peacock now has 33 million sign-ups within just six months of its nationwide launch. And encouragingly customer and revenue base essentially return to pre-COVID levels this past quarter. Clearly, our company has strong testament to the tough decisions made by our leadership team and the excellent execution and coordination by our dedicated employees. Looking back over the whole year, 2020 was one of the most uncertain and challenging periods that any of us can remember. But we rose to the occasion, ensuring the safety and protection of our employees, providing customers with unparalleled service and innovative products that they relied on more than ever, strengthening our investment grade balance sheet and continuing to invest for long-term growth and success. This year's Cable results were nothing short of exceptional, hitting a number of company records. We generated 2 million net broadband additions for the year, and 538,000 for the fourth quarter, reaching record low churn. High speed internet drove our highest ever full year net customer relationship additions of 1.6 million, bringing us to 33 million total customer relationships. Yet with just only 50% penetration of our footprint, there remains plenty of opportunity for future growth. We also delivered outstanding EBITDA growth of nearly 9% and cash flow growth of 16% all of 2020. Broadband is the cornerstone of what we do, powered by our robust, flexible and reliable network. And many years of investments we've made have been on full display.

[Mike Cavanagh:]

Thanks Brian and good morning everyone. Now I’ll review our fourth quarter 2020 results and make some comments on current conditions and where possible on the year ahead. Let’s begin on slides four and five with our consolidated results. Revenue declined 2.4% to $27.7 billion for the fourth quarter, and 4.9% to $103.6 billion for the full year. Adjusted EBITDA declined 15% to $7.2 billion for the fourth quarter and 10% to $30.8 billion for the full year. COVID related severance and restructuring charges were $590 million in the fourth quarter and $828 million for the full year as we took actions to position our businesses for success in a post COVID world. The corporate and other segment includes these charges and also includes Peacock for its launch year. For 2020, Peacock generated revenue of over $100 million while EBITDA losses approached $700 million. We continue to expect that EBITDA losses for 2020 and 2021 combined for Peacock will total roughly $2 billion. Adjusted earnings per share declined 29% to $0.56 for the quarter and 17% to $2.61 for the year. Finally, free cash flow was $1.7 billion in the quarter and $13.3 billion for the full year reflecting the decline in EBITDA and the benefit from the reduction in working capital and capital expenditures in part due to the pandemic. Now to review our business segments, starting with Cable Communications on slide 6. For the fourth quarter, Cable Communications revenue increased 6.3% while EBITDA increased 12% and adjusted EBITDA led capital grew 26%. For the full year we grew customer relationships by 1.6 million a 41% increase year-over-year with 455,000 net additions in the fourth quarter, driven by high-speed internet where we added 2 million net new residential and business customers this year and 538,000 in the fourth quarter. These record customer additions were the primary driver of our high-speed internet revenue growth of 13% for the quarter and 10% for the full year. Other revenue highlights include acceleration in both business services and wireless. Business services posted 4.8% revenue growth and 26,000 net new customer additions primarily driven by improvement in small businesses. Wireless revenue grew 36% with 246,000 net new lines in the quarter bringing up to 2.8 million total lines at year end.

[Marci Ryvicker:]

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

[Operator:]

Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. Our first question comes from the line of Ben Swinburne with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

[Ben Swinburne:]

Thank you. Good morning. One for I guess, Brian, and Dave on Cable, and then one for Jeff on NBC. So obviously, really strong customer metrics in 2020, particularly on the broadband side. And I was curious, when you look at what transpired last year in terms of the increased demand for the product, and also how you guys operate in the business. What are the things that you think are COVID-specific versus durable? I mean, I know you talked about 2019 as the benchmark year. But as we think about the longer term, how do you look at last year's performance and some of the specific drivers in terms of their durability beyond the pandemic? And then for Jeff, you guys laid out, I realized this is prior to your elevation as CEO, I think 30 million to 35 million active accounts on Peacock by ’24. I know signups inactive accounts are different metrics. But it seems like you're nicely ahead of that trajectory. Can you just sort of reframe the opportunity with Peacock for us today versus kind of the initial outlook and when might revenues become kind of material to NBC for that business? Thanks, everyone.

[Dave Watson:]

Well, Ben, this is Dave. I'll kick off on the Cable side. I think it starts with the main point that we've had great momentum in Broadband for many quarters now well before COVID. There's been real strength in the category for us, and I think if we point towards the fundamentals of Broadband, and the fundamentals have been very consistent for us. And it starts with the market, the market is growing we're taking share. And the sources are geographic all over the country where we serve and across the board competitively, with DSL sources, telco wired, wireless, and other competitors. So, I think, while they're in '20 truly an exceptional year from performance. And as Brian said, I think the right way of looking at '20 you got to look at the full year results. And when you do that the 2 million net customer additions, it really is extraordinary. Fundamentals that we see going forward, low churn. We compete well on the front end, because we've consistently invested in the best network in the marketplace. And I think that is ubiquitous. We deliver the best overall service, redefine the category in speed, coverage, control, and now streaming. And so, you add up all those things, I think it points towards strong organic growth. But as you look to next year, as Mike said, we do have a healthy start to the year. We're really encouraged what we're seeing right out of the gates. But I do think 2020 as everybody went home and there is just a lot more in a short period of time, folks that were working from home, schooling from home, I think there's -- that's a unique moment. But I think the fundamentals continue. We have penetration upside. There's growth opportunities that we believe strongly. I think '19 was a very strong year, too by the way. I think that is the right one to look at as the best benchmark on a go-forward basis.

[Operator:]

Our next question will come from the line of Jessica Reif Ehrlich with Bank of America.

[Dave Watson:]

Hey Ben. So, Peacock obviously is primarily an AVOD service. And we have a number of metrics, the one that we that Brian and Mike talked about today is signups with loops every quarter which we reached 33 million this week. People sign up then they use it actively and then the usage per user that drive the amount of hours we saw on advertising. And we are up significantly over all of our metrics versus what we anticipated going into the business. We are only, we launched this on Comcast just over nine months ago and nationally just over six months ago, so we’re at the very beginning of this business. But we are very confident based on the small amount of time that the business model has adapted the right business model, people are signing up, they are using what we have expected. And advertisers are very interested in buying it. So, this steady growth is very promising for us and we don’t have anything to reframe at this point, but I think that the performance that is much better than we expected, give us a lot of optionality going forward. But we're just going to continue to drive this business model now and focus on the advertising revenue.

[Ben Swinburne:]

Thank you.

[Marci Ryvicker:]

Thanks, Ben. Regina, next question, please.

[Operator:]

Our next question is from the line of Jessica Reif Ehrlich with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

[Jessica Ehrlich:]

Thank you. I also have two questions. First, on NBCU. Can you talk about the kind of the timeframe and where you'll see the benefits of the restructuring? And within that, like, what is the long-term view of Cable Networks, will it be at all eventually be in Peacock? And on the Cable side, several of you mentioned I think Brian, I think all of you mentioned the benefits of the new Verizon MVNO deal. Where will that show up, will it be in revenue, additional services? What's the timeframe for that as well? Thank you.

[Brian Roberts:]

Jeff, you want to start?

[Jeff Shell:]

Yes, thanks, Brian. Hi, Jessica. So, we view, obviously, our television business as a whole. As Mike says, we're going to redo how we report starting next quarter. And we view the whole television business as a whole. And while our restructuring definitely took a lot of cost out of the business, which you're starting to see in the numbers. The real purpose of it was to allow us to grow in the future and really run it as one business. So, Cable Networks obviously are a big part of the business, they're still the biggest EBITDA driver. And I don't expect that to change anytime in the near future. But we're looking at the two revenue streams of the business, its subscription and advertising as one business, Broadcast, Cable and Peacock. And we're programming it as such, we're selling it to advertisers as one platform as such. And so, I think over time it'll be harder and harder to distinguish between the profitability of Cable Networks and the rest of our television business because we're looking at it as one business. But the restructuring allows us to run it like that and we think that that's going to allow us to really grow the business over time. Dave, you want to take on wireless?

[Dave Watson:]

Yeah. Hi, Jessica. So, we've been really pleased with the relationship of Verizon, we had a great partnership and glad that one important aspect of things is that improved MVNO. Brian mentioned, the capital light approach is working for us, we think is going to work in the future. So, I think as a starting point certainly will enable us to amplify what we're already doing, really push towards a range of offers that keep us very competitive. We continue to grab switching share and the mobile space. But you back up for a second and we're just overall, we have been pleased and we're very optimistic about the mobile business and what it will do. In particular, continues to perform very well for broadband retention. And so, we're committed to accelerating growth in mobile. And we mentioned this last time. And while the MVNO enhancement will be a nice step forward, there are a lot of other things that we're doing like, really going after every single sales channel that we have. We reopen retail in a safe mode, new safety protocols and every single sales channel, whether it's digital, all centers, you name it, we're really focusing on mobile. So, we're also leaning into 5G. We'll participate very much in 5G and we're featuring mobile in packaging, with broadband, leading in some cases when there's a new product, NPI, whether it's Apple, Samsung, we use that moment to literally lead with mobile. So, I think overall, we're real pleased. And I think we feel good about the runway. I would also point towards our overarching plan that one, we have access to I think just the country's best network, with Verizon. And so, we talked about that. I think we also are leveraging -- continue to leverage Wi-Fi. And we're -- we've always uniquely provided a great experience, not just in the home, we're improving things outside in the public area. And then over time, I think the key thing too is being able to add a third layer, which could be our own targeted wireless infrastructure which we might use to supplement the Verizon network and really go after the high dense usage areas, spectrum that we've already acquired. So, I think all these factors point towards particularly a unique opportunity for us.

[Jessica Ehrlich:]

Thank you.

[Marci Ryvicker:]

Thank you, Jessica. Regina, next question, please.

[Operator:]

Your next question comes from the line of Doug Mitchelson with Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.

[Doug Mitchelson:]

Thanks so much. If I can just follow-up on wireless, when you said that you can improve the range of offerings to more customers as part of the new MVNO, can you address business customers now with your wireless service? And perhaps you could before but any clarification on that? And what are the new offerings and where the new customers that you can address as a result of the changes to the MVNO? And then, Brian, not to put you on the spot, but any thoughts on the Olympics and its likelihood and potential benefit to Peacock or the rest of the operations? Thank you.

[Brian Roberts:]

Well, I think on the wireless question, I think this is the beginning of the year. So, I think we'll have more to report as the year goes on. We're going to follow-up on what Dave just said, but we think including some offerings to businesses. But it's early in the year, so stay tuned. But I think what we wanted to convey today is that the piece parts are in place, and that we have momentum, and it's a strategic part of our bundle, as Dave just said, in terms of reducing churn and also driving us toward breakeven and profitability. And if this was -- these were important elements to get right. So, I would say more to follow. And the question about Olympics is what, will it happen? Or be a bit more specific, if you don't mind, Doug?

[Doug Mitchelson:]

Yes, sorry, Brian. I guess there's some concern out there as whether or not the Olympics will happen. And I know, it’s sort of important for driving your businesses and it was something you were excited about in terms of marketing Peacock last year. And as you've taken a step forward in Peacock and had some initial success, how do you think about using Olympics as a vehicle to drive usage and awareness of Peacock?

[Brian Roberts:]

Yeah. Understood. Well, first of all, I want to echo what Jeff said, really pleased with how fast Peacock has exceeded this year, even without the Olympics that we had hoped for and that was going to be the big launch moment. So, I think the team is doing an outstanding job and giving us the best start that that I think everyone would want to have an even better than that, perhaps. So that gives us just great expectations for the future. So, sitting here today, I believe there will be in Olympics. I hope it'll be in Olympics and I think that's our best intelligence at this time. And we're excited about that. I think it can be done in a variety of ways, as we've seen sporting events all over the world take place from Premier League to the NFL, and many others with limited spectators, no spectators or wherever the world may be in Japan in July. That'll be up to the host country and host committee. If in the event, it doesn't happen, we have another Olympics coming in Beijing, seven months later or so. So, I don't know Jeff, do you want to add anything to that but we're very hopeful and believe that they'll find a way to safely and successfully have the Olympics, which for us is a television event and would be an amazing moment for the world to come back together post what we've all globally been through, which is so unprecedented. So, we're super hopeful and optimistic.

[Doug Mitchelson:]

Thank you.

[Jeff Shell:]

Yeah, I guess…

[Marci Ryvicker:]

Yeah, go ahead, Jeff.

[Brian Roberts:]

Go ahead.

[Jeff Shell:]

No, I was just going to add to what Brian said. I think advertisers also are optimistic that the Olympics are coming and continue to pace. I think last earnings call I said, we were up over where we were a year ago when we thought the Olympics would be a year ago, that gap has grown even further as advertisers kind of jumped in to buy. So, anything can happen in this COVID world. We don't know what's going to happen, but we're pretty confident that Olympics is going to happen, and advertisers are kind of jumping in and agreeing with Brian’s sentiments.

[Doug Mitchelson:]

Thank you.

[Marci Ryvicker:]

Regina, we're now ready for the next question. Thanks.

[Operator:]

Your next question comes from a line of Phil Cusick with JP Morgan. Please go ahead.

[Phil Cusick:]

Hi, guys. Thank you. Thanks for the buyback commentary. Should we still look at 2.5 times trailing 12 months EBITDA for test for buybacks? And can you remind us what the year-end '22 target is? And then Mike to confirm your comments on margins and capital intensity, I think you're guiding to Cable margins, capital intensity improvements versus 2020 but not giving a level. I assume that's against reported numbers, despite all the moving pieces. Can you give us any sort of direction on that level and why not guide this year versus previous years? Thanks.

[Mike Cavanagh:]

Sure Phil, it's Mike and, Dave -- I'll do the second one first. I think Dave gave plenty of color in terms of as well as I think in the earlier comments about the activities of the Cable division in terms of focus on expenses, locking in programming renewals, which and just driving the business towards connectivity, and wireless towards profitability. And all those factors, come together and when you look at the long-term a business including our comments is that, we are confident in our ability to increase profitability, expand margins and improve capital intensity not just in 2021 and that is versus reported 2020 numbers to your question. But really thereafter, I mean, I think the business is set up for that, for the long-term horizon beyond just the year ahead. So, calling out specific numbers, I think is of less utility frankly than giving you the broad backdrop that gives you the long-term lens through which you can judge all those pieces. But we're quite confident that all those things coming together expenses plan and efficiency on the capital side, combined with innovation and focus on connectivity allows us to give that outlook that of improving margins and capital intensity looking out ahead. In terms of -- Dave, I don't know if you have anything to add there?

[Dave Watson:]

Yes, I think the focus of us really going after margin capital intensity improvements, that's not going to stop, starts with connectivity, and building customer relationships in a profitable way managing this video transition, like we're doing. And extreme focus around expenses that we in a healthy way, Mike talked about, Brian's talked about just taking a lot of transactions out. Our digital focus and self-install kits, these are things that I think are very durable, that'll go beyond what we're dealing with in this environment. I think we learned a ton. And we'll continue to operate the business in a unique way. So, I think you look towards those kinds of activities the amount of SIK, today two-thirds of the transactions that connects or that way, and then three quarters of our digital capable transactions are being completed through our digital tools. We're going to continue to focus on all those things that just drive non-programming cost. And so, we'll stay focused on all of that.

[Mike Cavanagh:]

And then, just elaborating I think earlier comments really covered it all on buybacks, but I'll just expand a bit. I mean, obviously, we've been talking Brian and I and the team for a while about our desire to get back into the historical balance on capital allocation, which as you know is even the balance sheet strong, making healthy investments in the organic growth across our businesses which I think from listening to the call today. Anyone would, I hope gather that we continue to be very lean -- very much leaning into doing that where we see returns and opportunity to make investments in these businesses for growth. And then get back to our balance with complete capital return. You know, it's the 13th year we've increased the dividend, but we turned off buybacks for a while and want to return to being in that portion of the return element as well. So, as I said, we're pleased with where the balance sheet is. We've gotten net debt down to $90 billion from $108 billion after Sky. Just the evidence that we're seeing in Parks in the fourth quarter, we were breaking as the Beijing pre operating cost, even with Hollywood closed and even with capacity constraints, just gives us a high degree of confidence that when people can return to travel on the other side of vaccinations, outpacing the virus, that we're going to see the COVID impacted EBITDA businesses snap back to historical levels. To your point, it's going to take 12 months for it to run through and get it fully back, hence our point that, in the second half of this year, we'd expect to see the beginnings of that and rather than wait for a full 12 months. We'll start -- we hope and plan to begin our buyback at that moment. We'll keep it at the historical level, call it as much as $5 billion ramp up to that and probably stay there until we actually get to the definition that you called out on a 12 month trailing basis to get to around or just inside 2.5 times. And I expect that to happen by the end of 2022.

[Marci Ryvicker:]

Thank you, Phil. Regina, next question, please.

[Operator:]

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

[Craig Moffett:]

Yes, hi, two questions, if I could. First, Brian, you talked a little bit about how pleased you are with Flex. We certainly get more questions about it from our clients now than had been the case with a lot of enthusiasm for what Flex could become. So, wonder if you could just expand on Flex a little bit and talk about what your hopes and expectations are for Flex? And could you grow that into a national product that is widely distributed or even a global product that's widely distributed as an aggregator platform? And then with respect to wireless, I wonder if you could just update us on your thinking about the CBRS spectrum now that we're out of the CBRS quiet period and what you might do now with the amount of small cells for traffic offload, whether you're testing that in any markets or how much traffic you expect you might be able to offload from the MVNO agreement?

[Brian Roberts:]

Dave, why don't you take the second one first about wireless and CBRS. I don't know if there's anything to add at this moment, but and if you want to feel free to talk about that?

[Dave Watson:]

Well, Craig, we have…

[Brian Roberts:]

And if you want to start on Flex, that's fine and I can follow you so, we can do both.

[Dave Watson:]

Okay, yes, well, let me touch on the first one then and go into CBRS. But going Flex, starting Craig with their current strategy just a little bit, that we package it with broadband, another great way of surrounding broadband with products that drive better retention outcomes. And that it's working, it's working very well. So, we target it to the streaming segment and give the customer great experience with excellent voice and all the apps, so tons of apps will have just about everything. Pleased with the Peacock performance for sure. All the other apps that we've launched, including HBO Max and soon to be later on this quarter, Disney. I think today it is more targeted. But as you mentioned, I really do think the next phase that we're working on and developing for and turning our innovation focus is that this is a long-term platform opportunity for us. And aspect of the company that we have called XUMO, that I think you all know that's one piece of being able to drive, helped drive advertising. We can participate and revenue in the app split's that we get. And so, we think of this with scale. And as you build a common software stack that includes Sky, do it together, which we're already working on, and then you have opportunities which we've talked about going to smart TVs, but really leveraging unique scale internationally that we can have, whether it's a device or whether it's a software solution. But I think these are the things that we'll look at. Right now, it's working great within footprint, but we're building our plans beyond that.

[Brian Roberts:]

Hang on for sec, let me just add to that then that the whole articulation of the company's strategy with broadband and aggregation and streaming, I think is embodied inside flex. So, Peacock's success very much partially due to the early success to what Flex can do for Broadband customers. And we're seeing other programmers are approaching us with their content and seeing with both the X1 platform and the Peacock platform and this Flex platform can do for them. So, that's led us to looking at what Dave was just talking about, what are other opportunities that are in -- that can be taken advantage of this scale and this platform and the ability to bundle things that way? And I think we'll have more to talk about throughout the year. Same sort of answer on the wireless question. I think what we're set up for future opportunities with some of the investments we've made and some of our early success. So, I share your client’s enthusiasm, I think the product is going to continue to improve. We'll have some more updates on that as we go along. But I'm very encouraged as well. And I think the team that created Flex has done a great service for the company. Keep going, Dave.

[Dave Watson:]

I think the only other point on wireless and Brian and Craig would be, we are looking at and working on development plans around the targeted use of the CBRS spectrum in dense high usage areas and how we could offload traffic, how the experience be terrific in doing so? So, nothing more really to comment at this point. This is a multiyear effort, but a lot of focus is on it right now.

[Craig Moffett:]

Thank you both.

[Marci Ryvicker:]

Thank you, Craig. Regina, next question please.

[Operator:]

Your next question comes from the line of Brett Feldman with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

[Brett Feldman:]

Thanks. And if you don't mind, I'm actually just going to follow up on Phil's question. So Mike, when you were responding to his question on the buybacks, you talked about ramping back up towards the historical level of $5 billion a year until you get back to sort of that long-term leverage target of about 2.5 turns. But if I think longer term, if you were to sort of remain at your historical buyback pace, you would probably continue to de-lever and I think actually quite rapidly. Historically, you've tended to redeploy that excess liquidity into your strategic M&A program. And so, the question is, how do you think about the medium to long-term importance of preserving dry powder of that type of flexibility, versus whether your current asset portfolio is sufficiently well suited to meet your long-term operating targets? Thank you.

[Mike Cavanagh:]

Sure, Brian can obviously chime in. But I think we feel very good about the collection of businesses that we have, how they fit together, how Sky is enabled together with Cable and NBC, things that are advances in the three pillars that Brian described, broadband, streaming and aggregation. So, I won't repeat too many of those proof points of what we are as a company. But, we'll always look at M&A, but I don't think there's any doubt that we are very pleased and don't see any strategic gaps in the portfolio that we have. So, we'll talk about it when we get to the 2.5 times. But I wouldn't suggest that beyond that stage, we would just deliver. I mean, we get inside that number and from there, we'll have options and we'll discuss it with folks as we get there. But that's where we stand today. Brian, anything else you want to add?

[Brian Roberts:]

Yeah, I would just add two other things. I think it's an important moment for us today in getting to a point that we feel the businesses are healthy that we can see, we believe and we hope obviously things can change with progress, with the vaccinations and the impaired businesses really having a roadmap to full recovery and beyond. And so, getting back in balance with as Mike described earlier, I think is really important something that I certainly really have wanted us to get to. Second, we've also said that we'd like to mix up businesses. Hopefully 70% of the company being broadband-centric is proved to be a really successful model. And we've had 10 wonderful years of growth with NBCUniversal and last year was the only exception to that. So, we expect great growth in all our businesses but having a mix with the businesses can work together. But having majority of the company being broadband centric has worked really well for us. So, I think it's a -- we are very pleased with the company we've got, we got a great scale, we've got momentum. That's where our focus at and the main priority was today to get to this announcement of our expectations, and then go ahead and hopefully, see the world go in the right direction here and continue on the path we're on and get to the execution of that later in this year. So important step today.

[Brett Feldman:]

Thank you.

[Marci Ryvicker:]

Thank you, Brett. Regina, we have time for one last question.

[Operator:]

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

[John Hodulik:]

Great, thanks. Two quick ones, I think. Maybe first as follow-up for Jeff on Peacock. Can you give us a sense of what content is resonating and any color you have on engagement or ARPU or pay subs? And should we expect more spending on sports rights for the platform following up on the WWE deal? And then maybe for Brian, just thoughts upon how the regulatory backdrop will evolve? And is there any concern that net neutrality will emerge as a new policy goal? Thanks.

[Brian Roberts:]

Jeff you want to go first?

[Jeff Shell:]

Yeah, thanks Brian and John. So, it's obviously, let me start with the office. So the office, we have the office as of January 1st, we've had it now for almost a month, very pleased with how it's doing. Our usage among our customers are actually higher than we think the usage was amongst Netflix customers. And more importantly what's happening is, we're seeing that people who are watching The Office on Peacock are watching lots of other comedies. So it’s really driving Parks Rec, and really driving Brooklyn 99 amongst others. So, there's kind of an ecosystem of that. We've talked in previous quarters about how EPL has really worked for us, it was Premier League and how those viewers also came in and to our surprise a much greater percentage of them, then turn them watching other things like Yellowstone and or comedy. So, we believe, there's kind of an ecosystem here, like the whole world of broadcast where people will, we can cross promote people into different things. And that certainly seems to be working and The Office has really worked. WWE is kind of a perfect property for us, because it allows us to number one, thousands of hours of programming that were behind a paywall that will now put on the free service of Peacock, which will not only enhance the brand of WWE, but we can monetize an advertising. We get the events that were behind a paywall that used to be pay per view, can drive our 499 Premium version of Peacock. And then remember, we have a big investment in WWE at USA on our linear networks. And so, this kind of perfectly fits into our model of operating the business as a whole and cross promoting and selling advertising clients one platform, one solution, as Linda calls it. So, I think the model that we've constructed here to really kind of leverage our existing linear businesses and drive advertising is working, and I think comedy, sports, two of the success stories certainly so far.

[Brian Roberts:]

Okay. And I know, we'll be having this conversation about the new administration government. So, let me just quickly say, I don't think there's anything new. We've managed successfully to work with different administrations, with different regulatory perspectives around the broadband business. And -- but our view is obviously strongly felt that the long-standing light touch regulation has worked since President Clinton created that classification and reduces regulatory risk for investors and allowed the company to invest more and have paid dividends unbelievably well during COVID. And we were never asked to down raise any services. And content providers and consumers really benefited. And that wasn't universally the case around the globe, with different broadband regimes. But we do believe in the neutrality and how we're not going to discriminate, block, throttle and some of the other principles that we've committed to. And so, if there's a way to find a way to codify that and perhaps with this issue and a permanent more consistent place that's certainly a possibility. I would like to just end the call by introducing Dana Strong just for a moment, who's taken over Sky just last couple weeks. Starting next call, Dana will be available to talk about Sky in great detail, but Dana didn't want this moment to pass without congratulating you, with this introducing you to the group here to say just a few words.

[Dana Strong:]

Thanks so much, Brian. It's great to have the opportunity to say quick hello to everyone. Looking forward to talk again in future quarters as Brian mentioned. Maybe for now, let me just briefly say that having spent the past few weeks in the UK, I'm extremely confident about the exciting opportunities ahead for Sky. When Brian called me, I knew this was an opportunity I couldn't pass up. Because I've always had great admiration for Sky having worked in Europe, as long as I have, Brian mentioned that before. Sometimes competing and partnering with Sky across those many years, I think I'm in the position to truly appreciate the unique market position that Sky holds in its iconic brands. And I just have to say that Jeremy has built an incredible organization, an amazing breadth of assets and a fantastic team. And I couldn't be more excited about leading Sky in this next chapter. So Brian, look forward to talking more about it in future calls and back to you.

[Brian Roberts:]

Thank you and Jeremy, thank you as well. And I know you'll be guiding us here through the rest of this year as well. But both of you are going to be a great team. That wraps it up for me, Marci, do you have anything else?

[Marci Ryvicker:]

I just like to thank everyone for joining us on our fourth quarter and full year 2022 earnings call. We hope you stay healthy and safe.

[Brian Roberts:]

Thanks everybody.

[Operator:]

There will be a replay available of today's call starting at 12 o'clock PM Eastern Time. It will run through Thursday, February 4 at midnight Eastern Time. The dial in number is 855-859-2056 and the conference ID number is 7964167. A recording of the conference call will also be available on the company's website beginning at 12