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'Cats' was a massive failure that hurt Comcast earnings

Comcast on Thursday morning reported fourth-quarter earnings that beat expectations on top and bottom lines, but the stock moved lower (down 3% at the time of writing) because Comcast lost 149,000 video subscribers in the quarter, worse than the expected loss of 139,000. That drop was also much worse than its loss of 29,000 video subscribers in Q4 of last year.

But with cord-cutting accelerating, the drop in video customers should surprise no one. Comcast (CMCSA) and all of its peers can see the writing on the wall, and CEO Brian Roberts on the earnings call touted its forthcoming streaming service Peacock and warned that Comcast expects even higher losses in video subscribers in 2020.

A more interesting surprise was just how poorly the movie “Cats” performed.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - DECEMBER 16: James Corden poses at the world premiere of the new film "Cats" based on the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center on December 16, 2019 in New York City.(Photo by Bruce Glikas/FilmMagic)
James Corden poses at the world premiere of the new film "Cats" based on the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical at Lincoln Center on December 16, 2019 in New York City.(Photo by Bruce Glikas/FilmMagic)

Comcast’s NBCUniversal division, the entertainment unit that distributed “Cats,” saw revenue fall 2.6% to $9.2 billion, and profit fall 4.7% to $2.02 billion.

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Within NBCUniversal, film revenue dropped 21% to $1.6 billion, and profit dropped a brutal 49% from $179 million in Q4 of last year to $91 million this year. The reason was mostly “Cats,” which brought in a paltry $6.5 million in its U.S. debut, and has grossed just $26.85 million domestically and $60 million globally. The movie had a budget of $95 million.

Both Comcast’s Q4 2019 earnings presentation and CFO Michael Cavanagh, on the earnings call, avoided saying the movie’s name.

Cavanagh, on the call, said only that the poor film performance in Q4 was due to the “tough comparison to the size and timing of our slate in the fourth quarter of 2018, which included the successful releases of ‘Grinch’ and ‘Halloween’.” In other words: “Cats” bombed, and it makes the comparison even worse that NBCUniversal’s film studio had a strong Q4 one year ago.

Disney, back in August, had a similarly damaging bomb that hurt its Q3 film division results: “Dark Phoenix,” which it inherited from Fox. But Disney had an utterly dominant Q4 and overall 2019 at the box office, and Disney’s dominance is also partly to blame for NBCUniversal’s film woes in Q4. (To be fair, “Cats” also came out late in the quarter.)

In December, on the movie’s box office release day, NBCUniversal notified thousands of movie theaters that it would send a new version of “Cats” with better visual effects. Some reports have said that making the improved version doubled the movie’s overall spend.

Daniel Roberts is an editor-at-large at Yahoo Finance and closely covers media and the streaming wars. Follow him on Twitter at @readDanwrite.

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