Fox Bidding Became Too Rich for Comcast's Blood, CEO Roberts Says

Comcast ended its bidding for Fox's nonbroadcast assets (see 1807190022) when it decided it "couldn't build enough shareholder value" to justify the cost, CEO Brian Roberts said in a Q2 earnings call Thursday. He said Sky, for which it's vying with Disney (see 1807120001), "will fit well." He said Comcast's focus on connectivity means it's increasingly investing for its xFi service, and it now offers 1 GB speeds across virtually its entire footprint. Comcast Cable CEO David Watson said the company is putting more focus on expanding its broadband-only customer segment. Asked about growth of virtual MVPDs, Roberts said Comcast is "benefiting more from that competition than we're losing," with NBCUniversal having more distributors and through increased data traffic the company is seeing. For Q2, Comcast revenue rose 2.1 percent to $21.7 billion from the year-ago quarter, it said. The 260,000 added broadband customers gave it one of the highest Q2 results in 10 years, it said. The operator ended the quarter with 21.1 million residential video customers, down 136,000; 24.4 million residential broadband customers, up 226,000; and 10.2 million residential voice customers, down 32,000. Its Xfinity Mobile service ended the quarter with 781,000 subscribers, up 204,000. Comcast shares closed Thursday up 4 percent to $34.75. BTIG analyst Walt Piecyk wrote investors that losses from Comcast's wireless business since its May 2017 launch have topped $1.2 billion, while subscriber growth seems to have flattened out at 200,000 per quarter, lower than expected. He said Comcast isn't likely to end its wireless push given the 5G threat to wired broadband, and it makes sense for Comcast to build a wireless network atop its growing fiber investments.