Comcast Q2 2024 Earnings

[UniversalRBLX]

Revenue down 11% ($234M) compared to this time last year, mainly attributed to lower attendance domestically. First time the domestic parks see negative growth in the Potter era.

This is the first quarter (excluding. 2020/Covid Impact) where Universal actually sees negative QoQ $ Change since Q3'18 (-1.4% due to natural disasters in Japan). Will be interesting to see the TEA report for 2023 (whenever it gets released) as attendance declines were already in the works last year, with even more this year.

 

[Mad Dog]

In the previous five quarters Hollywood attendance was propping up the domestic attendance numbers. Orlando has been flat and/or in decline for five quarters. The Nintendo effect is probably wearing off a bit in Hollywood. The numbers probably won't improve until Epic opens, though Epic is only a small reason for the decline in Orlando. Thus the huge ticket discount for Florida residents. I'd guess projections for Orlando are pretty weak for the near term. HHN will save the day, though, like it used to.....One big plus for guests though. Orlando parks don't have the capacity to handle 10, 11 to 12 million per park yearly crowds comfortably. Studios and IOA are much better guest experiences when the attendance is in the 8/9 million range.

 

[GAcoaster]

All the parks seem to be suffering this summer-- SeaWorld keeps giving passholders more free tickets to bring friends, Six Flags is now pushing really cheap one day tickets, and Disney seems to be down quite a bit. I think it's just inflation catching up with people. Last year they all spent, now the bills are coming due.

 

[Mad Dog]

All the parks seem to be suffering this summer-- SeaWorld keeps giving passholders more free tickets to bring friends, Six Flags is now pushing really cheap one day tickets, and Disney seems to be down quite a bit. I think it's just inflation catching up with people. Last year they all spent, now the bills are coming due.

My guess, after being at WDW in June, and watching the low lines daily on TP, is that WDW has suffered steeper attendance declines than Universal Orlando. Once again, that's good for guests, since neither park system has increased their capacity to account for the large attendance increases in the past 12 years. WDW was so much more comfortable to tour during our long vacation there. No need for Genie+ if you were familiar with the crowd flows. Example: MK has had better than Sept. stand by times for a couple months now......Overall national travel is still very high. People are just going to other places now that provide better value. There are lessons to be learned.

 

[UniversalRBLX]

All the parks seem to be suffering this summer-- SeaWorld keeps giving passholders more free tickets to bring friends, Six Flags is now pushing really cheap one day tickets, and Disney seems to be down quite a bit. I think it's just inflation catching up with people. Last year they all spent, now the bills are coming due.

I think it shows the decline in interest at visiting parks due to all of the "scummy" practices and cost cutting the parks have done over the past 2 years now. People have had enough with surcharge fees (SF just removed them), reduced entertainment and ops.

People are just going to other places now that provide better value.

Bingo

Don't get me wrong, I love the parks, but the value proposition is just not there anymore. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that the majority of guests right now are FL Residents using recent discounted ticket offers. While still expensive for out of state visitors, $200 for 4 days at either UOR or WDW is the best deal in years.

 

[Brian G.]

Here we go again…

 

[Mad Dog]

and....this decline of nearly 11% in theme park revenue is in comparison to 2023 second quarter. Notably, 2023 second quarter was also a decline from 2022 covid revenge travel second quarter in Orlando. There's a lot of reasons for these declines, some that the WDW & Universal parks have control over and some that they don't. But again, bottom line is that it's important that the parks give value and a good experience to their guests, so they come back as 'often' as they did in the past.

 

[Jerroddragon]

I mean, if they don't care about more guests each year then they are doing fine

I do think that a smaller attraction at each coaster would have only bumped the numbers a little. USH is waiting on a coaster and Orlando is waiting on Epic, I think or at least hope Epic keeps them going for a few years with boosted attendance. I think USH will see a smaller bump for the coaster because of reasons I've listed a thousand times. So really hope USH has a big plan for after the coaster and hopefully it happens by the time the Olympics's come because I can tell you as someone who goes now and its not packed, the park does not have enough to do currently when they do get busy.

Movie wise, I assume they should be doing pretty good. DE4 is doing well and has legs, Twisters has started strong and Panda didn't break the bank but did well enough for it being more a kids film then the first films that had some darker tones.

 

[Jake S]

Theme park revenue has also gone up nearly 35 percent since the second quarter of 2019 and the second quarter of 2024. I know that will do little to ward off the baying for blood from the shareholders, but we're still riding an incredible surge in growth in what I tend to think is a post-COVID bubble.

 

[Mad Dog]

Theme park revenue has also gone up nearly 35 percent since the second quarter of 2019 and the second quarter of 2024. I know that will do little to ward off the baying for blood from the shareholders, but we're still riding an incredible surge in growth in what I tend to think is a post-COVID bubble.

Yes, true, but that number is primarily inflation related due to even more than national rate increased pricing on tickets/hotels/food/merchandise. Disney has even noted that factor in their quarterly reports whenever they've quoted revenue increases. This shortfall is not just a Universal issue. It's more a Disney/ Universal/Regional theme parks issue since they've been lockstep in many of their pricing and operational policies. It's quite possible they've finally hit that ceiling on pricing/value that people have talked about for a long while, but it never happened. Maybe now it is happening.

 

[Jake S]

Yes, true, but that number is primarily inflation related due to even more than national rate increased pricing on tickets/hotels/food/merchandise.

I wouldn't call what theme parks, and business writ large, have done the past three years as primarily inflation related. But, that's a different discussion for a different time.

I think it's absolutely possible they've hit a price ceiling, but if they have they've done so while substantially increasing revenue despite what a CFO might call "economic headwinds." We'll see what the next couple of years holds, but if nothing else, these theme parks are not an outlier. They're just an expensive example of what's happening at Target, Wal-Mart and Publix.

 

[Nick]

There’s no sugar coating that this is a softer year than they’d like, but like, there’s a brand new park opening next year. You take the short term hit bc you’re expecting big attendance boosts next year.

 

[IzzyB]

All the parks seem to be suffering this summer-- SeaWorld keeps giving passholders more free tickets to bring friends, Six Flags is now pushing really cheap one day tickets, and Disney seems to be down quite a bit. I think it's just inflation catching up with people. Last year they all spent, now the bills are coming due.

Dollywood is seeing way lower crowds than prior years post Covid also. So for sure a theme park thing.

Overall national travel is still very high. People are just going to other places now that provide better value. There are lessons to be learned.

Agreed. It isn't inflation as travel is still up, but people are deciding to go elsewhere. I know the majority of people I know are going international travel, beach, skiing, etc. They are all traveling elsewhere that they see the value. Especially international since the dollar is so strong it allows cheaper international travel. SO many people on FB posting their international travel pictures.

Theme park revenue has also gone up nearly 35 percent since the second quarter of 2019 and the second quarter of 2024. I know that will do little to ward off the baying for blood from the shareholders, but we're still riding an incredible surge in growth in what I tend to think is a post-COVID bubble.

And this is the thing. Eventually that bubble had to break and the prices have to come down. Supply/Demand is a real thing and post covid supply was scarce and so prices skyrocketed. Now the supply is there and prices do need to come down at hotels.

Which ironically I have seen in rental houses. We are going to Clearwater for Girl Scouts next year and we originally were having issues finding houses early this year in the budget I made and we thought we may have to increase the budget or look outside of clearwater beach. The most recent look as we need to actually look to book something we ended up finding a REALLY nice house $500 below budget. We had the house saved, so we know that prior this same house was above budget. There was two in the same building (4 story townhouses with roof patio) and both were now below budget.

 

[Mad Dog]

Dollywood is seeing way lower crowds than prior years post Covid also. So for sure a theme park thing.

Agreed. It isn't inflation as travel is still up, but people are deciding to go elsewhere. I know the majority of people I know are going international travel, beach, skiing, etc. They are all traveling elsewhere that they see the value. Especially international since the dollar is so strong it allows cheaper international travel. SO many people on FB posting their international travel pictures.


And this is the thing. Eventually that bubble had to break and the prices have to come down. Supply/Demand is a real thing and post covid supply was scarce and so prices skyrocketed. Now the supply is there and prices do need to come down at hotels.

Yes...perceived 'Value' is a factor that should not be underestimated......Universal Orlando hotels are already adjusting with 'almost always' available 'Stay More Save More' rates 'again' at the Deluxes, and special rates way below the rack rates on many weeks this year, AP's and regular guests. Supply and demand, of course.

 

[UniversalRBLX]

I think it's absolutely possible they've hit a price ceiling, but if they have they've done so while substantially increasing revenue despite what a CFO might call "economic headwinds."

I, and others, have been discussing a potential price ceiling in theme parks (specifically Orlando) for a while now. It was very obvious last year when there was a notable dip in attendance last year post-Rush of Fear access at HHN when higher 1-night ticket prices kicked in. I've been tracking apartment prices the past 2 years separately, and they've finally come down in the Orlando area since the surge in 2020-21 and offering multiple months with "free" rent.

There’s no sugar coating that this is a softer year than they’d like, but like, there’s a brand new park opening next year. You take the short term hit bc you’re expecting big attendance boosts next year.

What about USH? They mentioned domestic parks overall are down, and USH just got SNW last year. Attendance, at the very least, should have stagnated. If SNW only had 1-year of positive impact, that's a shock. Will CMCSA be happy with another down year of attendance until F&F coaster opens in 2026?

 

[Jake S]

Looking at this at a very macro level, I think we're also seeing a demonstration of the limits of positioning a theme park as luxury travel. As the wealth gap widens, these parks will no longer be able to rely on the dollars of the "working class" visitors (or at least those that perceive themselves as working class) that was a backbone of their customer base for years.

And I realize I'm a broken record on this, but the Universal Parks in the United States absolutely rely on international visitors — and they're not coming in the numbers they were before COVID. If you think the economy is broken here (and for many people, it absolutely is!), take a look over at Europe sometime. That, combined with a strong dollar, is absolutely hurting these domestic theme parks.

 

[UniversalRBLX]

Looking at this at a very macro level, I think we're also seeing a demonstration of the limits of positioning a theme park as luxury travel. As the wealth gap widens, these parks will no longer be able to rely on the dollars of the "working class" visitors (or at least those that perceive themselves as working class) that was a backbone of their customer base for years.

Disney learned the hard way, and now they're retracting back some of their choices and working on adding capacity into the parks. Just look at how their language towards the park shifted from chasing per capita increases to adding capacity over the last year now.

 

[Mad Dog]

Looking at this at a very macro level, I think we're also seeing a demonstration of the limits of positioning a theme park as luxury travel. As the wealth gap widens, these parks will no longer be able to rely on the dollars of the "working class" visitors (or at least those that perceive themselves as working class) that was a backbone of their customer base for years.

And I realize I'm a broken record on this, but the Universal Parks in the United States absolutely rely on international visitors — and they're not coming in the numbers they were before COVID. If you think the economy is broken here (and for many people, it absolutely is!), take a look over at Europe sometime. That, combined with a strong dollar, is absolutely hurting these domestic theme parks.

Disney learned the hard way, and now they're retracting back some of their choices and working on adding capacity into the parks. Just look at how their language towards the park shifted from chasing per capita increases to adding capacity over the last year now.

Bingo. Two big indicators........and I recall that last summer, Disney, in official comments, said that their international guest numbers were down significantly. ...The working class visitors are the backbone of theme park attendance. Most of the ultra wealthy don't really go to theme parks. Affordable pricing and good value to that working class demo is essential.

 

[Jerroddragon]

So then in theory.....Epic Universe is DOA? I mean many here think it has to do with the middle class and no way in one year things get magically better.

I think if you build something cool enough people will "sadly" go into to debt to come to it.