Two things
1. Hasn't Comcast changed their entire strategy on the parks since that 2014 conference call? I'm not sure if the stockholders have been told but there is no slowing down after Q2 with park spending. It's now the largest cash flow in the entire company. Comcast is all in on the parks and spending will dramatically rise in the future if the economy keeps chugging along in Orlando.
2. Park spending at Uni is way different than Disney. Rumored cost of Kong is around 140-150 million bucks. That's all thanks to lower overhead, less middlemen, and subcontractors. Had Disney built the exact same Reign of Kong it would of easily cost imagineering 400 million somehow.
That first point is demonstrably untrue. Take a look at their recent
10-K / annual report. Their theme parks aren't anything to sneeze at, but they're so ridiculously big that their theme park revenues (and income) represent a very small slice of their overall business.
What is notable is the growth year-over-year. Theme parks' revenue increased 27% in 2015, attributable primarily to Diagon Alley and (surprisingly) the Fast and the Furious studio tour in Hollywood.
And while I wouldn't disagree that Comcast is "all in" on their theme parks, theme park spending isn't going to durastically change anytime soon. All they say in their annual report is that they "expect to continue to invest in existing and new attractions at our Universal theme parks. [They] are developing a Universal theme park in Beijing, China. [They]expect the development of this park to continue in 2016."
Definitely. As an example they were so happy with the revenue results from Diagon that materialized in the Jan. 2015 quarterly report, they sent UO a huge extra amount for spending in 2015 over & above their original 2015 budget.
That's really not how business works. A certain amount of incremental maintenance cost is expected with opening a new attraction or renovation, but you don't just "throw cash" at a department because it's doing well. I'm sure there's an internal process for requesting budgeted funds that requires clear documentation and approval by the higher-ups (who's top priority is shareholder return).
Diagon Alley brought a great deal of extra revenue to UO and that gave a lot more confidence to investors who are less wary of additional development, still future park spending hasn't been brought up since, so no certain confirmation.
See the quote above. They're definitely talking about it, but they're focusing their attention on Beijing in 2016. That's not to say they won't keep developing their stateside properties, but those costs will obviously pale in comparison to Beijing.
Lot's of things have changed at Comcast the last two years. Theme park revenue increases are through the roof, higher than anticipated. and some of the events happening in the cable business, both market place and legal, would encourage them to divert resources to the parks which have been a money printing business thus far with a bright future.
I partially agree. Theme park revenues are up, and their income growth outpaces capital expenditure growth pretty dramatically. In addition, their margins are
insane (think Apple levels - 35% in 2015 versus 31% in 2014). But, the theme park business doesn't scale the same way cable, broadcast television, or film entertainment does. If Jurassic World is a hit, they can make $200 million + in opening weekend without
any capital spend aside from production costs. On the other hand, if they wanted to double capacity in their theme parks... well, you can see that the business just doesn't scale the same way,
expecially in California. No wonder ticket prices are going through the roof, tiered ticketing was implemented, and they're trying to price people out of annual passes. They have a limited capacity and are trying to maximize their margins!