World Series viewership soared for Game 5 as the Los Angeles Dodgers claimed victory over the New York Yankees.

As the Dodgers and Yankees went head-to-head for the fifth time this World Series, Game 5 brought in 18.6 million viewers across Fox, Fox Deportes and Fox streaming services, according to Nielsen. Viewership peaked at 21.27 million viewers on Fox from 11:15-11:30 p.m. ET.

Wednesday night’s audience on Fox ranks as the biggest audience a Game 5 has seen since 2017, when Game 5 between the Houston Astros and the Dodgers scored 18.96 million viewers. The Dodgers-Yankees matchup also saw a 58% uptick in viewership compared to last year’s 2023 World Series Game 5, which brought in a viewership of 11.48 million.

Overall, the 2024 World Series averaged 15.81 million viewers, the best average audience since 2017.

Game 4, which could have clinched a World Series sweep for the Dodgers before the Yankees came back in an unexpected win, brought in 16.7 million viewers across Fox, Fox Deportes and Fox streaming services. That number accounts for 16.28 million from Fox alone, and the game peaked at 18.22 million viewers from 10:15-10:30 p.m. ET.

Like Game 5, Game 4 broke several World Series viewership records as it became the most-watched Game 4 on Fox since 2016, when the game between the Chicago Cubs and the Cleveland Indians scored 16.71 million viewers. Viewership for Game 4 was also up 92% when compared to the 2023 World Series Game 4, which scored 8.48 million viewers.

Game 3 scored 13.64 million viewers across Fox, Fox Deportes and Fox Sports streaming platforms, with 13.21 million viewers coming from Fox alone. Viewership for Game 3 was up 63% from last year, and marked the most-watched Game 3 since 2018, when the Boston Red Sox and the Dodgers’ Game 3 matchup brought in 13.3 million viewers.

Similarly, Game 2 ranked as the most-watched World Series Game 2 on Fox since 2018 as the Dodgers-Yankees second matchup brought in 13.44 million viewers. Game 2 also saw a 65% uptick from last year’s Game 2, which scored 8.15 million viewers.

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Collin Farrell’s turn as Gotham City’s bird-like crime boss has held the top spot for six consecutive weeks and shows no sign of stopping, with two more episodes to go in the Max/HBO series.

Now, let’s count the creepies. “Woman of the Hour,” in second place again this week, tells the how-can-this-be-real-life story of serial killer Rodney Alcala appearing as a contestant on “The Dating Game” in the 1970s. Newcomer “Don’t Move” is No. 4 this week, with 1.1 million households watching the Netflix horror movie in the first three days it was available.

Director M. Night Shyamalan, no stranger to the mysterious and spooky, enters the chart with his latest feature film, “Trap.” A summer theatrical release, it comes in at No. 8 this week following its addition to the Netflix library. Closing out our spooky section is “This Is The Zodiac Speaking,” yet another serial killer-focused docuseries hit for Netflix, at No. 9. This time, the focus is the so-called Zodiac Killer who frightened the Bay Area in the 1960s.

Now for some (slightly) lighter fare.“The Lincoln Lawyer” Season 3 stays at No. 3 on the chart for the second straight week. Netflix’s popular game show “Love is Blind” also maintains its hold onto No. 5.

Rugged individualism is rewarded on the remainder of the chart. “The Old Man” stars Jeff Bridges and John Lithgow as old-time intelligence agents looking to save the world. The Season 2 finale arrived on Hulu on Oct. 24. That’s followed by “Tulsa King,” the Paramount+ series about a mob boss (Sylvester Stallone) fresh from jail and setting up a new racket in the title city. Finally, “Territory,” a new Netflix ranching drama that feels a bit like “Yellowstone” by way of the Australian outback, makes its streaming chart debut this week. It lands at No. 10. 

The big story on linear this week is a scripted series topping the chart. “Tracker,” on CBS, has been a steady presence near the top of the chart since it returned for its second season. The show has likely been aided by its air time immediately following one of the behemoths of linear viewership: CBS’s Sunday Night Football game (the Samba TV Weekly Wrap Report excludes sports content). This week, it followed the New England Patriots and New York Jets game, which helped put it over the top.

Competition shows take the next three spots, with two airings of “The Voice” coming in at No. 2 and No. 4 and “Dancing with the Stars” sandwiched between them. That block is followed by a quartet of scripted shows, with NBC and CBS trading off spots. “Chicago Med” (NBC) is No. 5, followed by “FBI” (CBS) at No. 6. We return to Chicago (and NBC) with “Chicago Fire” at No. 7, then go back to CBS for “The Equalizer” at No. 8.

Two airings of “Wheel of Fortune” on ABC close out the chart this week.

The Wrap Report provides an exclusive first look at the most watched movies and TV series from the past week across both streaming and linear television sourced from viewership trends collected from Samba TV’s panel of more than 3 million households, balanced to the U.S. Census.

The post Spooky Stories Climb the Streaming Top 10, But ‘Penguin’ Still Reigns Supreme | Chart appeared first on TheWrap.

Here are the top-line numbers from Apple’s fourth quarter, which represents its July through September performance:

Revenues: $94.90 billion, a 6% increase from $89.5 billion in 2023. Apple’s Q4 sales topped analyst estimates from Zack’s Investment Research of $94.56 billion.

Net income: $14.74 billion in net income, down 35.9% from last year when the company reported a $23 billion profit.

Earnings Per Share: Apple’s diluted earnings per share of $0.97 were lower than Zack’s estimates of $1.49.

Services Net Sales: Apple’s Services revenue was $24.97 billion, up 12%, and now makes up more than a quarter of the device maker’s overall revenues.

The bulk of Apple’s sales, as usual, stemmed from its products, with nearly $70 billion coming from that sector. Apple’s iPhone sales increased 5.5% year-over-year to $46.22 billion in Q4, despite sluggish sales in the U.S. and China.

Most of Apple’s sales growth stemmed from its European markets, which brought in $2.5 billion more than it did last year, when Q4 sales were $22.46 billion. It’s a tricky market to gauge, though, considering Apple includes sales from India and the Middle East in its European bracket.

During the quarter, Apple paid a one-time income tax charge of $10.2 billion in order to resolve the tax issue with Ireland, which dates to 2016. Excluding the tax hit, Apple’s profit was $25 billion.

Apple CEO Tim Cook, on the company’s earnings call on Wednesday, said it was the company’s best quarter ever in terms of Services growth year-over-year. Cook, as has been the practice with the tech company, didn’t mention how much Apple TV+ contributed to its big Services quarter.

“We have well over 1 billion paid subscriptions across the services on our platform,” Apple CFO Luca Maestri said on the company’s earnings call, “more than double the number we had only four years ago.”

Maestri, in the company’s earnings statement, added the company’s “active installed base of devices reached a new all-time high across all products and all geographic segments.”

AI was a major topic on the earnings call, with analysts asking several questions about Apple’s plans to compete in the increasingly crowded space. Maestri said Apple had already reallocated some “existing resources” to its AI team, and that the “level of intensity that we’re putting into AI has increased a lot.”

Maestri added the company was able to return over $29 billion to shareholders via dividends during the quarter. Wednesday’s earnings call is the last time Apple investors and analysts will hear Maestri talk publicly about the company’s performance, after he announced in August he’d be stepping down in early 2025, following a decade as CFO.

Apple’s stock, about 30 minutes after the company’s Q4 report was released, was down 1% in after hours trading to $225.91 per share.

In August, Apple changed the release strategy for “Wolfs,” its new action-comedy flick starring Brad Pitt and George Clooney, with the movie shifting to a limited release on Sep. 20 before hitting Apple TV+ exclusively a week later on Sep. 27. TheWrap reviewed the movie, which already has a greenlit sequel.

Apple didn’t have much of anything to say about its content business on Thursday, beyond mentioning series like “Shrinking” had recently returned.

On the AI front, Apple was in talks to invest in OpenAI in August, but that ultimately didn’t come to fruition. OpenAI later announced it had raised $6.6 billion in October, in a round led by Thrive Capital that also included Nvidia, Microsoft, Fidelity, and SoftBank, among other investors.

Apple Intelligence, the company’s suite of AI tools that, among other things, summarizes notifications and allows users to remove objects from pictures, launched earlier this week on iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

On the company’s call on Wednesday, Cook said Apple Intelligence will be “rolling out” more features “in the coming months.” The October through December quarter, Cook added, will be “quite a software quarter” for Apple’s AI business.

With the 2024 election looming, Cook was asked by an analyst what Apple planned to do if tariffs changed. Republican nominee Donald Trump, who has proposed a 60% tariff on goods from China and a 20% tariff on everything else, has touted his tariffs proposals at rallies and on “The Joe Rogan Experience.” Cook said he “wouldn’t want to speculate about those sorts of things.”

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The results were bolstered by a 19% year over year increase in advertising services revenue to $14.3 billion, which includes sales to sellers, vendors, publishers, authors and others through programs such as sponsored ads, display and video advertising.

Net sales for its subscriptions services segment, which includes annual and monthly fees associated with Amazon Prime memberships, as well as digital video, audiobook, digital music, e-book and other non-Amazon Web Services subscription services, grew 11% to $11.3 billion during the third quarter.

Here are the top-line results:

Net income: $15.3 billion, compared to $9.9 billion a year ago.

Earnings per share: $1.43 per diluted share, compared to $1.14 expected by analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research.

Revenue: $158.9 billion, up 11% year over year, compared to $157.07 billion expected by analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research.

Operating income: $17.4 billion, compared to $11.2 billion a year ago.

In January, Prime Video launched its ad-supported tier, which serves as the default for all subscribers and is available to more than 200 million monthly viewers, including 115 million in the United States.  

Currently, Amazon Prime, which includes Prime Video, costs $14.99 per month or $139 a year. A membership that only includes Prime Video and none of the company’s shipping benefits costs $8.99 a month. Users can pay an extra $2.99 per month for an ad-free experience.

In September, it was revealed that Amazon secured more than $1.8 billion in advertiser commitments for its streaming services during its inaugural upfront presentation in New York City — topping the tech company’s internal expectations.

“Advertising remains an important contributor to profitability in the North America and international segments. This quarter, we saw strong growth on an increasing large base of advertising revenue,” chief financial officer Brian Olsavsky told analysts on Thursday. “There are many opportunities to further expand our ads offering in areas that are driving growth today, like sponsored products, as well as more recent growth areas like Prime Video Ads.”

During the quarter, the tech giant launched a new generative AI feature around video generation and live image capabilities for advertisers, which makes it fast and easy for brands to deliver short, animated campaign images.

Amazon also touted the launch of Season 2 of “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” on Prime Video, the addition of Apple TV+ to the streamer’s collection of over 100 add-on subscription channels in the U.S. and last week’s “Thursday Night Football” game between the Cowboys and the Giants drawing over 17 million viewers, becoming the most-streamed NFL regular season game ever.

“As we get into the holiday season, we’re excited about what we have in store for customers,” Amazon president and CEO Andy Jassy said in a statement. “We kicked off the holiday season with our biggest-ever Prime Big Deal Days and the launch of an all-new Kindle lineup that is significantly outperforming our expectations; and there’s so much more coming, from tens of millions of deals, to our NFL Black Friday game and Election Day coverage with Brian Williams on Prime Video, to over 100 new cloud infrastructure and AI capabilities that we’ll share at AWS re:Invent the week after Thanksgiving.”

Jassy also told analysts that AWS has released nearly twice as many machine learning and generative AI features as the other leading cloud providers combined. He also noted the AWS AI business is a “multi-billion dollar revenue rate business” that continues to grow at a triple digit year over year percentage — more than three times faster than AWS itself.

North America segment sales grew 9% year-over-year to $95.5 billion, while its operating income came in at $5.7 billion, compared to $4.3 billion a year ago. International segment sales jumped 12% year-over-year to $35.9 billion, while operating income was $1.3 billion compared with a loss of $100 million in the prior year period. AWS segment sales increased 19% year-over-year to $27.5 billion, while operating income grew to $10.4 billion from $7 billion a year ago.

Operating cash flow grew 57% to $112.7 billion for the trailing 12 months, compared with $71.7 billion for the 12 months ending Sept. 30, 2023. Free cash flow increased to $47.7 billion for the trailing 12 months, compared with $21.4 billion during the same period a year ago.

Looking ahead at the fourth quarter of 2024, Amazon expects net sales in the range of $181.5 billion to $188.5 billion, or growth of 7% to 11% compared with the prior year period, while operating income is expected to be between $16 billion and $20 billion, compared with $13.2 billion in the fourth quarter of 2023.

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Looking at Spain as an origin market for high-value content, Spanish productions have seen a 22% global increase in availability on major streaming platforms between 2021 and 2023, reflecting rapid growth in new content and availability. Many of these titles have become high-performers globally, with over 200 titles in the Top 10% of demand on major global streamers. And it is not just Spanish-speaking markets driving this growth — there has been growing demand for shows and movies from Spain across regions of the world.

Parrot Analytics’ Content Valuation System can measure the contribution of individual titles to platforms’ subscriber acquisition and monthly retention (and, by extension, revenue). From here we can quantify at a macro level the amount of revenue that shows and movies from Spain have contributed to streaming platforms around the world. The revenue from Spain-originated content is on the rise across major streaming platforms, showing consistent year-over-year growth.

In total, titles from Spain have generated $5.1 billion in global revenue for major streamers over the past four years, marking a significant contribution to the global entertainment landscape. To provide some context on this number, this represents 8.9% of all streaming revenue generated by non-English titles for platforms globally. Spain ranks fourth globally as the country of origin for non-English content that has generated the most revenue for streamers. This places it behind Japan, South Korea, and India, but ahead of any other European or Spanish-speaking market in terms of revenue generated.

Netflix has been at the vanguard of bringing Spanish content to global audiences, notably with the growing “Money Heist” franchise but also shows like “Elite.” The platform has also played a similar role with the global boom in demand for Korean content, though as we’ve previously reported, the demographics of the audiences for Korean and Spanish titles are distinct, an important consideration when building out a catalog of international content that reaches as many demographic groups globally as possible.

The Spanish movie “Nowhere” was the non-English film that drove the most subscriber growth for Netflix in 2023. It ranked first in terms of the number of global subscribers it acquired for the platform in its first 13 weeks (79,000) and also ranked first among foreign language films in the number of subscribers it helped retain (869,000). Two other Spanish movies  — “Birdbox Barcelona” and “Sister Death” — also ranked among the Top 10 non-English films in terms of their value to Netflix measured by acquired and retained subscribers.

While Netflix might have been at the leading edge of capitalizing on global demand for Spanish content, other platforms are following suit. “Red Queen (Reina Roja)” ranked in the Top 5 new Amazon Prime Video series this year that acquired or retained the most subscribers for the platform globally. On Apple TV+, “Land of Women (Tierra de Mujeres),” a Spain/US co-production, was in the Top 15 new Apple TV+ series this year ranked by acquired or retained subscribers.

The post Spanish TV Is a Global Powerhouse, Driving Billions in Streaming Revenue | Charts appeared first on TheWrap.

A show that has long prided itself on pushing the boundaries of pop culture commentary has adapted, once again, and is meeting Gen Z where they are: on TikTok.

Season 50 has seen the greatest social reach in the show’s history with more than 1 billion views across social platforms so far this season, up 178% from last season. On top of that, social viewership for each of the first four episodes has outperformed last season’s episode average of 106 million.

In the past few weeks, “SNL” content has taken over Gen Z’s For You pages on TikTok, and Ariana Grande’s episode scored the best linear and streaming ratings for the sketch show since 2021 — but her social stats were just as staggering.

The “Bridesmaid Speech” sketch set to the tune of Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso” dominated the TikTok algorithm the week it was released, garnering over 100 million views and becoming the account’s most-watched video. And Bowen Yang’s Moo Deng spoof of Chappell Roan captivated Gen Z audiences by speaking directly to the chronically online and Roan superfans alike.  

Throughout its nearly 50-year history, “SNL” has faced ups and downs in ratings and relevance, but the decline of linear viewership posed a unique challenge for the show. As Gen Z cuts the cord and even exits streaming in favor of social media, the new “SNL” social strategy of embracing short-form video has successfully ensured the show connects with the next generation.

“Viewership isn’t everything, relevance is,” NowThis Editor in Chief and Gen Z-er Michael Vito Valentino told TheWrap. “Social media is the new water cooler.” 

To say Gen Z’s viewership habits differ from the generations before them would be a gross understatement. Nearly half of Gen Z respondents in a Deloitte survey said they prefer to watch social-first content as opposed to traditional entertainment, and about 52% of Gen Z respondents had canceled a paid streaming service in the last year. The preference for smartphones for video viewing is even more pronounced among Generation Alpha and Gen Z, with 88% of those aged 13-24 using the small devices for weekly video viewing weekly.

“SNL” hasn’t been immune to the decline in linear viewership. But the show has continually adjusted its strategy to try and stay up with the times. In 2017, “SNL” aired live coast-to-coast for the first time, allowing west coast viewers to tune in at 8:30 p.m. And full episodes of “SNL” stream live on Peacock as they air, offering an on-demand streaming component.

Last season the show scored an average of 7.9 million viewers across linear and streaming, a 3% uptick from the previous season. And the Season 50 premiere notched the show’s biggest audience since 2020.

And now, while older viewers still tune in on linear or streaming, the show’s social media blitz is effectively getting clips in front of Gen Z just in time for the Sunday morning debrief, ensuring cultural relevance with the much-courted demographic. 

For Michael Keaton and Billie Eilish’s Oct. 19 episode, “SNL” brought back a popular format from the “Bad Guy” singer’s first time hosting. The cast created nearly four minutes worth of TikTok content to imitate the neverending doom scroll that social users fall into. Cast members spoofed influencers like Harry Daniels, “Call Her Daddy” host Alex Cooper and even Kamala HQ.  

The “SNL” social team broke up the sketch into 13 separate TikToks on their social platform, reaching over 112 million views as of Wednesday. By mocking online creators on their own platform, the show engaged Gen Z in an organic manner. 

This workflow has been replicated throughout Season 50, as the “SNL” team specifically selects clips they feel will resonate with Gen Z to post on social media, an individual familiar with the process told TheWrap.

@nbcsnl

♬ original sound – Saturday Night Live – SNL

“They didn’t adjust the format to fit ‘SNL.’ They’re adjusting ‘SNL’ to fit culture, which I think is really smart,” a former SNL staffer told TheWrap.

“By showing that they understand the trends on the platform and that they are moving into it is earning them that brand affinity,” McKenzie Fields, director of strategy at Reach Agency, told TheWrap.

“Gen Z aren’t just partaking in the creator economy from an audience perspective. They’re actively a part of it because they’re creating content themselves,” Valentino added. “It also allows for the audience to feel like, ‘Oh my God, imagine if SNL makes fun of me and my TikToks?’” 

Shades of Millennial-focused digital shorts

Pivoting to reach a generation where they are isn’t new for “SNL.” The TikTok explosion brings to mind The Lonely Island’s surge in popularity in the 2000s with their digital shorts, particularly “Lazy Sunday.” The comedy troupe made up of Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone spoke directly to Millennials who were navigating the early days of online video and YouTube, and their shorts became so popular that Lorne Michaels demanded they create a new one every week.

The show eventually put the digital shorts on YouTube in their entirety, ushering “SNL” into the digital age.

“Audiences’ attention spans have changed, so they’re just changing with the times, as they always have done since the very beginning,” Valentino said.

It also helps that “SNL” has been embracing Gen Z cast members the past couple of seasons, with Jane Wickline joining the cast this season after first gaining popularity on TikTok. She’s the show’s first bona fide “TikTok star” cast member with 1 million followers on the platform. But she certainly won’t be the last.

It’s still unclear if the show can translate this booming social viewership to linear or streaming viewership on Peacock, which would drive meaningful revenue for NBCUniversal. The snippets of social content are just a teaser for the 90 minutes worth of sketches produced live week-to-week.

But Fields believes that this consistent, platform-specific social strategy will drive curious viewers to the episode in its entirety. “They have designed their content ecosystem in a way that helps push towards that linear moment,” she said.

And with “SNL” building to a massive 50th anniversary special in February, getting Gen Z’s attention couldn’t come at a better time.

The post ‘SNL’ Enters Its TikTok Era: Social Reach Explodes as the Show Meets Gen Z Where They Are appeared first on TheWrap.

Sean Gamble, CEO of the Texas-based theater chain, chalked the positive earnings report up to “strong, sustained consumer enthusiasm for shared, larger-than-life theatrical experiences.”

Here are the top-line results:

Net income: $187.8 million, a 108% increase compared to $90.2 million a year ago.

Earnings Per Share: $1.19, a 95% increase compared to $0.61 in 2023.

Revenue: $922 million, a 5% increase over 2023.

Attendance: 37.6 million patrons, a slight uptick versus 37.5 million patrons for the same quarter last year.

Admissions revenue: $460.4 million, a 3.7% increase compared to last year.

Concessions revenue: $367.3 million, an 8.1% increase over last year.

“Propelled by one break-out hit after the next as a steadier cadence of compelling titles were released into theaters, the third quarter’s results clearly underscore that movie-going begets movie-going and further illustrate the heightened level of impact a theatrical release provides all categories of content,” President and CEO Sean Gamble said. “We commend our studio partners for their outstanding work producing and releasing such captivating films that will clearly leave a meaningful imprint on movie-goers for many years to come.”

The company was buoyed by the sustained, strong performance of films like Marvel’s megahit “Deadpool & Wolverine,” Warner Bros.’ “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” Universal’s “Twisters,” Sony’s “It Ends With Us” and 20th Century’s “Alien: Romulus,” which delivered the kind of consistent cadence of successes the box office needs to recover.

The company also achieved all-time-high food and beverage per caps of $7.97 in the U.S. and $6.08 worldwide and record-high third quarter Adjusted EBITDA of $221 million with a robust 23.9% Adjusted EBITDA margin.

Cinemark noted that the net income “included a $42.7 million tax benefit primarily related to the partial release of valuation allowances previously recorded in the U.S.”

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Peacock posted a loss of $436 million during the quarter, a 22% improvement over a $565 million loss in the prior-year period. The streamer’s revenue grew 82% $1.5 billion, and it added 3 million paid subscribers for a total of 36 million, up 29%.

The Olympic games brought in record high revenue of $1.9 billion, with average daily viewership of 31 million across the company’s linear networks and Peacock, an 82% increase compared to the 2021 Summer Olympics.

“We achieved this result by leaning in with the full symphony of Comcast and NBCUniversal playing together and a big bet on new ideas and innovation that paid off,” Comcast president Mike Cavanagh told analysts on Thursday. “We are all very grateful to our NBC Sports team and look forward to them bringing the lessons learned and momentum to our entire sports portfolio.”

Here are the top-line results:

Net income: $3.63 billion, down 10.3% year over year. On an adjusted basis, net income fell 3.3% year over year to $4.3 billion.

Earnings per share: 94 cents, down 4.2% year over year. On an adjusted basis, EPS came in at $1.12 per share, up 3.3%, compared to $1.06 per share expected by analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research.

Revenue: $32.07 billion, up 6.5%, compared to $31.8 billion expected by Zacks.

Adjusted EBITDA: $9.74 billion, down 2.3% year over year

The Studios division was also a bright spot, with a 12.3% increase in revenue and 9% increase in adjusted EBITDA, driven by the strong performance of “Twisters” and “Despicable Me 4” at the box office.

But the quarter’s overall results were dragged down by weakness in theme parks, with the segment posting a 5.3% decrease in revenue and 13.8% decrease in adjusted EBITDA, as well as continued pay TV and broadband subscriber declines.

The surprise news of the day, however, was Cavanagh’s announcement that Comcast was considering a spin-off of its cable assets, and was open to streaming partnerships to help Peacock grow.

With linear TV business continuing to erode, the executive talked about “playing some offense” with a possible separation of the cable network from the larger company. “When you combine the balance sheet strength that we have, the assets we have, and the management team we have, there may be some smart things to do and we want to study that,” Cavanagh added.

Net cash from operating activities fell 13.9% to $7.02 billion, while free cash flow fell 15.5% to $3.4 billion. Comcast returned $3.2 billion to shareholders during the quarter, including $2 billion in share repurchases and $1.2 billion in dividend payments.

Olympics boost NBCUniversal, Peacock

The Content & Experiences segment saw revenue grow 19.3% to $12.6 billion. Profit declines in the theme parks and media segments pushed down adjusted EBITDA by 8.7% to $1.8 billion, which was partially offset by growth in the studios division.

Overall media revenue shot up 36.5% to $8.23 billion due to higher domestic advertising and domestic distribution revenue. Excluding the impact of the Olympics, media revenue increased 4.9% to $6.34 billion.

The Paris Olympics and additional Peacock sales also fueled domestic advertising revenue growth of 74.9% to $3.35 billion, which was partially offset by lower revenue at the company’s networks. Domestic distribution revenue climbed 26.3% to $3.27 billion, which primarily reflected the broadcast of the Paris Olympics and higher revenue at Peacock.

International networks revenue rose 5% to $1.07 billion due to the positive impact of foreign currency and an increase in revenue associated with the distribution of sports networks. Other revenue grew 7.2% to $542 million, primarily due to an increase in revenue from content licensing.

Adjusted EBITDA for the media segment fell 10% to $650 million, due to higher operating expenses from increased sports programming costs associated with the Olympics, higher programming costs at Peacock and an increase in other sports programming costs for domestic television networks. 

“Twisters” and “Despicable Me 4” boost Studios, but Theme Parks are a drag

The Studios segment saw revenue grow 12.3% to $2.83 billion, primarily due to higher content licensing revenue and theatrical revenue. The higher revenues allowed Adjusted EBITDA for the segment to grew 9% to $468 million, which offset higher operating expenses from programming and production associated with content licensing sales, including the impact of Hollywood strikes in the prior-year period.

Content licensing revenue increased 10.3% to $1.87 billion. Theatrical revenue increased 21.3% to $611 million due to the successful performance of recent releases, including “Despicable Me 4” and “Twisters.”

Revenue in the Theme Parks segment slipped 5.3% to $2.29 billion, primarily due to lower revenue and guest attendance at its domestic theme parks, while adjusted EBITDA declined 13.8% to $847 million, reflecting lower revenue and consistent operating expenses.

“Our view is there was both a pull forward of demand that we clearly saw in 2022 and 2023, which were record years for the theme parks and beyond our expectations, as well as the new attraction pipeline, which is light this year, but we’re building towards a substantial pipeline next year,” chief financial officer Jason Armstrong said. “We think these factors will likely be in place until the second quarter of next year, which is both when we start to lap the pressure we saw this year and the launch of Epic Universe.”

Company executives touted the opening of Comcast’s Epic Universe theme park in May 2025, noting there will be associated opening costs of $150 million in the fourth quarter and first quarter of 2025, with the majority of the cost expect in the latter.

“Once Epic opens, Universal Orlando will be transformed into a weeks long vacation, offering four theme parks, a CityWalk, dining, retail and entertainment district, and 11 hotels,” Cavanagh said. “Epic will build on everything we’ve excelled at in the present and in the past and make it even better by infusing iconic storytelling with cutting edge technology in five fully themed worlds, each one telling a fantastic story based on world renowned movies and literature.”

Comcast sheds pay TV, broadband subscribers, but wireless a bright spot

Comcast continued to bleed pay TV subscribers, shedding 365,000 during the quarter for a total of 12.8 million. It lost 87,000 domestic broadband subscribers for a total of 31.98 million.

The company did add 319,000 domestic wireless lines for a total of 7.52 million. Total customers relationships fell by 29,000 to 51.7 million, primarily reflecting a decrease domestically, which was partially offset by an increase in international relationships.

Total revenue for the Connectivity & Platforms segment fell 0.4% to $20.29 billion, with a 1% decrease in residential revenues to $17.9 billion and 4.5% increase in business services revenues to $2.42 billion. Adjusted EBITDA grew 0.7% to $8.3 billion, with a 0.3% increase in residential to $6.9 billion and 4.2% increase in business services to $1.39 billion.

Total residential connectivity revenue grew 5.7% to $8.9 billion, including a 2.7% increase in domestic broadband revenue to $6.54 billion due to higher average rates, a 19.2% jump in domestic wireless revenue to $1.09 billion due to the increase in customer lines and devices sales, and a 11.4% boost in international connectivity revenue to $1.23 billion from increased broadband revenue.

Video revenue fell 6.2% to $6.7 billion due to a decline in the number of video customers, partially offset by an overall increase in average rates, while total video advertising revenue increased 1.6% to $987 million because of higher domestic political advertising.

Comcast Cable CEO Dave Watson noted that the subscriber and financial impacts of Hurricanes Milton and Helene on its cable systems could be significantly less than the impact of Hurricane Ian in 2022.

“We don’t have an exact number to share at this moment, but there’ll be some impact tied to the two hurricanes also in Q4 while the return of seasonals to the Southeast usually provides a good tailwind, not like back to school, but still a nice impact, we’ll have to see what the potential impact we see with this activity due to the hurricane,” Watson added.

He also said that the company expects churn in the Connectivity & Platforms segment to remain low as it focuses on retention, channel management and leverages offers and product packaging such as Now TV, Now Latino and Streamsaver.

Armstrong added that the segment would take cost reduction actions in the fourth quarter of 2024 of “equal magnitude” to the company’s previous fourth quarters.

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ScreenShare, a data partnership between Screen Engine/ASI and TheWrap, tracks the Top 10 most-mentioned entertainment options every week and whether each has gained or lost momentum compared to the prior week. The chart lives on the Data & Analysis page of the WrapPRO Members Hub.

“Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” continues its streak at No. 1 for the ninth week in a row. “NFL Football” holds its position at No. 2 while “Venom: The Last Dance” jumps five spots to No. 3 during its opening week. Horror film “Smile 2” continues to climb the list, coming in at No. 4. “MLB Playoffs/World Series” moves up two spots to No. 5 as baseball fans anticipate the “battle of the coasts” between longtime rivals, the LA Dodgers and NY Yankees.

“Wicked” remains steady at No. 6, one month before its Nov. 22 release. “Terrifier 3” scares its way back onto the list at No. 7 in time for Halloween weekend. “Deadpool & Wolverine” dips five spots to No. 8 during the week of its DVD release. The highly anticipated “Call of Duty: Black Ops 6” video game rejoins the list at No. 9 during the week of its Oct. 25 global launch. Netflix’s “Outer Banks” debuts at No. 10. The first five episodes of Season 4 are now streaming and the final five episodes will premiere Nov. 7.

Weekly Top 10

The post ‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’ Scares Off Competition, Claims 9th Week As Title Consumers Are Most Excited About | Chart appeared first on TheWrap.

“We had a good quarter driven by AI progress across our apps and business,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a statement.

Zuckerberg, on the company’s earnings call on Wednesday afternoon, said 500 million users are now interacting with Meta’s AI chatbot, which offers answers to users on apps like Facebook and Instagram. He also said the company would continue to invest in the long-term future potential of AI, AR (augmented reality) and VR (virtual reality), despite growing concerns from investors over mounting losses at Meta’s Reality Labs division, which has booked losses of $24.2 billion over 2023 and 2024.

Here are the top-line results: 

Revenues: $40.59 billion, up 19% from $34.15 billion in 2023. Meta’s Q3 sales topped analysts from Zack’s Investment Research estimated revenues of $40.21 billion. The company’s quarter-over-quarter revenue growth slowed from Q2, when the company reported a 22% annual jump in sales. As usual, the bulk of Meta’s sales — 96% — came from ads.

Net income: $15.68 billion, an increase of 35% compared to $11.58 billion the year prior. Meta’s diluted earnings per share of $6.03 beat Zack’s estimate EPS of $5.19. The company’s Q3 profit topped its previous record for quarterly net income, which it set during the fourth quarter of last year when it posted a $14 billion profit.

Daily active users: 3.29 billion DAUs across its family of apps — Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Threads — by the end of September, up 5% year-over-year. Meta added 30 million daily users quarter-over-quarter, although the company didn’t share how those gains broke down by app.

Threads: Zuckerberg said that Threads, the company’s social app that launched as a rival to X last year, now has 275 million monthly users. That’s up 37.5% from Q2, when the company said Threads was approaching 200 million monthly users. CFO Susan Li, on the company’s earnings call, said Threads has seen healthy growth in the U.S. and overseas markets including Taiwan. At the same time, Li said, “We don’t expect Threads to be a meaningful driver of 2025 revenue.”

Average price per ad: The average price of an ad on one of Meta’s apps increased 11% year-over-year, indicating the appetite for reaching users on Facebook and Instagram remains strong.

Head count: Meta reported 72,404 employees at the end of September, up 9% from the prior year. Meta’s growth stands out, as many tech companies, including TikTok, have cut jobs in recent months.

Guidance: Meta said it expects to report between $45 billion and $48 billion in sales next quarter.

Mounting Reality Labs losses

Facebook Reality Labs, the company’s unit dedicated to virtual and augmented reality hardware and software, continued to stick out like a sore thumb on Meta’s earnings report due to its losses. FRL’s operating loss was $4.4 billion for Q3, up 19% from the year prior. In the first nine months of 2024, Meta has lost $12.76 billion on FRL, which is currently developing its Orion AR-powered smart glasses.

Zuckerberg is bullish on the future of smart glasses, saying last month they’ll “gradually replace phones by 2030.” And Meta appears unfazed by FRL’s mounting losses.

The company expects “operating losses to increase meaningfully year-over-year due to our ongoing product development efforts and investments to further scale our ecosystem,” Li on Wednesday.

Zuckerberg added it was important for the company to continue investing in AI, AR, and VR, even if that’s not “what investors want to hear in the near-term” as losses grow. “The opportunities here are really big,” Zuckerberg said.

The company’s stock, which has been red hot in 2024, took a momentary breather after Meta’s Q3 report posted. Shares dropped 1.5% in early after-hours trading to $583 per share. On the year, Meta’s stock is up 70%.

Meta has continued its push into artificial intelligence in recent months, as the company battles Alphabet, Apple, and Microsoft, as well as Microsoft-backed OpenAI in the budding sector. Last month, Meta announced its AI chatbot would be voiced by Hollywood stars like Kristen Bell and Keegan-Michael Key. And last week, Meta struck a multi-year deal with Reuters to include the news organization’s content in responses from its AI chatbot.

In an effort to reduce its dependence on Google and Bing, Meta is also working to build its own AI-powered search engine, that would drive its chatbot’s responses.

When it comes to another hot topic — politics — Meta has been conspicuously quiet during the run up to Election Day. In 2020, the company — after facing backlash for Russian bots being able to run ads during the 2016 presidential race — tightly policed COVID-19 and election news on its platform. Most notably, Facebook took steps to limit the distribution of a New York Post report on Hunter Biden, the son of then-nominee Joe Biden, in October 2020.

This year, Meta has opted to deemphasize political content on its platforms, at the behest of Zuckerberg. Instead, Meta’s apps are now more likely to recommend sports, cooking and celebrity news to users.

On the Instagram front, Meta announced last month it would start applying restrictions to kids’ accounts in an effort to make the app more “safe,” in the company’s words.

Looking ahead, Zuckerberg said he was “pretty amped” about the work Meta is doing on the AI and AR/VR front.

“This may be the most dynamic moment that I’ve seen in our industry,” Zuckerberg said on the Q3 call. “And I am focused on making sure that we build some awesome things and make the most of the opportunities ahead.”

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