Good to go. Hello, hello?
Yeah, you're on now.
All right, now we're good. Again, I'm John Hodulik from the Media, Telecom, and Infrastructure Research team. I'm very pleased to have with me here today, Mike Cavanagh, the President of Comcast. Mike, thanks for being here.
Thanks, John. Good to be here again. It's been a couple of years.
A number of years, yeah. It's been great. Let's just—let's keep it going. New building, though.
Mm-hmm.
Just seems great. But we've got 35 minutes for Q&A here, and I've got a bunch of questions, and I also have the iPad. If anybody has a question, I'll try to weave it into the conversation. But you know, just to start things off you know, Comcast has been doing a really good job at managing for EBITDA growth, margin expansion, and EPS growth, while revenue growth has been below GDP. What are you focused on as you look to drive revenue growth higher over time, and then how are you managing businesses that have more structural challenge?
Sure. And I just would take the wording of the question a little bit. I wouldn't say we're focused so much... the way you asked, it makes it sound like we're focused on driving the bottom line and not the top line. And I would say we're very much focused on the top line will drive the bottom line for the sustained period in the future. So we're very focused on the top line. And I think the way to really unpack it and step back is, as we've been talking about, there's six businesses inside of Comcast that together, I'll enumerate them in a second, but just to stay at a high level, six businesses that make up a little more than 50% of our revenues right now.
Those businesses together, when you look back over 12 months, have been driving revenue growth in the high single digits. There's obvious areas we're gonna talk about, probably all of them, but areas where we're putting, you know, substantial investment behind continuing to drive that organic revenue growth in the future in those businesses, which we think is achievable. When you combine that with, for the businesses that are not in that category, they're contiguous businesses important to what we do, but obviously, we take a very, disciplined focus to how we manage those businesses. Cost discipline is a key part of it, but how they connect and what they do to drive the growth businesses is all part of the way we think about that. So everything's not one equal pile of how we, how we manage.
And that approach is allowing us to drive the strong margin improvements that we've been seeing, which then flows to the EBITDA growth that you've been seeing, which flows to the very strong EPS per share growth you've been seeing, which is built by high levels of, you know, absolute free cash flow, which, as you know, are impacted as we're building Epic Universe, you know, making our pivot into Peacock, and getting our network to DOCSIS 4.0. So those are all, or the first two, anyway, running at somewhat higher levels. And we're doing that while returning substantial amounts of capital to shareholders and maintaining what I think is the strongest balance sheet in the industry. So that's the recent look back.
But as I sit here and sort of say back to your question about consolidated revenue growth, I think as I look out the next few years, you know, we think we have a hand with the businesses we have to continue to drive sort of the flow down from the top line to that same sort of bottom line dynamics I just described. And in the fullness of time, as the mix of our revenue simply changes in the passage of time, I think that 50% will grow more to be 75%. That'll start to flow through to what the apparent revenue growth is, even though I think we're gonna manage the company the same way as you look forward. And so I think that's a pretty good formula for how we see the opportunity for Comcast when you look ahead a couple of years.
So having said all that, let me just list them, because I'm not sure everybody listens to all our calls all the time, but the six businesses would be: residential broadband. So again, that's 32 million broadband subscribers, largest in the country, with 4% ARPU growth this past year. It's our wireless business, which is now about 10% penetrated against that HSD base with about 6 million lines. I think revenue growth there about 16% year-over-year in the last quarter. Plenty of room to run in that business, which we'll get into.
It's business services on the cable side, on the connectivity side, rather, with you know, nearly $10 billion of revenues, 60% incremental margins, and solid you know, mid-single-digit EBITDA growth, with a big opportunity to be driving into the, enterprise segment and the mid-market segment, which we can talk about further. And then, you've got our theme parks business, which is having a remarkable run and lots of investment we'll get into for the future, coming online.
We've got our studios business, which you know, top two in box office for the last two years, this year and year- to- date and last year, three of the top five box office movies, and plenty, plenty going on, on that side and the TV studio side as we reorganized a little bit, and we'll be coming out of the strikes. Lots of dynamics, but feel good about our story there. And then finally, streaming, which we'll get into with Peacock now at you know, right at 30 million paying subscribers at about $10 ARPUs. Which, when you really think about it, we've been at it for six, for three years. And to get to a level where about 60%...
Remember, it's a domestic service, so that 30 million puts us about 60% of the leaders ex- Netflix in sort in streaming, which we feel pretty good about. For a lot of folks say you don't have to scale it. Like, we're pretty good with the progress we've been making. And, you know, we did remember, we started cold three years ago because of the change in ownership of Hulu, which, by the way, we collected an $8.5 billion check on Friday as the first-
Is that check clear? Everything's fine.
That check cleared. It's in the account, and that's the... And that, remember, that represents the beginning of the, you know, process to value, but since we value Hulu, which we expect and certainly hope to get more than that once the process ends, but it's really just the beginning because we know the minimum's a certain number. The agreement was send that piece as we get the process started. So look forward to that. So pretty good story, I think, overall, when we look at the ability of our company to drive organic growth.
Makes sense. And I like the way you framed it, and why don't we just work down the list? So started with residential high-speed, high-speed data. So I mean, obviously, the environment has changed, you know, sort of pre-pandemic to today, and I would say there are sort of two main factors. One, there's a lot less activity in the market, and two, you've got a sort of a new competitor, especially at the low end. So, maybe we can start by sort of talking about those two issues, what it's done to your business, and maybe which do you think is having a bigger impact?
Sure. Well, I think you started again, sorry to step back a little bit, but I would say, yes, high-speed data is very competitive right now, but it's also a very healthy business. So, you know, when you look at the business, just a couple of quick thoughts. You know, our consumers you know, are benefiting from enjoying and you know, ever more of the product, where it's 700 gigs a month you know, average usage, that continues to grow. We've got 1 billion or so devices that people use hanging off of Xfinity Wi-Fi in and out of homes. So, and that number continues to grow dramatically.
So I think the utility and benefit of having as robust a network as we have, which we continue, we'll talk about, to invest to make it be ahead of customer expectations, is pretty robust. You know, second point would be that I think secular trends are in our favor. You look at what's gone on with just one example, which is the move of, you know, more sports to streaming. We'll see what happens with RSNs, with already Thursday Night Football, with Amazon. We've talked a lot about, moved the whole peak of the internet usage from, you know, Sunday night to Thursday night to 25% of the volume that night. It needs to work. It needs to work well. We're gonna have an exclusive playoff NFL wild card game in January that'll be exclusively delivered over the internet.
Probably the biggest event, you know, in, you know, concurrent usage we would expect. And then finally, you know, we really think in the setup of the high-speed data market, we're very focused on the key competitor over the long term being fiber, right? Good news is we've competed against fiber for 20 years. We know how to compete against fiber. Fiber is covered, but call it 50% of our footprint now. It's probably heading towards you know, 60%, and we'll keep visibly, and, you know, probably will keep going. But when you look at, you know, the amount of adds we've had in our broadband business and the building of our business while competing against fiber, we feel pretty good there.
So to your question about the threats or the drivers of the current moment of competitiveness is low move activity, which is, and then the other one is the entry of fixed wireless. It's hard, to your question, to tease out which, you know, one is more significant, but they're both there. But I would say in terms of the dynamics in the near term, nothing different than, you know, what we said on our earnings call back, you know, at the end of the quarter in terms of how it's affecting us. But you know, fixed wireless, which basically is we expect it to continue to be competitive for a while, fixed wireless will kind of run for a while still, it looks like.
But in the end, we believe and you said it, it's going after the low end. It's you know, serving a purpose for folks that can live with a product that has its characteristics. But as time passes and you know, more and more activity is driven over the internet, and average usage, that 700 GB continues to drive higher, I think we'll see the opportunity to pull some of that market back and compete effectively, once the moment passes. And the moment you know, while passing, I mean, the ability to take share.
I mean, I think it'll be a permanent part of the marketplace, but I think we're going to see at some point, and I'm not going to predict when, the excess capacity that's been used up is being used up to provide it as a service, will start to tap out, and then the dynamics, our marginal cost to deliver incremental data is going to be a big advantage. And so all the while, we're continuing to focus on the long game, compete against fiber well over the long term, get our network to DOCSIS 4.0, continue to add more value around the key service, whether that's Xumo, Flex, you name it, or and ultimately bundle with our wireless product.
Right. So the broadband strategy has been very consistent, you know, where you're balancing ARPU growth and subscriber growth. How can you tell that you're making the sort of right trade-offs there in managing both of those drivers?
Well, I mean, I think you start with on the balance, we focus on it a lot. It's obviously very important when you have a 32 million subscriber base that you want to make sure you're making the right choices. I think it's always iterative. I think the team, Dave Watson and team have done a very effective job this year. We've gotten, you know, we've basically maintained you know, 32 million subscribers, plus a smidge, minus a smidge. It's you know, we're at that level, and we've gotten ARPU growth you know, year- to- date anyway, at closer to the high end of our you know, recent historical range of 3%-4%.
So I think we're constantly, you know, testing to make sure, especially as the competition we're seeing is coming in at the low end, fixed wireless, we got to make sure that while we're looking to for the long game, we certainly want to have more subscribers than fewer, but at the same time, we've got to be really careful that we don't dilute the existing base. And so I think we're you never have the perfect answer to your question, how do we know? You never know perfectly, but you've got to be very careful with trying to strike the right balance. And I think you know, we'll just keep at that, especially in these moments of competitive intensity.
And on the quarter, it or at least in the last couple of months, you guys pulled back on sort of the lower, more promotional offerings. So what are...c an you talk about the reasons for that, or what's happening in the market that caused you to pull back?
No, nothing different than what Dave described on the call. I mean, it's a constant effort to, you know, do we like what we see or you know, or and adjust accordingly. And you'll see us do you know, more of that. I'm sure we'll hit wireless and where we're starting to you know, put some offers-
Sure
... to do connectivity bundles, which I think will be helpful and kind of a better use of, you know, promotional capacity.
You know, given the sort of state of play and the sort of evolving competitive landscape, what gives you the confidence that you'll return to subscriber growth sort of over time? Or is that not really a longer-term goal?
Well, I would say it's a goal. You know, and I think you know, we run our business you know, start with you know, we want to have the best high-speed data product out there. And I think you see the value of all we've done with the network that we have and the... You know, it's not just speed, and it's not just—but it's ubiquity, which we have. When we roll out you know, first it was a gig, and ultimately it'll be DOCSIS 4.0. We're getting our network to a place, once we enhance the level of service, it goes everywhere. That's what we mean by ubiquity.
So that is an advantage of the kind of network we run, that we can you know, through mid-splits and ultimately DOCSIS 4.0, get to a multi-gig symmetrical speed within a reasonable timeframe at a very efficient capital cost. And position ourselves to be you know, in a in a spot where that, plus everything else we do to drive the performance of the product, reliability-wise, smart networks, we kind of know when things are down and how to get them fixed fast, latency, which is important, as well as obviously, speed. I think all those dynamics you know, as we kind of build out our network, continue to build our network, together with what we hang around the network, again, it's the best the best use today.
Who knows what the best use tomorrow is, but one of the best uses today is consuming video. Hence, our appetite always has been to build and invest in X1, to invest in, build you know, Sky Glass, and now we have a singular roadmap for helping consumers, you know, aggregate, that we think is an example, whether you're buying the video product from us or not. We want to provide value around the core, you know, the core network itself, and bundle it with wireless, which we think we gives real value. So I think the point of how do we-- is our goal to grow? Our goal is to grow, because one day it's going to be about who's got the best product and can be a net taker of market share, and that's, you know, that's what we always want to do.
I think beyond that, we are looking to expand our footprint. So you've seen us go from about 800 or so thousand you know, new passings last year to around 1 million this year, and we'll keep working to kind of build that expansion muscle and fundamentally fill in contiguous you know, space. We'll participate in BEAD, where it's you know, we're interested in that as well. And so I think the combined effect of that should certainly say that the ambition and goal, you know, to your question, is to be a net adder of subscribers, not with any dilution in the ambition around ARPU, which is very important over the long term as well, but that should be you know, what we're out to try to do.
I think you'll see that when I can't pick a date of when our goal or ambition is to get there because of the competitive intensity you described, but I you know, I believe that, and for the reasons we already discussed, that intensity should, you know, settle at some point. And we'll be built well positioned to, you know, for the marketplace of the future at that stage.
The 1 million homes you guys are doing, is that a good number as we look further out, or does BEAD potentially you know, some winnings and sort of, you know, the conditions and then you guys winning in terms of that process, could that sort of drive that number higher?
It could you know, hopefully, it goes a little bit higher, and as we've said to, you know, the team in cable, if they can, at good returns, do more, you know, we'll, you know. But, but we'll seek—we would look to do more. But I think that's a, going back to how important the broadband is, business is, period, to today and to the growth of tomorrow. You can imagine that's been an ongoing conversation for years as we do—you're talking about why is it so busy in December as we're doing budgets and the like. You know, those are the conversations we repeatedly have.
And whatever we put in the budget, if somebody comes back in and says, "We can do better," but we are always pushing, you know, let's you know our balance sheet and our earnings power and our actual earnings gives us the ability to sit around and push our businesses on ask for you know proof that you can get a return on it and ask. I think where that goes is because we've been having those conversations. I think what you see in terms of 1 million pushing a little bit higher than that, maybe it's all inside the envelope of around 10% capital intensity that we've been talking about, you know, for a while now.
Got it. So turning to wireless, obviously, that's a nice growth driver for you. And like you said, it, that does seem like, you know, looking at some of the more recent promotions, you guys have been leaning in a little bit more. So what's the overall sort of goal of this business? Is it, is there a profitability aspect, or is it, you guys think of it, you know, as sort of supportive of the, of your broadband franchise? Or, you know, how should we think of that business?
... I think it's all of the above, right? I think when we got started, we wanted to make sure that there was a path to profitability, you know, that we weren't, you know, trying to do something to benefit broadband at a losing economics, when that really wasn't perceived to be the initial. That wasn't what we wanted to start with, certainly. So we're running a profitable wireless business at this stage, but we certainly look at it in combination with the 32 million broadband subscriber business that we have, and want to get value from giving customers value in a bundle with broadband, which will drive, in addition to, you know, profitability on wireless itself, a little, you know, some profitability.
It will certainly, you know, benefit us on retention on broadband, which is, which is a goal unto itself. And then, you know, as we, you know, are, are more and more into it, I think it becomes the lead bundle for acquiring new customers. The ability to deliver, you know, RSN now with Verizon, with the best products, together with best broadband, you know, on a path to multi-gig. I mean, that, that bundle, you know, becomes sort of the center of the play's product. So I think it'll help us with acquisitions when you look into that future that we were just talking about. So I don't think it's one, you know... It, it's not any one of those things. It's kind of all those things, and at different moments in time, we can, we can emphasize different things. But, I think there's lots of runway.
We're at 10% penetration. I think we've been adding you know, 300,000 or so a quarter, roughly, 6 million lines or so. And I think, as we discussed, you know, at the last call, we're looking to, you know, come up. We started to roll out some promotions. Probably, we'll see some lift from that, some lift, but, you know, and as we roll into you know, next year.
Yeah, it seemed like this, you know, we focus on the Black Friday promotions. You guys, in terms of year-over-year change, had, I think you have an offer out there where you get a free line for two years, which is, which, you know, as we look at everybody's promotions over a two-year period, you, we would say you guys had the biggest change. So that, I mean, could, I guess, drive-
That one's like a limit. That one in particular is kind of a limited time, but it goes to the let's test and see what works. Let's, you know, is a constant, you know. We'll be in and out of the market with some, you know, offers, but then, you know, buy one, get one is also out, and that's starting to be, you know, something that you'll see cross over, you know, across the footprint and start to kind of build momentum, hopefully, as we roll it - as we get into the new year. So our mind is that it's a, it's a... I think it's a very important element of driving the broader connectivity business that we were talking about earlier. So we'll continue to be focused and, and, you know, Charter obviously is doing the same.
They've and so we'll be. You know, we always get the benefit of watching what a player like Charter does, given their playing with the-
The partnership with them.
Playing with the same kind of hand in many ways, so, no, no pride of authorship. So as we watched how effective some of their strategies are, there's no reason to think we won't, you know, be copying, you know, fast follower. If there's good ideas that didn't originate with us, we'll be all over it.
Right. You guys have a test network in Philadelphia with this, using the CBRS spectrum. Maybe you could talk about sort of early learnings there, you know, in terms of traffic, performance, maybe even, I don't know if you get some sort of, you know, the sort of margin improvement. And I think you've talked about new markets like Pittsburgh and Atlanta.
Yeah.
How many markets do you eventually see yourselves doing? And in terms of that out-of-home traffic-
Yep
... that you generate right now and pay Verizon for, I mean, how much of that do you think you can offset over time?
Well, it's still early, and the building blocks are... I know Hans was up here right before me, but I-
I think he's gone, so you can-
I kind of settled up. We're all good. You know, I think they and we are pleased with the MVNO we have, right? So, and I think it gives us the chance to do all that we just described in a capital light way. They're sort of the experts in the wireless business. They've got the capital invested, you know, if we can drive good economics for them and a capital light strategy for us, as we try to achieve what I just described, that's, you know, plan A, just keep driving the benefits for them and for us in the MVNO as we scale our business further.
Noteworthy, though, is that 90% of the volume of the data volume for Xfinity Mobile already passes over Xfinity, you know, Wi-Fi in and out of the home, right? So that, the kind of natural offload, so to speak, simply because of the broadband network and wireless network and Wi-Fi network we have, is significant to begin with. So that helps the economics going back to our wireless business unto itself, versus what folks might, you know, think about. Then you get to the place where, of the traffic that goes over Verizon's network, 60% of that volume is happening in 3% of our geography.
So going to the conceptual idea of how much of a build-out of a wireless network owned by us, you know, on our own spectrum, it, you know, needs to ultimately happen to have the possibility to drive an economic. It's pretty focused, right, in that regard. So, you know, we're off doing it. Philadelphia's lit up. It's, you know, we've walked around a block with two phones, and, you know, teams look like a bunch of idiots. Just, you know, when does this cell pick up? How does it, you know... Guys walking us back, the engineers walking us back across the street. It's kind of fun, and we did that early days. It's getting too cold to do it now, but it can work, right? So, it's good that we're testing and rolling out, and... It's still, it's still early days, right?
Do you think you can address-
There's so much. I think there's so much good in the existing base business that it's optionality, more than it is necessity, I guess, in the way I would put it.
Do you think you can address the majority of that 60% of traffic in that, you know, 3% of the footprint?
In due course, if it makes sense to us to do it, I think in due course, we figure out how to do it.
And lastly, on this topic, and then we'll get off wireless. You guys have been in an agreement to sell the 600 megahertz spectrum. It's sort of a strange structure. I think they can use it now, but I think you guys can decide not to sell it later or decide to move forward on it. Is that just a function of if CBRS is working, if you're taking a lot of traffic off, if you're doing it economically, you keep the spectrum, and if not, you sell—you monetize it?
Yeah, I wouldn't read too much... I mean, I would read into that, that we bought at a price, sold at a better price-
Oh, yeah.
but we kind of effectively have done that in areas where we don't have existing footprint.
Oh, got it.
So primarily, right? Not exclusively, but primarily. So I think the And, you know, doing that, you know, allows help in meeting the build requirements we have against some of the spectrum that we purchased. So it's sort of a sensible transaction, but I wouldn't read too much - I wouldn't read anything strategically into it against our ability to do whatever we want to do in terms of offload.
Got it. Before we quickly move over to the media side, just quickly on business services. I mean, you guys breaking out those numbers just showed how profitable that is, how attractive a business that is. Can margin the business segment improve, you know, improve from here? And where's the sort of the most opportunity, small business, medium, or large?
Well, I think we've built the business from zero 20 years ago to close to $10 billion in revenue now. In a footprint that we're addressing, that's about a $50 billion, you know, market. It gets bigger as you partnering with other providers out of footprint, start to service mid and larger, and enterprise size that need to go out of footprint. So there's probably a bigger market that you can really think about as you go upscale. I think we've done a very effective job, you know, starting the business out in the small business segment, serving relatively simpler needs that were easily achieved with the network and service we had. But as time has passed, we've increased the capability set and followed customers as they've gotten larger and gone gradually up the food chain.
So I think now we're in an area where we're going after sort of the right, you know, coming from my JPMorgan, you know, managing complex transactional businesses with big complicated clients. You got to be careful you don't go after the most complicated. You will find it very hard to build what you need to do there. So we're trying to follow what we're good at, what scales well, to go to the places in the mid and enterprise size that actually makes sense. So, I think the opportunity is gonna continue to run for quite a while.
Got you.
I think the emphasis will start to move to mid and enterprise.
Got you.
Not that there's not remaining opportunity in small business, but the small business opportunity is to continue to add capabilities, and then those can hit a very, very big base as we do, you know, more sophisticated network management services, security services, and the like, are all ones that kind of hit a big base, but also are the building blocks to go into the enterprise and mid.
Great. So let's move to content and experiences, starting with parks. Obviously, that's been a great business for you guys, and you clearly seem to be leaning in. You have the Epic Universe in Orlando, and you're trying, it looks like some smaller footprints in Texas and Nevada. How should we think of that as an opportunity, and sort of for growth in that segment of the business?
Well, we love the business, right? I think the characteristics of the business, when you talk about all things media, we're one of two players that have that kind of business. There are other parks players, but nobody at the caliber and scale other than ourselves and Disney. Interestingly, Disney, typically, I mean, never say never, but they're, you know, they're capitalizing on their own IP, puts us in a very interesting position to be the, well, you know, take our own IP, but others, as you see with Harry Potter and now Nintendo, and be a partner that can take advantage of all the cool IP out there. So when you think about, you know, it, it's a business where you got to, you know, you keep thrilling your audience.
So it's new, new attractions on a regular basis into existing parks. So we've done VelociCoaster into Florida, which is phenomenal. We've in the recent past had Nintendo in Hollywood and Japan to name a couple. And I think as we, you know, then look at the performance of all the existing businesses, you know, Florida, you know, is running at attendance levels, sort of flat to where we were in 2019, and but with revenues much higher as per cap spending has increased. You look at Hollywood, and we opened Nintendo February, I think, of this year, and we've had record quarterly profits each quarter, you know, since then.
In Japan and Beijing, international parks have really kind of picked up this year on the back of Nintendo again, in the case of Japan and just the passage of COVID and getting, you know, really into the opening of Beijing. And when you look ahead, we're gonna open Donkey Kong in Japan next year. That's gonna increase the size of our Nintendo land there by 70%. So I think quite excited about that. And you mentioned, we'll have Epic opening in 2025 in Florida, which is phenomenal. I was there a couple of weeks ago. It's like the biggest construction site in the United States. It's gonna be amazing. And you know, more to come in all of the, you know, parks as we look ahead.
And then plenty of ideas coming out of our parks, you know, business, and plenty of encouragement going back to the architecture of investing growth areas. You know, lots of good ideas. We're gonna try out a Halloween Horror Nights in Vegas, which opens year-round, since that's such a successful seasonal thing in our existing parks. Have a full-time product in Vegas in 2025, and in 2026, they're clearing the fields now in Frisco, Texas, for a kids park.
A lot going on-
A lot, a lot of good stuff going on in parks. Very excited about it.
Turning to studios, so, obviously big hits with Super Mario and Oppenheimer this year. How should we think of 2024, especially with the strikes, which were-
Mm-hmm
Thankfully successfully concluded, but how does that affect the numbers as we look to 2024?
Well, you know, you'll have the ebbs and flows of, of just the timing of cash and how you've got to ramp back up production and working capital. But we have a you know, phenomenal, you know, business with, you know... And, and add Fast X to your list of movies in 2023. So we'll be number two at the box office this year, at least as we sit here now. And as we look to next year, we've got two more, animated movies, with, Despicable Me 4, and as one of them. We've got one that I'm very excited about is Wicked. So a year from now, we'll be opening the first of, you know, two, movies we've done, that are just finishing up.
So there's some issue around potential for moving around the scheduling, but we feel actually pretty good about, you know, 2024 slate. But really, what's most important is, I think the market, you know, we got such good leadership, such good relationships in Hollywood. I think that our, our reliance, rather than being on formulaic, you know, series, has been more around originality and creativity. So the partnerships we have with creators like a Steven Spielberg, Christopher Nolan with Oppenheimer, Chris Meledandri in Illumination, Jason Blum on the horror side, Jordan Peele. You know, I think we're a place where creators wanna bring original ideas, and we're known to be a good partner in creating that. And that feels a little bit like what the moment calls for in Hollywood, so feel good about the studios as we look ahead.
Got you. Last, the last sort of segment in that, in that content experience is the media business. Can you talk about how you view the maybe, you know, sort of the legacy network business and Peacock and the, and the role that Peacock plays in that segment?
Sure. And it's, it's really great question. It's really one thing, right? And, and I look back, and I do a long-term look back, and you think about what is the business? The business is the totality of sort of the television, you know, platforms that we have, which, you know, what's important about NBCUniversal in that sense, is we've been a leader in kinda reach, you know, just how many, you know, f- how many folks, you know, cons- you know, experience our products, still running like 100 million a month. Actual usage, hours on our various platforms, top, you know, top three. And, you know, sort of quality. It's, it's high-end, you know, content.
I don't know how many people you, you got to read the New York Times magazine article yesterday about, you know, Sunday Night Football and what, what goes into creating that. It is no small feat, and it gets lost in the who's buying what finished product from what studio. We have the capacity to do that. We have the capacity to get, you know, Kristen Welker and, Lester Holt, you know, tuned up to do the Republican debate that we did in Miami. That was that couple of weeks ago. I, I think there's so much power in the legacy businesses that even though the linear business model is changing based upon how consumers wanna consume, it is the platform to build a future that has to include a digital element as consumers change.
So in that context, you know, we still have very significant distribution as much as anybody in the traditional linear world. Nothing's gonna change the gravity that that side of the business is feeling, but the infrastructure that we have as we bring it to life in the form of Peacock, you know, is a great way to think about the game we're trying to play. And, you know, to be at 30 million paying subscribers for Peacock now, switching gears to that, at roughly $10 monthly ARPU, and having done that in only 3 years. And again, we're focused on domestic. We can take the content that doesn't go into Peacock and monetize it outside the United States. I think for us, that's not the ambition.
You know, we'll figure out how to make sure our international joint ventures and partnerships, and the like, solve for the problem of what it means not to have a global service of our own, but and that can change over time. But our primary focus is figure out domestic and make sure that we continue to have the reach and relevance between linear and digital as we look several, you know, several years down the road. I think that will set us up for plenty of good, you know, you know, both sustainability of what we currently are, which is a pretty powerful thing, and good optionality for the future. And I think the fact that when you roll it all together, we make money, right?
Let's like, we disclose what we quote, "lose in Peacock" for clarity, and it's gonna peak this year at $2.8 billion of losses. But don't forget that the, you know, you know, the counter narrative of what would it all look like if we weren't trying at Peacock, you'd be asking a different set of questions, which is: where are the linear businesses going if you're not trying to, you know, figure out a future for the powerful platforms you have, right?
So last question, and we're running out of time, but, M&A in the media side has sort of come back into focus recently. I think a lot of-
Some people's focus.
It is some people's exactly. I think a lot of the-
Financial press and the media press.
I think Malone, a couple of weeks ago at the Liberty Investor Day, said that there are some of these companies that don't have your guys' balance sheet, but might end up in, you know, some financial distress. I mean, as you look at your assets, and the sort of where you think the ball is going in terms of, you know, the media business over the next five years, I mean, does large scale M&A potentially play into the strategy for you guys?
Listen, the bar is really high. For all the reasons we just described, I'm not eager to distract us from everything that we've been talking about from the very top, unless there's a strong and compelling reason to do it. And, you know, so I think our job always to look at things, but I all I can say is the bar is really high because I really like the organic hand we have against all the businesses that are the growth businesses we have. We don't need to do anything inorganic, acquisition-wise, to make any of the, any of what I described happen. So therefore, the bar has to be really high on that, on that front.
That's good. Well, that's all I have time for today. Thank you all for coming.
Thanks, everybody. Appreciate it.