NBCUniversal fourth-quarter profit boosted by ‘Minions’ and dinosaurs

NBCUniversal roared in the fourth quarter of 2015, with robust home video sales of summer blockbuster films “Jurassic World” and “Minions,” and continued gains at the NBC broadcast network and theme parks.

Parent company Comcast Corp. released its fourth-quarter results Wednesday, with revenue growing 8.5% to $19.2 billion -- beating Wall Street expectations.

Comcast’s NBCUniversal unit once again flexed its operational muscle. For the quarter ended Dec. 31, NBCUniversal revenue grew 13% to nearly $7.5 billion, compared to a year earlier.

Profit increased 8.7% to nearly $1.6 billion.

NBCUniversal’s profit has doubled since Comcast acquired the company from General Electric five years ago.

“We bought it right but we operated it even better,” Comcast Chief Executive Brian Roberts told analysts on an earnings call.

The Los Angeles film studio, Universal Pictures, wrapped up its record-breaking year with fourth-quarter revenue up 26% to $1.6 billion. Universal released three films in 2015 that topped $1 billion at the box office.

Fourth-quarter profit at the film unit soared 85% to $143 million, with strong home video sales of the studio’s blockbuster films.

The Universal Studios theme parks achieved another stellar quarter with higher attendance for the “Harry Potter” attraction in Florida and for the theme parks’ Halloween Horror Nights event. Revenue exceeded $1 billion, an increase of 39% over the fourth quarter of 2014. Profit increased 37% to $452 million.

At the NBC broadcast unit, which includes the NBC network, Telemundo and TV stations, revenue was up 7% to $2.5 billion. For the first time in a long time, the broadcast division brought in more revenue than NBCUniversal cable channels.

NBC advertising sales were up 7%. But because of higher costs, broadcast profit declined 5.6% to $217 million.

The division carries the bulk of the costs for its expensive NFL “Sunday Night Football” contract in the fourth quarter.

Just this week, NBC expanded its football franchise by clinching the rights to five NFL “Thursday Night Football” games, sharing the Thursday night package with rival CBS. While some analysts have questioned the enormous pricetag for football -- NBC will pay about $225 million for the five Thursday games -- NBCUniversal Chief Executive Steve Burke said the expenditure makes sense.

“Football is profitable for us now, and it will be profitable for us after the ‘Thursday Night’ deal,” Burke said, adding that NBC now will boast 24 of the highest-rated nights of the year with its Sunday and Thursday night games.

“We were very happy that we were selected” for the “Thursday Night” package, Burke said. “It’s really the most powerful programming on television and we got it at a very fair rate.”

Meanwhile, NBCUniversal cable channels continued to be the most profitable unit at the media company. The cable channels, including USA, Syfy, Bravo and CNBC, generated 3.4% higher sales to $2.4 billion for the fourth quarter.

Cable channel profit dipped 2% to $894 million for the quarter due to higher programming costs and a slight decline in advertising sales.

Although investors have been spooked by consumer cord-cutting, Comcast continued to buck the trend by gaining customers for cable TV, Internet and phone in 2015.

Comcast posted its best quarter in eight years in cable TV customer retentions and Internet subscriber growth. Comcast added 281,000 new customer relationships in the fourth quarter, a 58% increase over the fourth quarter of 2014.

For the full year, Comcast added 666,000 customers -- an 86% increase over 2014.

Company-wide, Comcast’s adjusted earnings climbed 5.2% to 81 cents a share, up from 77 cents a share in the year-earlier period. That just missed Wall Street’s expectations of 82 cents in adjusted earnings per share.

Twitter: @MegJamesLAT