# Comcast: the price assumes the cable business shrinks about 5% a year forever, and the verdict is hold at $23.67 CMCSA, Nasdaq. Published November 4, 2026. Price as of the November 3, 2026 regular session close. Latest reported quarter: July to September 2026. Fourth quarter results are expected on January 28, 2027. ## Verdict: HOLD at $23.67 At $23.67 Comcast trades 37.7% below my Base value of $38.01, but 8.3% above my maximum buy price of $21.86. The gap to the Base is real, and so is the reason for it: broadband customers are leaving, connectivity profit fell 4.4% last quarter, and the value depends heavily on how fast that continues. Under nearby assumptions the buy price ranges from $19.02 to $25.41, so this is a closer call than the Base suggests. Confidence is C, so the required margin of safety is 42.5%. The shares traded near $24.58 on November 4, which does not change the verdict. - Bear value: $16.97 - Base value: $38.01 - Bull value: $57.25 - Upside to base value: +60.6% - Maximum buy price: $21.86 (range $19.02 to $25.41 under nearby assumptions) - Required margin of safety: 42.5% - Cross-check value (free cash flow to shareholders): $34.71 per share (+46.6% versus the price) - What the price implies: connectivity cash flow falling about 5% a year forever, or about 3.8 times its 2026 profit - Market value: $83.8 billion on 3.54 billion shares, plus $79.8 billion of net debt - September quarter: revenue $29.3 billion; adjusted EBITDA $9.1 billion; free cash flow $4.2 billion; 144,000 broadband customers lost - Dividend: $1.32 a year, a 5.6% yield; share buybacks paused since July 1 - Business quality: 53.75/100 - Valuation score: 72.5/100 - Confidence: 16.25/25, grade C Comcast lost 144,000 broadband customers in the September quarter and produced $4.2 billion of free cash flow. The share price has decided which of those two numbers matters. At $23.67 it fits a connectivity business whose cash flow shrinks about 5% a year, every year, forever. Last quarter that business's profit fell 4.4%. At $23.67 on the November 3, 2026 close, Comcast trades 37.7% below my Base value of $38.01. The Bear value is $16.97, 28.3% below the price, and the Bull value is $57.25, 141.9% above it. I assign no probabilities to the cases. The verdict is Hold, with new money waiting for $21.86 or less. Valuation route: a company with two very different businesses that it plans to split into two listed companies in mid-2027, valued as a sum of the parts. The connectivity business is valued from its long-run cash flow after investment; theme parks, media and studios at earnings multiples; corporate costs, investments and net debt are added or deducted. The cross-check capitalizes normalized free cash flow to shareholders. Values are present fair-value estimates, not 12-month price targets. ## What Comcast is, and what it is about to become Comcast has two halves. Connectivity & Platforms is Xfinity broadband, mobile and TV in the United States, Comcast Business, and Sky's broadband and TV in the UK and Italy. In the September quarter it earned $7.6 billion of adjusted EBITDA, 83% of the total. Content & Experiences is NBCUniversal: the NBC and Telemundo networks, Bravo, the Peacock streaming service, Universal's film and television studios, and the Universal theme parks in Orlando, Hollywood, Japan and Beijing. That shape is about to change for the second time this year. The cable networks went to shareholders as Versant on January 2, 2026, and Sky's German business was sold on May 31. On June 29 Comcast announced a tax-free spin-off of NBCUniversal together with all of Sky, expected in mid-2027. Mike Cavanagh will run NBCUniversal and Michael Angelakis, a former Comcast finance chief, will run what remains: US broadband, mobile and business services. Comcast keeps up to 19.9% of NBCUniversal for up to a year and plans to sell it to pay down debt. Both companies keep the dual-class structure that gives the Roberts family control. Sky has also agreed to buy ITV's media and entertainment business for up to £1.6 billion, closing in the second half of 2027, and that business will go with NBCUniversal. I value the businesses, not the two future share certificates. The total is the same either way, and the split of Sky and of the debt between the two companies has not been published yet. ## The latest results | September quarter ($ million) | 2026 | 2025 | Comment | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Revenue | 29,298 | 31,198 | up 0.5% without Versant and Sky Germany | | Domestic broadband revenue | 6,241 | 6,550 | -4.7%: fewer customers, lower average price | | Domestic wireless service revenue | 1,050 | 915 | +14.7%, 10.6 million lines | | Connectivity & Platforms EBITDA | 7,588 | 7,938 | -4.4%; business services +1.7% | | Content & Experiences EBITDA | 1,800 | 1,392 | Peacock profit $261 million; theme parks -17.1% | | Free cash flow | 4,211 | 4,945 | helped by timing that reverses in December | Domestic broadband lost 144,000 customers, against 91,000 a year earlier, and video lost 274,000. Mobile added 368,000 lines, and about 70% of customers on the free line offered with broadband are moving to paid service, according to management. Theme park profit fell 17.1%, because of soft demand in Orlando since June and Chinese travel restrictions that hurt attendance in Japan. Management expects parks to return to growth in the second half of 2027. Management called some rival broadband pricing irrational: fiber costs $1,500 or more per home to build and was being sold at $30 to $40 a month in some markets. It also announced the largest cost overhaul in the company's history and a charge of more than $1 billion in the December quarter. ## Which numbers to trust - **Reported revenue fell 6.1%, but most of that is the portfolio.** Without Versant and Sky Germany, revenue was up 0.5% and adjusted EBITDA up 0.8%. The underlying problem is narrower: domestic broadband. - **The first nine months of 2026 carry one-off sports.** The Winter Olympics, the Super Bowl and the World Cup added $2.8 billion of Media revenue but little profit; Media lost $426 million in the March quarter. I use a normalized Media profit of $2.6 billion a year. - **Free cash flow is flattered twice.** Share-based pay of about $1.5 billion a year is a real cost not deducted, and deferred taxes added $1.5 billion in nine months. I deduct both in the cross-check, about $2.5 billion in total. - **Adjusted EPS excludes amortization of acquired intangibles,** mostly from Sky and NBCUniversal, $524 million before tax in the quarter. It is not a cash cost, so I ignore it, but I do not count it as earnings power either. ## Debt, cash and shareholder returns | Item, September 30, 2026 | Value | | --- | --- | | Debt | $87.4 billion | | Cash | $7.6 billion | | Net debt | $79.8 billion, about 2.3 times EBITDA | | Debt repaid or bought back in nine months | $10.4 billion, against $2.0 billion borrowed | | Investments, mostly equity stakes | $7.9 billion at book value | | Shares | 3.54 billion; 76 million bought back for $2.2 billion before the pause | | Buyback authorization left | $6.7 billion, suspended since July 1 | Comcast paid $11.7 billion to shareholders in 2025, $6.8 billion of it in buybacks, and cut its share count by 5%. That stopped on July 1 and will stay stopped at least until the separation, so the free cash flow is going into debt reduction instead. Moody's put the rating under review for a downgrade and Fitch placed it on watch negative after the spin-off announcement, because the remaining Comcast will be more concentrated in broadband. ## Primary valuation: sum of the parts The connectivity business is most of the value and most of the uncertainty, so I value it from cash flow rather than a multiple. For 2026 I estimate $30.95 billion of EBITDA: nine months reported plus $6.0 billion from residential and $1.5 billion from business services in the December quarter. Capital spending including capitalized software is about $11.1 billion. After a 23% tax, that leaves about $15.3 billion of cash a year. I let it decline 1.5% a year forever and discount at 7.5%. The other businesses get earnings multiples. The Base value is **$38.01**. | Base case, per share | Value | How | | --- | --- | --- | | Connectivity & Platforms | $47.24 | $15.3 billion of cash a year, -1.5% forever, 7.5%; about 5.4 times EBITDA | | Theme parks | $7.62 | $3.0 billion of EBITDA, 9 times | | Media, including Peacock | $4.40 | $2.6 billion normalized, 6 times | | Studios | $3.16 | $1.4 billion, 8 times | | Corporate and NBCUniversal head office | -$3.39 | -$2.0 billion a year, 6 times | | Investments | $1.78 | 80% of $7.9 billion book value | | Net debt | -$22.52 | $79.8 billion | | Restructuring and separation costs | -$0.28 | $1.0 billion after tax | | Total | $38.01 | rows are rounded | - **Why -1.5% a year for connectivity:** broadband revenue is falling about 5% and video faster, but mobile service revenue grows about 15% and business services about 3%, and the cost program is aimed at the gap. Connectivity EBITDA fell 4.4% in the September quarter, an improvement of 1.4 points from June. I assume the decline slows from there but never turns to growth. This is the assumption that matters most. - **Why 7.5%:** a beta near 0.7 gives a cost of equity of about 8% to 9%, debt costs about 5% before tax, and the company is financed roughly half each way. I round up for the competitive pressure. - **Why 9 times for parks:** Comcast is one of two global theme park operators and Epic Universe opened in May 2025, but Orlando is soft and a new UK park needs years of spending. 2025 parks EBITDA was $3.1 billion; I use $3.0 billion. - **Why 6 times for media:** Peacock has turned profitable, with 48 million paid subscribers, while NBC and Telemundo carry the decline of broadcast TV. Sky's channels sit here too. - **What the split changes:** two head offices cost more than one. I put corporate costs at $2.0 billion a year, about what the two cost centers run at today, and capitalize them at 6 times. Rules of thumb from the model: each half point of yearly connectivity growth is worth about $3 a share, each $1 billion of connectivity EBITDA about $2.40, and each half point of discount rate about $2.50 to $3. | Connectivity growth a year | 7.0% | 7.5% | 8.0% | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | -3.0% | $32.64 | $30.65 | $28.83 | | -2.0% | $37.77 | $35.30 | $33.07 | | -1.5% | $40.79 | $38.01 | $35.52 | | -1.0% | $44.18 | $41.04 | $38.25 | | 0.0% | $52.43 | $48.32 | $44.72 | ## Cross-check: free cash flow to shareholders The second view ignores the segments and looks at the cash left for shareholders. I estimate 2026 free cash flow at $15.7 billion: $12.7 billion for nine months and $3.0 billion for the December quarter, lower than usual because September's timing benefit reverses. Less $1.5 billion of share-based pay and $1.0 billion of tax deferral I do not expect to last, that is $13.2 billion. If that cash shrinks 1% a year and Comcast repays debt at the same pace to keep leverage steady, about $0.8 billion a year, then at a 9% cost of equity the shares are worth **$34.71**. That is 8.7% below the sum of the parts, close enough that I do not need to explain the difference beyond the assumptions themselves. ## Valuation triangulation - Primary (sum of the parts, Base): $38.01. This is the central value. - Cross-check (free cash flow to shareholders): $34.71, 8.7% below. - Nearby assumptions (connectivity -2% to -1% a year, discount rate 7% to 8%): $33.07 to $44.18. - Connectivity at the Bear's -4% a year, everything else Base: $26.80, 13% above the price. Both methods put fair value in the mid to high $30s if the connectivity decline slows. Neither can tell you whether it will. That is why the buy price is far below both. ## What is the market already pricing in? | Reverse valuation | Result | | --- | --- | | Market value plus net debt and one-off costs | $164.6 billion | | Less my Base value of parks, media, studios, corporate and investments | about $116.5 billion left for connectivity | | Connectivity multiple of 2026 EBITDA | about 3.8 times (my Base 5.4 times) | | Yearly connectivity cash flow growth that fits the price, at 7.5% | about -5.0%, forever | | The same at $24.58, the November 4 level | about -4.7% | | Return if the Base is right | +60.6% from the price | The market pays for a connectivity business that shrinks about 5% a year for good. That is slightly worse than last quarter's 4.4% fall in connectivity EBITDA, kept up forever, with no credit for the cost program, mobile growth or business services. It is a demanding bear case, not an absurd one: fiber and fixed wireless keep expanding, and Comcast is the incumbent they target. ## Bear, base and bull scenarios | Case, per share | Connectivity | Parks, media, studios | Corporate, investments | Net debt, one-offs | Value | Versus price | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Bear | $31.84 | $10.34 | -$2.40 | -$22.80 | $16.97 | -28.3% | | Base | $47.24 | $15.18 | -$1.61 | -$22.80 | $38.01 | +60.6% | | Bull | $59.34 | $21.55 | -$0.83 | -$22.80 | $57.25 | +141.9% | Rows are rounded. - **Bear:** connectivity EBITDA starts 5% lower than my 2026 estimate and the cash flow falls 4% a year forever at an 8% discount rate (3.8 times EBITDA). Parks earn $2.6 billion at 7.5 times, media $2.2 billion at 4.5 times, studios $1.2 billion at 6 times, corporate costs rise to $2.2 billion and investments are worth 60% of book. - **Base:** as described above. - **Bull:** connectivity EBITDA 2% above my estimate stops shrinking after the cost program (6.7 times). Parks earn $3.3 billion at 11 times, media $3.0 billion at 8 times, studios $1.6 billion at 10 times, corporate costs fall to $1.8 billion and investments count at book. Net debt is the same in every case. The spin-off moves debt between the two companies but does not change the total that shareholders of today's Comcast stand behind. ## How the buy price is set Confidence is C, which carries a default margin of safety of 42.5%. I add nothing to it, because the competitive risk already sits in the connectivity growth rate and the scenarios. That gives a maximum buy price of **$21.86**. With connectivity growth between -2% and -1% a year and a discount rate between 7% and 8%, the same margin gives buy prices from $19.02 to $25.41. The price of $23.67 sits inside that range, so here the decision does depend on the assumption: at -1% a year and 7.5%, the buy price would be $23.60, almost exactly today's price. I keep the point estimate, because the September quarter was worse than the June quarter in broadband customers, and the evidence for a slowing decline is one quarter of narrower EBITDA losses. The 52-week low is $20.48. With no change in valuation, the return over the next few years is roughly the 5.6% dividend plus debt reduction that slowly accrues to shareholders. Anything more needs the market to stop extrapolating today's decline forever. ## Dividend Comcast pays $0.33 a quarter, $1.32 a year, a 5.6% yield at $23.67, unchanged since early 2025. It costs about $4.7 billion a year, against my $13.2 billion of normalized free cash flow to shareholders, so it is covered almost three times. The dividend policy of each company after the split has not been set, and the buyback, which used to return more than the dividend, is paused. ## Reasons to own Comcast - It produces about $13 billion a year of free cash flow to shareholders after the adjustments above, against a market value of $83.8 billion. - The price already assumes connectivity cash flow falls about 5% a year forever, so the stock does not need growth to work, only a slower decline. - Mobile is growing quickly on a network Comcast mostly does not have to build: about 90% of Xfinity Mobile traffic runs over Wi-Fi, and lines reach only 7% of the addressable market in its footprint. - Business services earn a 56% margin and still grow. - The separation may let investors value the parks, studios and Peacock on their own, rather than at a cable company's multiple. ## What could go wrong? - Broadband competition. Fiber builders and fixed wireless from the mobile carriers keep taking share, and some fiber is priced at $30 to $40 a month. Each half point of yearly connectivity decline is worth about $3 a share. - Price versus volume. Simpler pricing and free mobile lines lowered average broadband revenue per customer, and customers moving to the new prices raised churn in the September quarter. - Credit and the split. Moody's and Fitch are reviewing the rating, and the remaining Comcast will be a more leveraged, broadband-only company. Debt allocation and dividend policy are not yet public. - Theme parks. Orlando demand is soft, Epic Universe still has capacity problems, and a UK park will need years of spending before it earns anything. - Governance. The Roberts family controls the vote through Class B shares, and both future companies keep that structure. ## Management execution - Capital returns were disciplined: $11.7 billion returned in 2025 and the share count down 5%; the dividend was raised each year through 2025 and held in 2026. - The broadband strategy changed twice in two years, from price increases to simpler national pricing with free mobile lines, and the results so far are mixed: more mobile lines, more broadband losses in the latest quarter. - The portfolio is being reshaped quickly and in the right direction: Hulu sold, Versant spun, Sky Germany sold, and NBCUniversal and Sky to be separated. - The theme park bet, Epic Universe, opened on schedule but has not yet delivered steady growth. - Disclosure is detailed by segment, but the cost program and the separation terms have not been quantified beyond the charge of more than $1 billion. On my ten-point management check (two points each), Comcast scores 12 of 20: credit for capital returns, portfolio moves and disclosure, little for the broadband record and per-share growth. ## Stock Analyza scorecard | Business quality | Score | | --- | --- | | Franchise and pricing power | 10/20 | | Return on capital over its cost | 10/20 | | Balance sheet and resilience | 11.25/15 | | Earnings quality | 11.25/15 | | Growth and reinvestment runway | 3.75/15 | | Management and capital allocation | 5/10 | | Dilution and governance | 2.5/5 | | Total | 53.75/100 | The valuation score is **72.5 of 100**. | Valuation score | Score | | --- | --- | | Discount to the Base (price 37.7% below it) | 50/50 | | Price against the Bear (-28.3%) | 7.5/30 | | What the price assumes (connectivity shrinking about 5% a year, between Bear and Base) | 15/20 | | Total | 72.5/100 | Comcast scores well on cash conversion and the balance sheet and badly on growth, because its largest profit line is shrinking. It is a cash generator in decline, not a compounder. Business quality and valuation are shown separately and are not averaged. ## Confidence score | Confidence | Score | | --- | --- | | Historical data and sources (quarterly filings, segment tables, cash flow) | 3.75/5 | | Accounting and ownership (Sky inside connectivity, separation terms and debt split not published) | 2.5/5 | | Evidence for forward assumptions (pace of broadband decline, parks recovery) | 2.5/5 | | Model construction (two independent recomputations agree) | 3.75/5 | | Independent challenge (cash flow cross-check, reverse valuation, sensitivity) | 3.75/5 | | Total | 16.25/25, grade C | The grade measures how well the model is identified, not the chance of a loss. ## What I would watch from here The December quarter report on January 28, 2027 should show four things for the Base to hold: connectivity EBITDA falling less than the September quarter's 4.4%, broadband customer losses back below 100,000, the size and payback of the cost program, and the first details of how debt and dividends will be split between the two companies. Michael Angelakis is due to present the connectivity plan early in 2027. ### Green - Connectivity EBITDA decline narrowing toward 2% a year. - Broadband revenue per customer stabilizing as free mobile lines convert to paid. - Theme park profit growing again in the second half of 2027, as management expects. ### Yellow - Broadband losses above 150,000 a quarter for two more quarters. - A credit downgrade that raises borrowing costs for the remaining Comcast. - A separation plan that leaves most of the debt with the connectivity company. ### Red - Connectivity EBITDA falling 6% or more a year. - A dividend cut at either company after the split. - A large acquisition paid with debt before the separation. ## The three most important thesis breakers 1. Fiber and fixed wireless keep connectivity cash flow falling 4% to 5% a year, which is what the price already assumes and leaves no upside. 2. The cost program does not offset lower broadband prices, so margins keep falling with revenue. 3. The separation leaves the connectivity company with too much debt and no buyback, so the cash flow serves lenders rather than shareholders for years. ## Stress test and independent check I recomputed every scenario with a separate script that values connectivity as an explicit 400-year series of discounted cash flows instead of a formula and builds the rest in a different order, and the results match to the cent. That checks the arithmetic, not the forecasts. | Input | Status | | --- | --- | | Segment revenue and EBITDA, customers, cash flow, debt, buybacks, dividend | Quarterly reports for 2026 and the September quarter release (October 22, 2026) | | Competition, cost program, charge, parks outlook | Earnings call of October 22, 2026 | | Separation terms, leadership, 19.9% stake | Announcement and slides of June 29, 2026; quarterly report | | Rating reviews, ITV deal | Agency and news reports, June and July 2026 | | December quarter EBITDA and free cash flow, segment multiples, -1.5% growth, 7.5% discount rate, corporate costs, investment discount | My assumptions | | Sky's profit inside connectivity and media, debt split and dividend policy after the separation | Not disclosed in what I read | The weakest point is the connectivity growth rate, because half a point a year moves the value by about $3 and the buy price by about $1.75, and the latest quarter went the wrong way on customers. The strongest bull argument is that the price needs the current rate of decline to last forever, with no credit for mobile, business services or the cost program. The strongest bear argument is that the incumbent rarely wins a price war against new fiber, and Comcast is still losing customers while cutting prices. ## Final verdict: hold at $23.67 Comcast is priced as if the September quarter will repeat forever. If the decline in connectivity profit only slows to the pace of a quiet bad year, the shares are worth well into the $30s, and the separation may help the market see the parks and studios separately. The problem is the one number that decides the value is the one with the least evidence behind it. **Verdict: HOLD at $23.67, watchlist for new money. Base $38.01, 60.6% above the price, Bear $16.97, Bull $57.25, cross-check $34.71, Confidence C (16.25/25). Required margin of safety 42.5%, maximum buy price $21.86, range $19.02 to $25.41 under nearby assumptions.** New money buys only at or below $21.86. For an existing holder the original cost is irrelevant, and a Base value well above the price supports holding while the dividend is covered and the decline slows. The next tests are the December quarter report on January 28, 2027 and the separation terms. ## More analyses on Patreon This analysis is free. Premium members get every in-depth analysis, the full archive and a vote on which stocks get analyzed next: https://www.patreon.com/stockanalyza ## Sources Primary sources are Comcast's third quarter 2026 earnings release and quarterly report on Form 10-Q (both October 22, 2026), the earnings call of the same day, the first and second quarter 2026 releases and reports, and the separation announcement and presentation of June 29, 2026. Rating actions come from Fitch Ratings and reports on Moody's review (June 30, 2026), and the ITV transaction from Alliance News (July 6, 2026). All were accessed through [Bigdata.com](https://bigdata.com), and the filings are available on [SEC EDGAR](https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=0001166691). The reference market price is $23.67, the November 3, 2026 Nasdaq close, and the share count is derived from the market value reported by market data via Bigdata.com. **Disclaimer.** This analysis is provided solely for research and educational purposes. It is not personalized investment, financial, legal or tax advice. Values are estimates, not forecasts or trading instructions. Comcast is exposed to broadband and mobile competition, cord cutting, advertising and theme park demand, content costs, the execution of the planned separation, credit ratings and interest rates, control by a founding family and valuation risk. Investors can lose part or all of their invested capital. Method: Master Investment Analysis Framework v4.2. Approach: sum of the parts (connectivity from long-run cash flow, theme parks, media and studios at multiples, less corporate costs and net debt), cross-checked by normalized free cash flow to shareholders. Confidence: C/16.25. Data checks: passed with warnings. Open data gaps: Sky's share of profit, separation terms and debt split, fourth quarter results due January 28, 2027.