And so, after the first half, we did make the decision to pull back on some of our more aggressive offers which resulted in lower connect activity. So that is the changes that we’ve had. I think our voluntary churn rate is very healthy. A key part of that that’s continued and the real issue that we see at this point is, as we manage things, is just lower connect volume. So – but, net-net, we’re growing revenue as we talked about earlier, Jason did and I did, and we’re going to focus on multiple drivers of revenue growth. And we’ll make our playbook, we make changes throughout. So – and then to wireless, your point, we are continuing to test in terms of the CBRS roll-offs where we’ve picked up the pace on that, staying close to what Charter is doing.
We’ve seen good progress in the ability to off-load traffic and encouraged by the opportunity in terms of just such a small geographic part of your footprint contributes so much volume of wireless traffic. So we are in position, if we so choose to do it, but we like where we’re at with that, no new news in terms of scaling up on that point, but we’re in a good position. Operator: Our next question is coming from Jessica Reif Ehrlich from Bank of America Securities.
Jessica Reif Ehrlich: I have two topics. One is sports and one’s advertising. On sports, it’s such a key differentiator in content. Can you just talk about your longer term sports strategy and how you believe sports will be distributed in the future? You talked about more going direct-to-consumer. What role will linear play as we look ahead three to five years, and how would you respond to the leagues, whether NBA or NFL, et cetera, investing in ESPN? And then on advertising, there seems to be weakness across the board, cable and media, which is in line I’m sure with the rest of the industry. But there seems to be strength in the industry in digital whether it’s Google or Meta. How are you as a company/industry addressing that? How do you get dollars back?
Brian Roberts: Okay. Well, this is Brian. Let me start and kick it over to Mike because I think your industry question on sports is really profound and important. I think our company has had a long, deep, rich history in sports, both parts of the company. The best way to consume an NFL game or the Olympics is to have our entertainment operating system I just talked about in Craig’s question, and you’ll see that in the Olympics. There will be nothing like it. The same goes for I think NBC Sports which is the number one show in television on Sunday Night Football. We’ve got a great team and a culture of big events, whether it goes from the Kentucky Derby, which the ratings are much higher when it’s been on NBC than any previous platform, and then on and on.
And with Peacock now, we have the most live sports of any of the streaming services. And I believe that that’s a surprise to many people when they learn that and believe that to be the case, and that’s a commitment we made when we had things like English Premier League or Tour de France or golf or events that went on for longer periods of time than were typically on a network where you wanted more camera angles or more feeds and more games, and that sets us up for being relevant in the transition that we’re all talking about. How do we go from analog to digital in a way that helps the leagues? And so, yeah, I can’t speculate on what might happen to ESPN, but what I could speculate is we meet with the leagues which we do frequently, we think we present a somewhat unique ability to help get the maximum engagement now with broadcast and cable, particularly our broadcast platform, as well as having a robust streaming service and a super quarter here regarding the kind of momentum that we’ve garnered.
A lot of that is driven by sports on Peacock. And that sets you up to answer your advertising question, which I’ll let Mike go into a bit, but at the highest level, we’re creating the digital capability on Peacock in the most relevant content. That looks like a very winning combination for us as a strategy.
Michael Cavanagh: And I’ll just add on that. It’s Mike. I’ll just add that the importance and the significance of us being committed to sports in the streaming context of Peacock is for us combined with the ability to bring the big reach that our broadcaster NBC brings to the party, which I think is an important element of – while sports over the long term I think are going to be experienced significantly through streaming, I think for a long time, the economics of the sports rights that you see is going to be substantially supported by broadcast reach that I think for a long time is going to continue to be a significant part of the picture. In terms of advertising, I’d say, Jessica, that overall it’s not a big difference in story than last quarter.
I’d say the ad market has remained soft. It hasn’t necessarily gotten worse despite a little bit of sequential decline, but it hasn’t gotten better at the same time. And we still continue to think it’s due to the general uncertainty about economic conditions that are out there. The kind of weakness that we’re talking about or the softness is particularly on the linear side, while Peacock has remained very strong. Picking at this quarter a little bit, the deceleration from 5% to 8%, contributing factor there which is a little idiosyncratic is, while the retail and tech sectors were down a little bit, whereas auto and pharma and consumer products were up. The one that was down that’s a little unique and idiosyncratic is entertainment where you had streamers spending a little less together with advertisers, given the strikes, looking at what the lineups were in the recent past and putting some money in other places.
So some of that will revert we believe once strikes are over. And as we look to the fourth [Technical Difficulty] last year’s World Cup as well as political that underlying ad sales will be an improvement in this fourth quarter versus last year’s fourth quarter. And as far as digital, I think that’s why there is definitely the opportunity that some tech competitors are capturing to get premium video monetized in digital platforms, and I think that speaks to why we consider Peacock to be an important initiative for us. And we’re pleased again with the progress we’re making in Peacock which is now north of 28 million subs and strong overall 60% revenue growth year-over-year.
Brian Roberts: One last point I just wanted to add that one of the great things about sports that we’re very excited about is streaming sports and what that means for our broadband network strategy that Dave was just talking about. Dave and the team I think have found a great balance in how we’re running the operation, but a big part of that is a commitment and a belief that we see all sports finding a way over the next many years or maybe not so many years to be more and more streamed, and that’s going to require more bandwidth and that’s going to require and create an opportunity for us to have the superior product in the market. So that’s our strategy, and so sports really, back to your first question, Jessica, is at the heart and soul of a lot of what we do. Operator: Our next question is coming from Brett Feldman from Goldman Sachs.
Brett Feldman: I’ve got two questions about your business connectivity segment. The first is you made some comments about investments you’re making to better address the enterprise customer demographic. I think the assumption has been, historically, it’s not been a focus for you because serving that demo generally requires you to serve customers with locations outside of your footprint. So I was curious to hear a little more about your strategy for scaling up there, and I’m wondering whether that might involve making incremental investments in your connectivity platform outside of your region, either organically or potentially making some acquisitions. And then second, I was hoping you could give us an update on the extent to which the business segment is contributing to your success in wireless. Is it kind of pacing what you’re seeing in the residential space, or do you think you have more opportunity there? Thank you.
David Watson: Hey, Brett, Dave. So let me start. Overall, business services had a very good quarter. Revenue accelerated a little, reflecting stronger growth in enterprise and mid-market, so we’ve been very focused on growing all categories. So your point on the sales investment, let me provide some context. We have been for some time working with partners. And most certainly, with the acquisition of Masergy, we’ve been expanding our capability to go into other areas and now we have global opportunity to be able to handle customers. The key here is to be able to take care of customers’ needs wherever they are, so this particular investment is just adding some folks, it’s not infrastructure that we’re building out there. We will leverage the partnerships that we have, but certainly we’ll deliver products that meets the customers’ needs out.
