Comcast Corporation

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Comcast's first quarter earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Please note that this conference call is being recorded. I will now turn the call over to Executive Vice President, Investor Relations, Ms. Marci Reivicker. Please go ahead, Ms. Reivicker.

Thank you, Operator, and welcome to our first quarter 2023 earnings call. You'll first hear from Brian Roberts, Mike Kavanaugh, and Jason Armstrong. Then Dave Watson will join us and be available for Q&A. As a reminder, beginning this first quarter, we have changed our presentation of segment operating results around two primary businesses, connectivity and platforms, and content and experiences. For additional details, please refer to our 8K issued on March 13th, which can be found on our investor relations website at www.cmcsa.com. I will now refer you to slide two of the presentation accompanying this call, which can also be found on our investor relations website and which contains our safe harbor disclaimer. This conference call may include forward-looking statements subject to certain risks and uncertainties. In addition, during this call, we will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. Please see our 8K and trending schedule issued earlier this morning for the reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures to GAAP. With that, I'll turn the call over to Brian.

Thanks, Marcy, and good morning, everyone. Before we get in the quarter, let me just acknowledge the news that you all saw earlier this week. Obviously, a tough moment. But we are so fortunate to have a fabulous and tenured leadership team at NBCUniversal. If you go down the list, you'll see many of them have been leading their divisions within the company for at least 10 years and are truly the best in the business. We're also lucky to have Mike Cavanaugh step in at the helm at NBCUniversal while also remaining president. Mike is a fantastic executive and operator that many of you know well, and he'll work closely with each of the management team at NBCUniversal to continue our excellent momentum. Mike, alongside with Jason Armstrong, will lead these earnings calls on a go-forward basis. Today, you'll hear from them about our strategic focus and drivers of growth now and over the long term. And Jason will go into much greater details on the first quarter results. Dave Watts and I are here for the Q&A. You'll hear a lot more about the great momentum of our connectivity and platform businesses later in the call. Dave, Thanks for getting off to a great start this year. So before I hand it over to Mike, I just want to share my quick perspective on our recent performance. This really was a strong quarter and start to the year, especially within the context of what continues to be a choppy macro environment. We grew adjusted EBITDA by 3% and adjusted EPS by 7%. In addition, we generated $3.8 billion of free cash flow and and return $3.2 billion of capital to shareholders, all while continuing to invest, importantly, in a number of major initiatives, which is a real testament to our very healthy balance sheet. Two things amongst many highlights in particular that stand out for me and I'm really proud of, one is the animation business. By strengthening and combining our capabilities across DreamWorks, and Illumination led by Chris Melendandri, we've had tremendous success creating franchises that people know and love all over the world. Despicable Me, Shrek, Pets, Minions, and more recently, Puss in Boots. And now, Super Mario Brothers, which just broke a number of records, including the biggest worldwide opening of any animated film all time. These are the results of the strategic decision we made years ago to become a leader in animation, and the conviction we've had to continue to invest in the business even during the depths of the pandemic, which are now clearly paying off. The second is connectivity and platforms. The significant margin expansion that we achieved this quarter, coupled with the 4.5% ARPU growth in domestic residential broadband, demonstrates successful discipline and excellent management in a challenging competitive environment. We're focused on delivering a superior experience and profitably serving our customers. And it shows. And with that, let me now hand the call over to Mike.