This year-over-12 months discount more than offset greater sports activities cost resulting from additional occasions. As expected, this reflects elevated bills, together with greater sports rights amortization, ensuing from extra occasions in the current quarter as well as larger bills associated with efficiently growing our cellular and broadband businesses and funding in key growth initiatives, which now contains Sky Connect, our not too long ago launched industrial broadband enterprise in the U.K. We proceed to anticipate Sky EBITDA in the second half of this 12 months to speed up from first half levels, reflecting the advantages of a reset to major sports rights as well as a more environment friendly operating structure. In NBCUniversal's Media section under Jeff Shell and Mark Lazarus, we're starting to see the benefits of our new operating structure. Media EBITDA declined 3.7% when including Peacock, which generated revenue of $91 million and an EBITDA lack of $277 million. Theme Parks revenue decreased 33.1% in the quarter and generated an EBITDA lack of $61 million, which included $100 million of Universal Beijing pre-opening costs. Media, which combines our Tv companies in Peacock; Studios, which combines our film and television studio companies; and Theme Parks. And NBCU, which seems just like the division with essentially the most upside coming out of COVID, I'm simply -- I don't know if this is the yr of peak losses for Peacock, however Theme Parks seem like they're on a five 12 months progress trends, advertising -- manufacturing is coming back, and so on., at Sky, you may see the leverage.

We were recently named as one in every of the top 5 Big Companies to Work For within the U.S. 10 Inclusive Companies in the U.K., a testomony to the work and keenness of our wonderful staff. The most important amount of online ad income in the first half of the 12 months got here from key phrase searches, where advertisers pay search engine firms to record their Web sites increased in results presented to customers as they do on-line searches. Looking to the second quarter, we count on wholesome development in distribution income to proceed. China later within the second quarter. So in abstract, we're all very proud and inspired by our first quarter results. Turning to expenses. Cable Communications first quarter bills increased 1.5%. Programming bills were up 5.5%, primarily because of the variety of contract renewals that began to cycle by in 2020 combined with annual escalators in existing agreements. For the total year, we proceed to count on programming expense to extend at high-single-digit ranges. Trying to the second quarter, we count on programming expense development to increase at low-double-digit ranges because of the continued affect of contract renewals as properly as the comparability to last year's second quarter, which was favorably impacted by changes accrued for buyer RSN charges.

And from what day is it in 15 days we see at present, we anticipate whole broadband additions for the 12 months to develop by mid-single-digit ranges in comparison with 2019, which other than the extraordinary development we had in an unusual 2020, was the best year in greater than a decade. New U Life the corporate behind the Somaderm Gel, believes that everybody deserves to reside their finest life doable, and this product is designed that can assist you just do that. We generated 221,000 internet buyer additions, the perfect first quarter in six years, driven by streaming across our markets as well as steady momentum in cellular and broadband throughout the U.K. Direct-to-shopper income elevated 1.8% with growth within the U.K. Advertising income declined 3.4% as lower entertainment rankings and tough political comps have been partially offset by extra sports activities within the quarter, strengthened news and the launch of Peacock. We additionally anticipate significantly increased sports rights amortization in comparison with last yr when occasions have been paused. Significantly fewer releases in the primary quarter resulted in lower bills driving EBITDA development of 66%. We're excited to be releasing Fast 9 in theaters later within the second quarter, however we delayed the release of Minions 2 from July of this 12 months to July of 2022, which can shift the earnings from 2021 to 2022 as well as we're persevering with to manage our movie fleet to maximize worth.

Excluding Peacock, Media EBITDA elevated 10%, primarily pushed by decrease expenses, which was partly as a result of lower leisure costs associated with fewer authentic hours aired and partly on account of our new operating mannequin. Media revenue increased 3.2% driven by 9.1% growth in distribution income, which mirrored greater charges submit the profitable completion of several carriage renewals at the top of 2020, partially offset by subscriber declines, which confirmed sequential enchancment. Turning to video. Revenue was per the prior year, reflecting very healthy ARPU progress of 6.8%, offset by net video subscriber losses totaling 491,000, which we felt totally on the connect side as residential churn improved 12 months-over-yr. The sturdy buyer additions coupled with ARPU progress of 4.4% drove a 12% increase in broadband income for the first quarter, the most important driver of overall cable revenue, and we anticipate this trend will continue. Cable Communications EBITDA grew by 12% with margins reaching 43.2%, reflecting 250 basis factors of 12 18 months in the past from today-over-12 months improvement.

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