This yr-over-year reduction more than offset greater sports activities value resulting from extra events. As expected, this reflects elevated expenses, together with greater sports activities rights amortization, ensuing from more occasions in the present quarter in addition to greater expenses related to successfully growing our mobile and broadband companies and funding in key development initiatives, which now contains Sky Connect, our just lately launched commercial broadband business in the U.K. We continue to anticipate Sky EBITDA in the second half of this 12 months to accelerate from first half levels, reflecting the advantages of a reset to main sports rights in addition to a more environment friendly operating structure. In NBCUniversal's Media phase underneath Jeff Shell and Mark Lazarus, we're beginning to see the benefits of our new operating construction. Media EBITDA declined 3.7% when together with Peacock, which generated income of $91 million and an EBITDA lack of $277 million. Theme Parks income decreased 33.1% in the quarter and generated an EBITDA lack of $61 million, which included $one hundred million of Universal Beijing pre-opening costs. Media, which combines our Tv companies in Peacock; Studios, which combines our movie and tv studio companies; and Theme Parks. And NBCU, which appears like the division with the most upside popping out of COVID, I'm just -- I don't know if that is the yr of peak losses for Peacock, but Theme Parks appear like they're on a five 12 months growth tendencies, promoting -- manufacturing is coming again, and so forth., at Sky, you possibly can see the leverage.

We had been not too long 29 weeks ago from today named as one in every of the top 5 months ago Big Companies to Work For within the U.S. 10 Inclusive Companies within the U.K., a testament to the work and passion of our fantastic employees. The biggest quantity of on-line advert revenue in the primary half of the yr came from keyword searches, the place advertisers pay search engine companies to listing their Web pages increased in outcomes presented to customers as they do online searches. Seeking to the second quarter, we expect healthy development in distribution revenue to proceed. China later within the second quarter. So in summary, we're all very proud and encouraged by our first quarter outcomes. Turning to bills. Cable Communications first quarter expenses increased 1.5%. Programming expenses were up 5.5%, primarily as a result of variety of contract renewals that began to cycle through in 2020 combined with annual escalators in present agreements. For the complete year, we proceed to expect programming expense to increase at excessive-single-digit levels. Looking to the second quarter, we expect programming expense growth to extend at low-double-digit levels due to the continued impression of contract renewals as effectively as the comparison to last 12 months's second quarter, which was favorably impacted by adjustments accrued for buyer RSN fees.

And from what we see in the present day, we anticipate whole broadband additions for the 12 months to grow by mid-single-digit ranges compared to 2019, which except for the extraordinary development we had in an unusual 2020, was the perfect year in greater than a decade. New U Life the corporate behind the Somaderm Gel, believes that everybody deserves to dwell their best life possible, and this product is designed that will help you just do that. We generated 221,000 net buyer additions, the very best first quarter in six years, pushed by streaming across our markets as well as steady momentum in cellular and broadband within the U.K. Direct-to-client income elevated 1.8% with development in the U.K. Advertising income declined 3.4% as lower entertainment rankings and tough political comps have been partially offset by extra sports activities in the quarter, strengthened information and the launch of Peacock. We additionally anticipate significantly higher sports rights amortization in comparison with last 12 18 months ago from today when occasions had been paused. Significantly fewer releases in the first quarter resulted in decrease bills driving EBITDA progress 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 yr to July of 2022, which will shift the earnings from 2021 to 2022 as well as we're persevering with to manage our film fleet to maximise value.

Excluding Peacock, Media EBITDA increased 10%, primarily driven by decrease expenses, which was partly because of decrease leisure costs associated with fewer original hours aired and partly attributable to our new operating model. Media income increased 3.2% driven by 9.1% development in distribution income, which mirrored higher charges submit the successful completion of a number of carriage renewals at the tip of 2020, partially offset by subscriber declines, which showed sequential improvement. Turning to video. Revenue was per the prior 12 months, reflecting very healthy ARPU development of 6.8%, offset by net video subscriber losses totaling 491,000, which we felt totally on the connect aspect as residential churn improved 12 months-over-yr. The sturdy buyer additions coupled with ARPU progress of 4.4% drove a 12% enhance in broadband revenue for the primary quarter, the largest driver of overall cable revenue, and we count on this trend will proceed. Cable Communications EBITDA grew by 12% with margins reaching 43.2%, reflecting 250 basis points of year-over-year improvement.

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