As Apple and Comcast report earnings, their respective streaming services represent distinct approaches to the evolving digital entertainment landscape.
While neither Apple TV+ nor Peacock leads in market share, both platforms demonstrate how streaming fits into larger corporate strategies: Apple's services ecosystem expansion and Comcast's upcoming pivot into a leaner entertainment portfolio.
Both platforms recently raised their prices, providing an opportunity to examine how price hikes impact subscriber behavior, platform revenue, and ultimately, the value of their top shows.
Despite creating an initial increase in churn, Apple TV+’s price hike significantly increased both subscriber revenue and total subscribers for the service. The price hike's impact is clear: comparing the four quarters before (Q4 2022-Q3 2023) and after (Q4 2023-Q3 2024), global subscriber revenue for Apple TV+ jumped 50.2%. Apple TV+'s global subscriber base has grown 10% from Q4 2023 to Q3 2024.
Peacock had a similar and more immediate lift when it hiked prices in July 2024, with UCAN subscriber revenue growing 49.5% in Q3 2024 compared to the previous quarter.
Peacock and Apple UCAN Churn
- Apple TV+’s late 2023 price hike from $6.99 to $9.99 led to an expected massive jump in churn with US consumers, moving from 6.04% in Q3 2023 to 10.21% in Q4 2023, according to Parrot Analytics’ Streaming Economics.
- The churn rate has come down considerably since then, dropping for three quarters in a row, sitting at 6.76% as of Q3 2024.
- Meanwhile, Peacock’s churn rate has ticked up during the last two quarters of available data — rising from 5.59% in Q1 2024 to 7.45% in Q3 2024, when the latest price hike was introduced.
Reality TV on Peacock
- Beyond pricing, content strategy also plays a key role in subscriber retention, particularly for Peacock. Reality content is central to NBCUniversal's entertainment future, with Bravo being one of the few assets retained after the SpinCo spinoff.
- Peacock’s flagship reality original, The Traitors, has delivered for the streamer. The US version alone has accounted for $26.7M from Q1 2023-Q3 2024.
- Bravo’s Below Deck Mediterranean has delivered $37.2M in revenue from Q3 2020-Q3 2024.
- Another Bravo standout, Vanderpump Rules — which has streamed on multiple platforms over the years — has brought in $35.2M to Peacock alone since Q1 2021.
