Image: Brooklyn Nine-Nine, NBC
Comcast reported earnings on Tuesday. The headline results for the company’s streaming service, Peacock, were mixed but showed movement in the right direction toward potential future profitability. While Peacock subscribers were down 500,000 over Q2, the total number of subscribers at the end of June was 33M, which is up 38% from last year. Ultimately, this dip in subscribers may matter less to Wall Street, than the positive direction of the streamer’s revenue which grew to $1B while the service narrowed its losses to $348M (from $651M a year ago).
The upcoming Paris Summer Olympics may drive record sign ups to Peacock. After that, the real work begins for NBCUniversal: keeping those new subscribers on the platform long term and continuing progress towards elusive streaming profitability.
The Olympics is just one example of how live sports is an important factor for Peacock’s future viability. In January Peacock leveraged an exclusive NFL playoff game into sustained subscriber growth. The Olympics provide a chance to repeat this at even greater scale. But the challenge lies in sustaining momentum beyond these sporadic events.
Peacock will once again stream NBC’s “Sunday Night Football,” the #1 primetime TV show for 13 years in a row. On top of that, NBC is set to become a partner in the new NBA rights deal. Peacock will get a significant slice of those games, running from October to late May/early June, assuming NBC gets the Conference Finals. Continuous sports content — including the Premier League, college sports, and PGA Tour, among others — will help Peacock in two crucial areas by reducing churn, and increasing ad revenue.
How else can Peacock translate this sports demand into long term growth? Legacy linear content will form another part of the puzzle. Some of the most in-demand series on Peacock in Q2 2024 included “The Voice”, “Brooklyn Nine-Nine”, and “Law & Order: SVU.” These are the long-running series with hundreds of episodes that keep audiences on the platform for longer, making them less likely to hit unsubscribe.
Peacock is making progress here. After lagging for years in seventh place among major streamers in total on-platform demand share — accounting for all TV shows and movies, licensed and original — Peacock has firmly established itself ahead of Paramount+, and is even closing the gap with Disney+ in this category. Another positive indicator for Peacock’s value proposition to subscribers is that it was the platform with the largest share of on-platform demand for series that released their most recent episode this year. This shows that Peacock is providing its subscribers with fresh content that is capturing their attention.
Peacock’s leaders knows it cannot compete as another Netflix. But by leveraging its expanding portfolio of exclusive live sports with established linear series and a beloved Universal movie slate, it can build a sustainable scaled-down service.
