At its launch, Peacock was not a popular streaming platform, and it has been battling to gain the industry attention that larger competitors have. This trend may finally be in reverse, however, as we see drawcard exclusive content finally getting subscribers to pay attention to the platform. Entertainment lawyer Brandon Blake, from Blake & Wang P.A, has the facts and figures for us.
Q1 Results Positive
In a round of Q1 earnings reports that have been a little dour, NBCUniversal has reported an additional 4M paid subscribers for 2022. This is up from 24.5M active accounts at the end of 2021. Credit is being given to a huge content influx to the platform over the first months of 2022, and it’s easy to see why it’s being called an ‘exponential’ quarter for them. Revenue increased by 14% to take them to $31B.
Both the Super Bowl LVI and the Beijing Winter Olympics proved to be massive drawcards, as did the nostalgic revisit to 90s super-hit the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air with the new Bel-Air series and some other fresh content.
Ebbing Subscribers
Sensibly, we saw Comcast executives keen to squash the notion that every quarter will look like this one, predicting ‘more modest’ gains for the rest of the year. Interestingly, however, they’re one of the first streamers to acknowledge that subscriber numbers are likely to ‘ebb and flow’ according to available content in the period. Peacock has become known, however, for surprisingly high customer retention and low turnover rates, which could stand them well in the future.
For now, they’re predicting a fantastic Q4, based on live sporting events and some key film premiers. The discounted AVOD tier has proven to be a hit, pulling in more subscribers than the ad-free VOD tier. They’re also promising up to 60 new series throughout the year, and the removal of next-day programming from Disney-owned Hulu will boost their content library further.
While Peacock remains a smaller player on the streaming scene, its slightly different business model, pulled from Comcast’s linear TV services, maybe pay off for it. It will be interesting to see what the rest of the year holds.
