Peacock now has a total of 15 million paid subscribers, NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell said. Over the past few months, Peacock also brought blockbusters like Jurassic World Dominion and Minions: The Rise of Gru to the platform, with Jamie Lee Curtis’ Halloween, Ends set to premiere the same day on October 14th.
The service added 2 million paid subscribers in the third quarter of 2022 alone, as Peacock’s paid subscriber count stayed flat at 13 million during the first half of the year.
Shell says Peacock secured rights to Jordan Peele’s Nope, although it’s unclear when it will premiere on the service. Other big names coming to the platform include The Continental, an upcoming John Wick spinoff series, a Community movie, and nonexclusive rights to the series.
Shell also emphasizes the prevalence of sports on the platform, noting the forum “has the best sports offering of any streaming assistance” with programs like Premier League, WWE, Sunday Night Football, and the forthcoming FIFA World Cup.
Peacock is an American over-the-top video streaming service owned and operated by the Television and Streaming division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast.
The service is available in a free ad-supported version with limited content, while premium tiers include a larger content library and access to additional NBC Sports and WWE Network content.
Named after the NBC logo, the service launched on July 15, 2020. The service primarily features series and film content from NBCUniversal studios and other third-party content providers, including television series, films, news, and sports programming.
Peacock was given a soft launch on the Sky and NOW platforms in the UK and Ireland on November 16, 2021, free to all customers. On January 25, 2022, Peacock further expanded in Sky territories, soft launching in Austria and Germany. In January 2022, the service reached 24.5 million monthly active accounts and 9 million paid subscribers.
Early availability for Xfinity Flex customers began on April 15, 2020, with X1 customers receiving the preview by May 1. Peacock launched nationally on July 15, 2020; as of August 2021, the service had reached at least 54 million signups.
As of April 2022, the service has reached 28 million monthly active accounts and 13 million paid subscribers, an increase of 40% from the previous quarter. It also reported a 25% increase in engagement year-over-year
Shell says the boost was “driven by content,” citing the end of NBC’s content-sharing deal with Hulu in September, which got next-day streaming of shows like Law & Order, Saturday Night Live, and One Chicago exclusively to Peacock.
Comcast, NBCUniversal’s parent company, will release its third-quarter earnings outcomes on October 27th, so we’ll have to stay a little longer to catch solid numbers.
While Disney’s set to purchase Comcast’s stake in Hulu in 2024, there’s some dispute over Hulu’s worth. Comcast’s placing the bar high at $70 billion, while the original deal had Hulu’s value at about $27.5 billion.
CNBC closed the discussion by asking Shell whether NBCUniversal would want to go from owning 33 percent of Hulu to buying the whole thing. “We, like many other people, would want to own Hulu,” Shell explains. “It’s not what we anticipate, but it’s a valuable asset.”
“As this quarter, we own 30 million active accounts watching us monthly. Of those 30 million, we’re up over 15 million now expended… it’s 70 percent more than we began the year with.”