NBCU Reveals Peacock Has 9 Million Paid Subscribers

variety.com:

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterNBCUniversal revealed that its streaming service Peacock has 9 million paid subscribers during parent company Comcast’s fourth-quarter earnings call Thursday.Ahead of the call, Comcast reported in its letter to shareholders that Peacock hit 24.5 million monthly active accounts (MAAs) in Q4.“Within these 24.5 MAAs are over 9 million paid subscribers approaching $10 in paid ARPU, which includes the advertising,” Brian Roberts, Comcast chairman-CEO, said during the investor call. “And that is without much focus on paid subscriber growth.

We have another 7 million highly engaged bundle subscribers from Xfinity and other top distributors who use Peacock every single month and currently receive Peacock Premium and no extra cost.” Roberts said the vast majority of Peacock’s paid users choose the platform’s $5 ad-supported tier over the $10 ad-free tier.

The Comcast chief says the company “is on the right path to create long-term value” with Peacock’s hybrid free/subscription model.Peacock’s growth has been strong enough that Roberts says Comcast is “committed to reallocating resources and increasing investment” in the streamer.CFO Mike Cavanagh says the company will double content spend for Peacock this year to $3 billion and are optimistic it will rise to $5 billion “over the next couple of years.” NBCU will likely face an EBIDTA loss for the year of $2.5 billion, Cavanagh added.This is the first significant update we’ve received on Peacock since last July, when Comcast said it had reached 54 million total signups since its debut in April 2020, and generated more than 20 million monthly active users during the second quarter of 2021.