Comcast Execs ‘Optimistic’ Summer Olympics Will Go Forward After Cancellation Report

Comcast already weathered the unprecedented postponement of the Tokyo Summer Olympics, originally set for last year, due to the Covid-19 pandemic. And despite a report last week that the games could be canceled, Comcast executives—and their advertisers—are optimistic that the Summer Olympics will be held as scheduled. “Sitting here today, I believe there will be an Olympics,” Comcast CEO Brian Roberts told investors during the company's quarterly earnings call today. “We’re very hopeful and believe that they’ll find a way to safety and successfully have the Olympics, which for us is a television event and would be an amazing moment for the world to come back together, post what we’ve all globally been through. We’re super hopeful and optimistic.” The remarks come after a Jan. 21 report from The Times of London that the Tokyo Games would have to be canceled due to Covid-19, according to a senior member of the ruling coalition. The International Olympic Committee and the Japanese government both denied the report, and the IOC said it is “fully concentrated on and committed to the successful delivery of the Olympic and Paralympic Games Tokyo 2020 this year.” But all eyes are on how the global competition will continue as vaccines roll out but recovery plans around the world remain uneven. The games represent a huge chunk of advertising revenue for NBCUniversal, which was left with a $1.25 billion-plus ad revenue gap when the Olympics were postponed last year, and rescheduled for July 23-Aug. 8, 2021. Leading up to the rescheduled games, though, NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell told investors today that the company has more advertisers for the upcoming games than it did at this time a year ago, a sign of confidence across the industry. “Advertisers also are optimistic that the Olympics are coming,” Shell said. “I think I said last earnings call that we were up over where we were a year ago when we thought the Olympics were going to happen a year ago. That gap has closed even further as advertisers have jumped in to buy. Anything can happen in this Covid world; we don’t know what’s going to happen, but we’re pretty confident that the Olympics are going to happen, and advertisers are jumping in.” Peacock's six-month-mark: 33 million sign-ups The initial postponement of the Olympics in 2020 threw a wrench into Comcast’s broader plans to leverage the games as a marketing vehicle for its fledgling streaming service Peacock. Even without the games, Peacock, which forged ahead with its national debut last July, has a shiny new sign-up number to tout today: 33 million sign-ups as of this week. “[I’m] really pleased with how fast Peacock has succeeded this year even without the Olympics, which we had hoped for, and that was going to be the big launch moment,” Roberts said. “I think the team is doing an outstanding job of giving us the fast start that I think everyone would have wanted to have. That gives us great expectations for the future.” The sign-up figures can’t provide a picture of the subscription rate since customers can sign up for free (the company did not specify how many consumers have subscribed to the pricier Peacock Premium tiers) or the kind of usage on the service that may be of particular interest to advertisers. But executives told investors today that the metrics are a sure sign the service is off to a good start. “People are signing up, they’re using it more than we expected, and advertisers are very interested in buying it,” Shell said. “This steady growth is very promising for us, and Peacock’s performance is much better than we expected.” Part of that promising start can be credited to The Office, the beloved mockumentary sitcom that migrated to the NBCUniversal streaming service in January and received a red-carpet rollout with custom advertising and a dedicated section on the service. “Our usage among our customers is actually higher than we think the usage was among Netflix customers,” Shell said of The Office, which was last year's most-streamed show on any service, according to Nielsen. “And more importantly, what we’re seeing happening is that people who are watching The Office on Peacock are watching lots of our other comedies, so it’s really driving Parks and Rec and really driving Brooklyn Nine-Nine, among others.” Peacock is hoping to encourage even more viewing on the service with recent content acquisitions. Just this week, the service struck an unusual joint distribution deal with Disney to bring the entirety of the acclaimed comedy series Modern Family to Peacock’s premium tiers beginning Feb. 3. NBCUniversal is also planning on bulking up the service with live sporting events after live sports such as Premier League soccer performed particularly well on the service in its earliest months. The company will reroute some live sporting events to Peacock when it shuts down cable network NBCSN later this year, and the company struck a major licensing deal with WWE this week to migrate professional wrestling programming over to Peacock’s premium tiers in March. The streaming service generated about $100 million in revenue in all of 2020, chief financial officer Mike Cavanagh told investors, which nonetheless represents a drop in the bucket compared to the initial investment in the streamer, which will reach $2 billion over 2020 and 2021. Studio eyes 'hybrid' release model for more movies Comcast and NBCUniversal’s investment in streaming doesn’t stop at Peacock, and will extend to the company’s continued pursuit of premium video-on-demand releases of recent films, which the company initiated last year amid widespread theater closures. That strategy has paid off. On NBCUniversal’s filmed entertainment side, theatrical revenue was unsurprisingly down (by 70% in the quarter), but content licensing revenue was up by 22.7%, driven mostly by premium video-on-demand releases, which offered a much-needed lifeline to the overall segment. “Our decision to release our titles direct-to-consumer via premium video-on-demand has proven to be profitable and the right move for us,” Roberts said. “While we look forward to when we can enjoy the theatrical release of many franchise films, like Fast 9 and the next Minions and Jurassic World, we will lean into what has become a successful hybrid distribution model.”