Peacock Clears 42 Million Sign-Ups, Expands Ad Inventory Ahead of Schedule

NBCUniversal’s streaming service Peacock, which soft launched a year ago, has cleared 42 million sign-ups and is approaching the $100 million revenue mark as it heads into a content-heavy second half of the year. Users on the service have spent more than 1 billion total hours watching programming on the service—an engagement figure that’s nearly double what the company projected at launch—which is translating to better advertising results for NBCUniversal as it steers the company into its streaming-heavy future. The service brought in $91 million last quarter from ad sales and subscription revenue (a still-meager figure compared to the company’s other segments, which generate billions) but executives say monetization opportunities are growing fast ahead of a promising upfront season. “We are very pleased with our steady growth on Peacock, and we’re particularly pleased that we chose this business model, which is an ad-supported model for the business,” NBCUniversal Jeff Shell told investors Thursday. “It was the right decision to pursue that for our company.” While sign-ups are important for the company’s measure of success, so is service usage. About one-third of Peacock’s 42 million sign-ups are monthly active accounts, meaning they are either paying the monthly subscription fee or are using the service every month, Shell said, and the company is laser-focused on translating signed-up users into monthly active users. Pursuing higher CPMs Peacock, which includes a free and low-cost ad-supported tier along with a pricier ad-free tier, is designed to help NBCUniversal grab hold of the growing advertiser interest in streaming television, while reaching consumers who are seeking out more video-on-demand options or opting to view live television over-the-top. Ahead of NBCUniversal’s July national launch of Peacock, the company signed up 10 flagship advertising sponsors, including State Farm, Target and Unilever. Those deals will end at the end of the fourth quarter, at which point the service will open up to a broader group of advertisers—and executives are confident they can demand CPMs at high rates. Already, higher-than-expected engagement has allowed the company to carve out additional advertising inventory outside of those initial partnerships. "We are exceeding the guarantees that we made to those advertisers, so we are already in this quarter selling some of the excess inventory on a spot basis,” Shell said. “And we’re achieving CPMs that are equal or in some cases above what we’re getting on NBC prime, which is our gold standard. That’s very encouraging.” Even more encouraging for executives: While the company has moved quickly to bring programming like The Office and sports programming to its service, it debuted with a meager slate of programming, due both to the postponement of the Summer Olympics a year ago and to the delay in original programming borne out of Covid-related production shutdowns and slowdowns. “All of this success is without most of the programming that we anticipated,” Shell said. “Most of those [programs] have not hit Peacock yet.” NBCUniversal is back in production on 30 TV shows, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts said, and several of those will trickle onto Peacock in the coming quarters, which executives hope will help drive more sign-ups. Defining success on Peacock The figures disclosed Thursday highlight not just how Peacock is growing but the yardsticks by which company executives are measuring and defining success for the streaming service. Shell said that he and the company are most focused on four metrics: Sign-ups, monthly active users, engagement and CPMs—a very different set of criteria compared to other streamers on the market that are most invested in paying subscriber counts. The numbers also highlight just how crucial Peacock is to NBCUniversal’s ads business as linear ratings continue to erode and jeopardize traditional TV advertising. An average Peacock monthly active account is watching the service more than an average TV viewer is watching NBC, to the tune of nearly 20% more on average, according to Roberts, which may help the company as it begins upfront conversations with marketers interested in locking down inventory on the service. “We want to build out television business to match what consumers are doing,” Shell said. “Consumers are watching content across a variety of different platforms. Not just linear, not just streaming, but a variety of different ways.” Read Next: NBCU Says Its 2020 TV and Streaming Overhaul Is Already Paying Off